So I have become pretty good at following the objective and key result process in my personal life. If you interested look up the book by John Doerr on the subject. Anyway, I used this process to achieve my marathon goal, and I also used it to achieve a few other things along the way. This last few days, I have spent some time focusing on major goals and breaking them down into Objectives, with specific Key Results. Not going to address all of them in this blog, I will focus on the physical fitness one. I have no created a objective and a set of key results for physical, mental, spiritual and reluctantly I added financial. That last one was hard, as I do not want to have to measure my finances, in any fashion, but embrace the suck right?
Anyway, my ultimate goal is to run a 100 Mile Ultramarathon. I want to run in one of the big marquee events, and I want to win. Well, actually, just compete at a high level. I will try to win in my age group at least! This is a major goal and is a way away. As an intermediate step, I have taken some time to ponder a goal that I could take on that would be inspiring, really challenging, and I would definitely know the day it was completed. I have selected the following:
Qualify for the Boston Marathon
That seems rather simple. However, in my age group, I would have to run a major marathon event in under 3 hours and 20 minutes. That is a full 40 minutes faster then I ran this last marathon. If I could achieve this, then that means I have learned how to run efficiently for long distances at a fast pace. That pace, FYI, would be an average of 7:38 per mile for 26.2 miles. My last average was 9:19. That shows you how much I have to improve!
This simple objective cannot be achieved just by thinking about it. I have to have a clear execution plan. Since I ride at dawn on Monday, I have figured out several subsystems that I have to work on to improve my pace and my ability to last at that pace for 3 – 4 hours. So I have come up with 6 Key Results that I am going to track and along with those have created a new commitment that I will do everyday that is designed to target and achieve that result.
- Flexibility. I am confident that flexibility of my muscles is a key element in my future success. I have been doing a stretching routing everyday now for almost 6 months. I have seen benefits, but I need to take it more seriously. I have set a goal to achieve what is called a “pancake” in the calisthenics world. This is basically full splits, but also laying face forward flat on the ground. Sounds absolutely impossible, but I will know when I have achieved it. I cannot even get close today, it is almost laughable that I have set such a result. If I can get to that in a year, it would be amazing. I have established a 30 minute daily session designed to prepare me and help me get there. We will see if I can meet this key result!
- Core Strength. During the marathon it became evident that I need solid core strength. Now I am not too bad. I can do about 400 pushups, situps and squats in a span of about 30 minutes. Pretty decent for a former lazy slouch, but it is time to go hard corp. My key result is to be able to perform a full planche and hold it for 30 seconds. My original key result was to execute a full handstand from a squatting position, but my wife called me a circus freak when I told her about it – so I have revised it to a planche. If you do not know what that is, it is basically a plank but your legs are in the air and not touching the ground. The ultimate demonstration of core strength. If I can achieve that in a year, wow. I have a routine that I am going to follow everyday designed to help me improve. I am also implementing a weight training routing to build the required muscles to pull it off.
- Body Fat %. Lets face it, I am a big person. Even now that I have lost a lot of weight, I am 6’2 and 210 pounds. I would like to pretend that is all muscle, but it is not. I have an appointment to get a body scan done and get my exact body fat % as a starting metric in a few weeks. Until then I have a rough idea. Needless to say, I could really use to grow some muscle and reduce the fat build up. The fewer pounds I am carrying of fat during a race, the faster I will go. It is just simple physics at that point. This is probably the single most important thing that I can do to improve my time. If I could get there in a year, that would be incredible as well. My mechanism is primarily what I consume. I am good at tracking what I eat, but I can tell you, I still eat crap. Time to get serious on that front. I have created a balanced program of key macro nutrients coming from super dense nutritious foods. No crazy fad schemes, just good food sources in the correct quantities. I need to eat an adequate amount as I need to gain strength, and rebuild after some brutal workouts. All of this will lean toward the lean key result that I am setting. My key result is to get to 12% body fat in 1 year.
- VO2 Max. This is a value that cyclists and runners talk about all the time. The science behind it, you can read on your own. Suffice to say that it is a value that estimates how effective you are at processing oxygen. The maximum rate I am getting this officially tested in a few weeks. My watch gives me an estimate, currently at 49 ml of Oxygen per KG of weight. Decent for an aging tech worker dude, but not exactly elite athlete value. My key result is to get this into the 60s. I will say a year, knowing that will be impossible. However, reach for the stars right? I figure the best way that I can improve this is a once a week commitment to focus on sprint interval training. I am going to hire a coach to help me with this as I need someone kicking me in the butt, because I give up to easily when doing sprints. This is going to SUCK, but it is necessary.
- Lactate Threshold. Extreme muscle fatigue starts to happen at the point where the blood concentration of lactic acid starts to rapidly increase. The lactate being produced by the muscles is no longer being removed and it is building up in the body. Time under intense training is what causes this to happen. During my marathon, I was fine, running at a decent pace right up until the time this build up started to occur. Then it became a matter of sheer will power. I want to be able to sustain high energy output for longer periods of time before this threshold gets reached. The interval training that I am going to do will help, the strength training that I will do will help, but the most important by far for helping this is time on feet. The more time on feet, the more you are able to become efficient at the function of supplying the body of oxygen, and nutrients and at the same time clearing by products. I have no idea what the key result should be, so I am going to say that I want to be able to run at least a marathon distance at pace without feeling the effects associated with this threshold being reached. Once I get tested on this, I will know better. My method for achieving this is to build back up to 50 miles per week and sustain that for 12 weeks in a row, and then run a second marathon on September 1st. I will see how much I can improve with a consistent and dedicated effort in 3 months over this summer. Time on feet will also continue to help me improve my running form and efficiency.
- Rhythmic Breathing. I do a meditation routing everyday. My breathing has improved because of this. I definitely have converted to a belly breather, and hold my breath less during the day. However, I need to sustain a consistent breathing pattern while running. Through my nose preferably, and best if in a odd pattern. For example in take in 1-2-3 and breath out in 1-2. I need this to coincide with my stride. This will take practice, practice, practice. I am going to use my regular routing morning run to practice breathing while running, and I am altering my morning meditation to focus on visualizing my breathing form. In 3 months, I want to be able to run an entire race, using a rhythmic breathing style. This is simple. Oxygen is absolutely required by the human body, especially when under exertion. I get better at this, I improve my running ability.
There you go. I have established an impossible objective. Qualifying for the Boston Marathon. In order to achieve the impossible, I have set 6 key results that I can measure. I have created a path to success to get to those measures. I have repeated this process for those other areas of my life, except for financial, that one needs a lot of work. So here goes. Stretching, Breathing, Training, Eating, Sprinting and Running my way to achieving my new impossible.
Guy Reams
