Thankfully my shoulder is feeling good enough to get back to running sling-less (seems like a plant-based diet is great for injury recovery after all!), and I managed to get a few nice runs in this week.
The elite-only London Marathon was last week, and with Shura Kitata winning in 2:05:41, it appears that Eliud Kipchoge is human after all, finishing eighth and bringing his superhuman streak of 10 consecutive marathon wins to an end. The end of the belated 2020 race means that the ballot for 2021 entry opened, and after years of telling myself I’d enter, only to back out at the last minute, I finally took the plunge. 2021 will be the year I do a marathon, London or elsewhere (I’m writing it on the internet, so I have no excuses now).
A year is a long time, and the thought of potentially training for an event a full year from now got me thinking about what I’d like to achieve between now and then. My current times can be found on my About page. Having a physical record of my targets should act as an extra motivator too, and it’ll be fun to look back at this post this time next year to see how well (or not…) I’ve done! All race entries come with an asterisk these days of course, but I’m hopeful that races will return towards the summer.
So here are my targets for the next 12 months:
5K: a sub-20 5k would be the dream, but I have 39 seconds to shave off for that achievement. Hopefully, the return of Parkruns will provide the extra motivation, whenever the time comes. In an ideal world of regular Parkruns every Saturday (and a solid training routine) for a good stretch of next year, I think I can push closer to the 19:30 mark by the end of the year, but maybe I’m getting ahead of myself…
10K: I haven’t actually ran a 10k race yet, so my current best time isn’t really an ‘official’ one. I plan to enter one as soon as I can though, and I think the 45-minute mark is a realistic target for my first real go.
Half marathon: In the event that I’m lucky enough to get a place at the iconic London Marathon, getting at least a couple more half marathons under my belt is a necessity. I need to up my training runs to HM distance regardless of the return of races, but nothing beats having a crowd to cheer you to the finish, so for the next time I race a half, 1:45 is my aim, taking a full 4 minutes and 23 seconds off my current PB. This would also put me at 8-minute mile pace the entire way, which is nice and simple for pacing.
Marathon: Finish! I will do my first 26.2 in 2021, whether its London or somewhere else, and just crossing the finish line in one piece will be enough for me. Having a target time is important, though, and whilst going for a sub-4 debut time is an appealing (albeit highly ambitious) target, somewhere between 4hrs and 4:30 seems like a much more realistic goal.
If I don’t get a ballot place for the London Marathon (which, lets be honest, is the most probable outcome here), I will try and get a charity place through the MS Society, a charity dedicated to fighting multiple sclerosis, a degenerative neurological condition that my Grandad has suffered from for many years. And if I am lucky enough to get a ballot place, then I will use that to raise funds for the MS Society as well.
The ballot results are announced in early January, so fingers crossed! As soon as I hear back, I’ll make a post about the outcome and next steps. I’ll revisit these targets in a years time as well, should be interesting…