There is something very satisfying about hitting a goal.

I had a race each of the last three Sundays, all different distances. I didn’t put a lot of thought into my times for the first two.

The first was the Army ten miler. After quickly doing some math (more or less to tell Anne when to expect me to cross the finish line), I decided that I wanted to finish under 1 hour and 43 minutes. I crossed the line at 1:42:25

The second was the Marine Corps 10K (6.2 miles). Once again for Anne’s benefit, I informed her that I planned to come in less than 1:02. I crossed the line at 1:01:39.

This past Sunday was a little different. I had been thinking about this time for a year.  I had “run” a few races previously, but the Rockville 5K in 2011 was what I like to refer to as my first real race. The reason I put quotes around “run” in the earlier events I had participated in, is that there was just as much walking as there was running. But it was a little over a year ago when I started this journey with running and this race was the first where I made a focused effort to finish as fast as I could with as little walking as possible.

Looking back a year, I remember how satisfied I felt finishing a 5K in just over 36 minutes (and how proud my wife was of my progress). My run/walk experience previously had me suffering through 42 minutes of pleasure pain. So last year, on the same Sunday that we set the clocks back, I recall thinking that I would like to be able to complete a 5k in under 30 minutes. Of course at the time I couldn’t even run a full mile without having to catch my breath and walk a bit.

So there I was, 365 days later focused on breaking 30 minutes. Reflecting back now, I realize that I actually had not even competed in any other 5K’s over the course of a year. On to bigger and better (?) distances I guess… or in this case, just longer ones. Although I hadn’t run a race of this specific distance, based on my progression of my pace per mile I felt pretty confident.

Waking up just about every race morning, it doesn’t take long before I start feeling nervous. However on this race morning I had no negative thoughts or doubts about what I planned to accomplish.

The last 2 weeks were pretty hectic with Sweet ole Sandy sweeping through, along with my wife away for a conference. My training had been limited to just 3 runs including the 2 races, but I was mentally ready.

As I looked around just prior to the gun going off, I tried to focus on running my own race and not worrying about what the guy next to me was doing. For a change I was actually going to go out fast and leave nothing in the tank.

A brilliant shot by the wife of me getting ready to cross the finish line and simultaneously beating a 18 year old girl

In the end I shaved almost a full seven minutes off my time from last year. Finishing the 5K at 29:15.

And now it’s onto the next goal… or should I say back to an old goal. Time to make the push again for 220.