2011 Austin Marathon: My goals.

They say you should set several goals for yourself when you run a marathon. From your A goal, where everything is going right and things feel easy, all the way to your D goal, when you are having a bad race or the weather stinks.

Here are my goal for the Austin Marathon.

D. Finish with a smile on my face. I've run 7 marathons and have had disappointing finishes in five of them, finishes that saw my pace slow to as slow as a 15-minute mile because of cramping quad muscles. If I do anything Sunday, I'm going to run slow/relaxed enough so I can run every mile in a respectable time.

C. PR: My current PR is 3:36. That's an 8:15 min/mile pace. In each of my last two 22-milers, on pretty much the exact same course that we will run Sunday, my pace was about 7:50 min/mile.

B. Sub 3:30: That's an 8:00 min/mile pace or better. See C.

A. Qualify for Boston. That means run a 3:30 or a 7:38 min/mile pace. I have the leg turnover to do this. Ive run 1:32 half marathons and so slowing my pace by another 40 seconds a mile should be a piece of cake. But, See D.

Weather: Its going to be pretty hot, pretty muggy out for a marathon, with forecasters calling for temps in the high 50s at the start and getting up to the high 60s, low 70s near the end. I'm going to take it easy the first 13 miles, run according to feel and not time and then try to push it near the end.

So, if easy running means I'm scooting along at 8:30 pace the first 13 miles, then that's what I'm going to do the first 13 miles. I'm going to respect the weather, the humidity, and the distance.

And most of all, I'm going to relax and have fun and treat the marathon as one big long training run.