This year’s 12 in 12 Challenge was always going to be difficult. Whilst I could have made things even harder for myself with a poor schedule, the choice of very tough courses or by setting myself ambitious time goals for each Marathon, there is no way to make running a Marathon every month for 12 months easy. Which in many ways was the point of the challenge. It was about pushing beyond what I knew I was physically capable of and testing myself with a challenge where failure was a really possibility. And whilst I haven’t missed a step yet, that possibility of failure remains very much alive with 3 Marathons still to complete. Therefore I never felt the need to set firm additional goals within the challenge, as completing the challenge was a big enough challenge of itself.
By contrast, the 20 in 2020 Challenge I have set for myself for next year is neither inherently difficult nor inherently easy. I could make things rather easy for myself by cramming as many short novelty events into my schedule as possible, or I could make things really difficult with Ultra Marathons, 100+ mile Cycling Sportives and Olympic distance Triathlons (having never done a Triathlon before, one thing I can say with certainty is that I’m definitely not going to attempt an Ironman next year). Until I have finalised at least the core of my events, I cannot make an assessment of how difficult the challenge may be physically, so how can success be measured?
Fun
Whilst I’ve enjoyed the majority of the Marathons I’ve completed so far this year, there have been a couple which I definitely haven’t enjoyed, as well as plenty of training runs which felt like painful slogs. Whilst these difficult runs can deliver a sense of reward once over, I haven’t really had a fun moment like racing over the final kilometre of Race The Train last year, desperately hoping I wasn’t overtaken, or leaping over streams, rocks and all manner of obstacles at the Howgills Half Marathon the year before. I want these sorts of moments again, and therefore above all else, I’ll judge the success of 20 in 2020 by how much fun I have not only in the events, but during training in between.
A P.B.
I haven’t set a P.B. over any of the standard race distances since April 2016, and in truth, have rarely come close to challenging any of them. Even though I often having been seeking P.B.’s during events, it would be nice to have the reassurance that I haven’t peak and can continue to improve, and a P.B. would deliver that. I don’t have any preference regarding distance, though realistically my 5k P.B. of 18:55 was set during the first half of a 10k, and also because ParkRun offers the opportunity to run a timed 5k for free, so I could attempt a P.B. multiple times across the year without racking up the cost of entry fees for events which won’t count towards the actually 20 in 2020 challenge.
A New Endurance Marker
Progressing as an athlete doesn’t necessarily mean faster, it can also mean longer. Whilst I’m fully aware that this goal makes achieving both of the previous goals more difficult, I would really like to once again push my body beyond what I know it to be capable of in terms of endurance. Whether that’s an Ultra Marathon or a Cycling Sportive longer than 100 miles, I haven’t yet decided, but I’d really like to have at least one of these events to build the challenge around and hopefully achieve new heights.
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