Tag Archives: goal setting

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Three Lessons from the Disney Coast to Coast Challenge

IMG_1579If you’re not familiar with the Disney Coast to Coast Challenge it is a pretty slick marketing scheme whereby Disney convinces you to run a minimum of a half marathon in Florida and one in California in the same calendar year in order to obtain the coveted Coast to Coast medal. Up until recently there were a couple options in Florida, the biggest  being in January and only one in California, that being over Labor Day weekend.

We’re pretty big Disney fans here in the Fletcher home and we have a lot of family memories at Disneyland in particular. The Coast to Coast medal, as you can see here, depicts Walt and Mickey holding hands, a representation of a statue that is in front of the castle at Disneyland. That statue has been “the meeting spot” for us since our boys were four and five. If you get separated in the park, you go to the meeting spot.  I mention this because it is a large part of what makes this medal special for me.

  • I first found out about the challenge about seven years ago. I had done a couple triathlons then but I’d never run anything longer than a 10K. (6 miles).
  • Six years ago I decided I would go for it and try to run a half marathon in each location.
  • Five years ago I missed the registration date.
  • Four years ago it wouldn’t work in our schedule.
  • Three years ago the half marathon was sold out by the tie I checked.
  • Two years ago I missed it again, it sells out fast.
  • Last year I was determined not to miss the registration and got to the web site in time, called my wife to confirm it was in the budget, and it sold out before we decided.

I was seriously disappointed! You see if you don’t get the January race in then running the one in California in September doesn’t matter. In a moment of crazy deep frustration I looked to see how much it cost to run the full marathon…after all we’d agreed we could budget for the half…and lo, it cost the same amount.

I signed up.

I would never have agreed to try a full marathon. I was pretty sure I could struggle through 13 miles but 26 was insane. And yet I wanted that Coast to Coast.

Before last year at this time I had only ever run 6 miles in a stretch and frequently said I wouldn’t run even THAT far unless I was being chased.. Since last October I have run three half marathons, including the one at Disneyland, and one full marathon, at Walt Disney World. I have run through the soles of three pairs of Vibram Five Fingers through hundreds of miles of training and I have convinced my wife to run HER first half marathon.

So what did I learn in the process?

Here’s three lessons I learned about achieving goals:

1. Don’t give up on your goals.

It would have been easy to give up on the idea of completing the Coast to Coast. Year after year it seemed to elude me. But I persevered because I had a emotional connection to what I wanted to accomplish and I didn’t give up on it. Circumstances will often conspire against you when you’re going after a goal, sometimes it requires a new strategy or a greater effort but many times it just requires that you soldier on and don’t give up.

2. Recruit a team to your dream.

Yeah, sounds cheesy, but it makes it easier to remember. My wife first got behind the idea of me running in Florida because I was going to try to do the impossible. Her support through the process and then the weekend was awesome. Even bigger though was her commitment to run with me in California. That meant we were training together for months. On days when I was too tired or too sore she’d pick me up, and vice versa. I also convinced my buddy Kurt to run with us in California after he’d done the half in Florida. The occasional check in via phone to see how training was going kept us honest too. Having a team sharing your goal with you provides the motivation to keep going in those times when your motivation lags.

3. Focus short to go long.

I REALLY learned this in the marathon. I couldn’t think about running 26 miles or mentally I would collapse. I COULD think about making the four or five miles between parks. I COULD focus on making a couple miles between water stations. In the months in between races we dealt with bad weather, multiple nagging injuries, and schedule conflicts any of which could have derailed us. By just focusing on the next opportunity to train, rather than worrying about how a miss might effect the big picture, we took the little steps that got us to the starting line ready to go on race day. Sure we set a goal time but our BIG goal was to finish a feel good about it and by focusing on the little goals along the way we accomplished that is stellar style.

By persevering over seven years, recruiting a team, and focusing short I finally achieved the dream. When they hung that medal around my neck I have to confess I got a little teary and man, did it feel good.

c2c

What goal do you have sitting on the shelf? How can you apply these strategies to achieve it?

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What will you choose?

Something mildly different today.

Been thinking a bit about the choices we make and how they shape our thinking. The patterns we fall into, and out of, and the places we wind up as a result. We’ve made some choices lately that haven’t changed our circumstances but they have changed our outlook.

If you’re someplace you’d rather not be perhaps all you need do is change your thinking. It’s your choice. (Unless of course you’re in jail, then the time for choosing past you by some time ago.)

 

 

 

 

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Review: Jeff Galloway’s Ultimate 10K app

You see that? That is the look of a man who has managed to just barely outrun death at the end of an Olympic triathlon. After that dismal run I decided I really should put some effort into run training. To that end Libby and I have decided to train for a half marathon. I know, I know, ridiculous. But I figure if I can finish the 40+ miles of an Olympic tri I can get my body in shape to run 13.

If you’ve not heard of Jeff Galloway he is the guru of a run/walk method for endurance running. His claim is that by taking regular walk breaks during a long run you save on your body and recover faster without really sacrificing much time overall. ANYthing that adds walk time in the run, as part of the plan rather than as an alternative to dying is alright with me.

