Milestones

Yesterday I did a 25.5km training run and in the process passed my first 100km for 2010. This is the 6th time ever that I’ve reached this within the first 10 days of the year so I’m feeling good about it. The best was 6 Jan in 1996. I also passed 100km on 7 Jan in 1997, 8th in 1999, 9th in 1998 and 9th in 1994.

So why care about this at all? It’s all about milestones. Every year I set myself some goals and with that milestones on the way to reaching the goals. Reaching the milestones motivates me a lot. I might be far from the end goal, but I’ve achieved something already. Distance milestones are very important. These include distances for the year, month, week and so on. 100km for the year, 500km for the year, 1000km for the year, 1500, 2000 and for this year the goal of 3000km. Monthly milestones this year will include 300, 350, 400 and maybe 450km.

Other milestones include things like running a marathon again and running an ultra again with specific races as the goals. Some are just specific races like the 25km mountain race I plan for my birthday. Sometimes it’s just doing a training run on a specific route or trail.

Anyway, these milestones keep me motivated as I continue preparation for the main goals. I’ve got a section in my logs for the milestones of each year and record the milestone with the date I reached it there. I often compare years to get an indication of progress or where I am compared to a specific year.

These personal milestones really help to keep me going. I’m just glad I live in a country where we use the metric system. Reaching all of these in miles…well, the guys from the US will know. Maybe I should rename it to kilometerstones!