Because running ~21km sounds tough but in truth, IT’S FUCKING EASY. I have walked that in a day, so running it will be a breeze right?!
The difficulty doesn’t come from setting your goal. The difficulty comes with following through on them!
Let me rewind a bit. How did I, an avid NON-RUNNER get roped into this? It all started one early morning, I was brewing my morning coffee at the office machine and my colleague Julia asked me if I wanted to sign up for the London half marathon as she had. Without too much thought, I blurted “Ye sure sounds like a great idea” and before the day was up I was registered… No going back now.w
I started training and over the next 2 months slowly increased my runs from a manically far 3km to 13km. I talked to some friends and did some research, finding pages like this, and found that you don’t need to run the full half marathon prior to race day. But you want to run at least over half of it in training so I aimed for 2/3 of the distance as my max which is only ~14km. EASY GAME
2 days before the race I’m down in South Africa and my little sister bets me £5 that I won’t finish under 2:30, 100:1 odds. Now with those odds, I’m not stupid and turned her down but it got me thinking.
What would it take to finish the 22km race? The longest time allowed was 4 hours.
21km / 4 hours = 5.25km/h or 11.5 min/km
The average person walks at 5km/h, according to OnAverage, so you need to ‘run’ a fraction faster. You might have to do something crazy and power walk like that 80-year-old deva you see on your street. But in truth, almost everyone can do it.
Ok now that we have our badass deva baseline let’s do a few more calculations. What do we need for a time under 3 hours?
21km / 3 hours = 7 km/h or 8.57 min/km
Sub 3 hours things are still doable, assuming you’re doing any training at all prior to race day. The average person according to Healthline jogs at 4 to 6 miles per hour which if you’re measuring in the real world is 6.44 km/h to 9.66 km/h. EASY GAME STILL!!!
Sub 2 hours is where stuff starts to sound crazy to me.
21km / 2 hours = 10.5 km/h or 5.7 min/km
Ok, now we are hitting the territory of pretty fit people. Once you hit sub 2 hours you’re an athlete in my book. Hell according to the website PureRunning they mark a pace of fewer than 6 minutes as an experienced runner. I had some friends finish in this bracket, you know who you are. You fucking running demon you.
Now just to round things off. What about Sub 1 hour?!
21km / 1 hour = 21 km/h or 2.86 min/km
Just… WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. Abraham Kiptum why are you reading this post? You monster you! If you’re hitting these times you’re literally competing for the world record.
Now that we have contextualized the landscape, let’s go back to my original point.
The difficulty comes when following through on your goal
What are you wanting to achieve? Is the goal you have set seem insurmountable but come hell or high water you want to do this?
What sounds like the hard part?
Does running 21km sound like the hardest part? Before even thinking about what time. Then set that as your goal. Hell, that was my goal. I had zero expectations on how quickly I would finish the race. I just wanted to complete the fucking thing.
But if the distance seems doable then you start bringing in the time constraints… Just take a glance up above if you want to see the pace brackets.
So YAAY your primary goal is set, it’s all sunshine and rainbows right?! I think we all know that this is the easy part. And as everyone knows it’s the following through and staying consistent that is the hardest part. A great book I and every person on the planet would recommend reading is Atomic Habits by James Clear, I have only started reading it so I’m not going to speak to it here’s James Clears’ summary. He even says build systems not goals, but is not building the system a goal in of itself… anyway I digress.
With all big goals you have to break them down, we know this and we do it. But what happens when you encounter resistance? That feeling that prevents us from putting things into action and how do you over come it… I want to introduce an idea that I heard from somewhere, and I’m kicking myself for forgetting where from!!!! It’s the idea of a giggle goal.
A giggle goal is a goal that is so stupidly simple that you laugh at its simplicity. For example, you should go for a run today but it’s the last thing you want to do. 5km FUCK THAT! Cool beans, my giggle goal would be to step outside the front door with your running kit on. Then the goal is achieved and you can call it a day, FANTASTIC! But when you do step outside something funny happens. Your mind thinks “Great job, let’s do a little more. Like just quickly around the block 1 km”.
Before you know it you have run 7 km whereas 5 km sounded like the most agonizing thing in the world not 45 min ago.
Race Day?
Now I bet you are wondering how did race day go? It was fantastic, I made it to 19 km with no issues… But then the last 3 km… FUCK ME. My knee started to give me problems, my energy levels took a nose dive, I couldn’t fall back into a rhythm but that all said, I FINISHED!!!
With a time of 2:11:38 and according to Strava I kept a pace of 5:59/km, NO JOKE. Guess that makes me an experienced runner! I’ll take that win.
You know the first thought I had after crossing the finishing line and saw my time.
"Fuck... I could have made £5"
The best way to grow as a person is through adversity. So why not challenge yourself, stretch those imaginary boundaries we make for ourselves. In truth as you see half marathons are actually pretty easy and really doable for your average person. Plus it sounds great when you tell your friends you’re doing it. If you don’t believe me give it a try. Give yourself the challenge, don’t overthink it…
JUST DO IT
And if you have made it this far, I appreciate you. Now go touch some grass 😀