The app I am using for training purposes is Jeff Galloway’s Ultimate 10k by lolo. (I really couldn’t find anything that purported to be a “couch to half marathon” app so I had to star somewhere.) At $2.99 from the app store the cost isn’t prohibitive.

The app allows you to use your own music or the dozen or so tracks that come with it.

Aside from allowing you to set run walk interval, I’m using 3 minute run with a 1 minute walk at the moment, what I REALLY  like about this app is that is matches the tempo of the music to the pace it wants you to run. (Because of that you probably don’t want to load anything too slow or it will wind up sounding like the Chipmunks version when it speeds up.)

The other option I added, at no additional cost, was the extra coaching tips from Galloway. While a lot of them are common sense it works out nice to have him reminding you to keep your posture upright, or not lift your knees too high every once in awhile. Just providing something to think about during longer runs helps.

The interface is easy to read but there isn’t really much reason to read it while you run because you’re given time updates at each interval. Since the workouts are time based turning on the GPS function helps to let you know exactly how far you ran. I’m finding it tends to track a little short (at least by comparing to the odometer on my car) if you have significant sections where you run up one side of the street and back down the other.

The whole program is 13 weeks. I’m currently in week four running two short (2.5-3.5 miles) runs and one longer run (4.5-5.2) miles in a week. The first week the app had me running just under an 11 minute/mile pace. This week it has me down to right around a 9 minute pace even with a three minute warm up walk on the front and another one to warm down on the back. Because the workouts are time based rather than distance based I wind up running longer distances than the estimate for each work out but that probably has more to do with stride length than anything else.

Overall I give this app two thumbs up. The only thing I think I’d change would be to allow someone to set a specific mile pace and have the app adjust to that but the way that it has reduced my per mile time in the first four weeks we’ll see what it gets me to by the end.

With great tools like this one to help you get from the couch to the finish line in a variety of distances what, besides you, is still holding you back?

 

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You’re going to try WHAT?

For the past four years I have contemplated attempting an Olympic distance triathlon: 1 mile swim, 25 mile bike, 6 mile run. On August 20th, of THIS year, I going to give it a go. There is no way that I am really ready for it!

My training has been such that I can get through a sprint, have done so twice this summer, but stringing together three Olympic distance events seems truly daunting. Why? I swim a mile fairly regularly. In a pool. Completely different than open water. I have only ridden my bike 25 miles or more three times in the last three years. I have only run 6 or more miles in one go 4 or 5 times in my LIFE.

But I’m doing it. I’m doing it because I’m getting a little weary of my own excuses. I’m doing it because I like the challenge or the thought of it anyway. I’m doing it because I think I have come up with a plan for attacking something that I am not fully prepared to attack…and it has three simple parts:

Part One: Assess the Challenge

Jumping into something about which you have NO clue is foolish. I’ve done two sprint tri’s this summer and several in the past. I’ve put in a couple of 10K runs, did 32 miles on my bike the other day, and did an open water half mile swim a couple weeks back. This doesn’t mean I can do all three together but it does mean that none of the three should kill me. Having given each event a go on its own I believe I now have enough understanding as to how each one feels. Breaking the whole thing down into its components allows me to assess each piece individually. That assessment leads me believe I can finish the race.

Part Two: Mitigate the Risk

A triathlon is simply a swim, a bike ride, and a run which, if need be, can be turned into a swim, a cruise, and a stroll. The swim is the shortest bit, and the most overwhelming.

My first open water race experience was a nightmare when my heart rate elevated to the point where I was exhausted in the first 100M. I floated on my back, side-stroked, contemplated clinging on to the marker buoy, and floundered my way to a 13 minute 500M. A distance that should have taken my about 8 or 9 minutes.

My second race experience was a comedy: swimming into the tether between a blind athlete and their sighted guide (everyone was ok), treading water to encourage a guy who was having a race like my fist one had been, then my goggles broke and I had to swim the last 200M with my eyes closed. But it was a half mile swim and I finished it and I felt great.

The upcoming race is a mile swim BUT it is comprised of two half-mile loops. In between those loops is a quick jaunt, BACK ON SHORE!! Woo-hoo!! I’m pretty sure I can do the full mile in the water but by picking an event that affords this rare opportunity, something that is almost never done, I lessen the risk of bonking in the water, the only part of the race that holds risk.

Part Three: Establish the Goal

In thinking through my average swim times, bike speed, and slow run times, and counting time for transitions, I think it is entirely possible I COULD finish the race just under 3 hours. My goal is to do it under 3:15. I want to set a goal that feels attainable based on my assessment of the challenge, but one that is something better than “just finish” and still holds some room for “never done this before”.

One could easily argue that finishing would be good enough for a first go. But by setting something more aggressive I can’t get by with a cruise and a stroll. By making sure the goal isn’t TOO aggressive I have a decent chance at feeling a significant sense of accomplishment at the finish line which will serve to motivate me towards the next effort.

What challenges are looming out there for you? Are there some you’ve been putting off?  Can you assess the challenge, mitigate the risk, and establish the goal? Let me know how your “race” goes and I’ll get back to you with the results of mine.