Thursday, January 12, 2012

Target!

During my first 10K run I was feeling exhausted by the time I finished 6K. At my first Half Marathon, I was feeling exhausted and tired by the time I reached 16K, during my first Full Marathon I was down and out by the time I reached 34Km and was not able to put one step forward after 42Km! The irony was when I tried my first Ultra marathon of 75Km, I hadn’t run beyond a Full Marathon until then, and was really not sure whether I could complete it. But when I ran the Ultra, I could easily make it until 60Km and then struggled to finish the rest of the 75KM! What does it tell us?

A lot of things in life is psychological and what one thinks is achievable or doable is mostly in the minds. Really, the importance of accessing and placing a target is of utmost importance. Since we all are prone to procrastination its very much necessary to have targets that push us to achieve more. Being safe, is no longer an option if we want to achieve anything beyond the norm.

Its even more important for people like me who cant work without a target and most often than not things anyway get done at the last moment. I have come to realize that the best way to overcome this is to divide the bigger goal into smaller goals with shorter durations. That way its not only continuously calibrated but also accessed.

Like a marathon, unless we try to do something more than the norm one will never know whether that’s even a possibility. Our realm of possibilities to a major extent is a figment of our imagination. And that’s what I have learned.


4 comments:

Divya A L said...

Good gyan! Settings targets is a tough one of which fighting procrastination is the most difficult :P :D

Most often than not, attempting/crossing the barrier the "first time" is the challenge :)

dilip said...

@Divya:
:) Yep.. first time..
And then "you have been there, done that".. ;)

Sagar said...

@Dilip, a counter to the logic. :)
If you break a bigger goal into smaller ones, don't you run the risk of achieving only 60% of each smaller milestone? Imagine a 100km run broken down into 100 X 1km, and stopping/slowing at every 600m.

dilip said...

@Sagar:
haha..:)
Firstly, dividing 100Km to 1Km each doesnt make sense to me..:) And even if it does, i wouldnt stop at every 600mts.. ;)

So ideally, one would divide 100Km to 8 parts of 12.5Km each and then keep a target time for each of the chunk.. Thats how i would do it.. Atleast i have tried various things enough time to know thats the best way to go for me.. :)