Oh hello. It’s finally time to write about my goals I set out to tackle with my Believe I Am journal. (Read more on why I did it, how journaling helped me take flight, my first and second update, and how it helped me feel free, fast, and have fun!)

Overall, I loved using the journal. I’ve never actually tracked anything in my life before — food, workouts, etc — and it was both rewarding and helpful to look back at my training, especially when I needed a little mental push or wanted to figure out why I was so freakin exhausted. I definitely plan on continuing to use it, especially since come Monday, marathon training starts (and my life disappears…).

Sooo, here were those goals I set back in October…and where I am now.

Gain back my speed.

Yes, but not in the way I had originally planned. At first, I wanted my sprint-speed back. My sub-30 second-200m-repeats no-problem-speed. But after really thinking about it, I realized my goals were stretched too thin. I could either get fast on the track, or get ready to run a strong marathon. I decided I wanted to build endurance — faster, yes — but that meant focusing more on speeding up on the roads, not the repeats. So with that, I think I’ve succeeded. After not running for nearly a month, I came back to December maintaining sub 8’s on the roads, which has felt nice and comfortable. Good things on the horizon for marathon training, I hope!

Move outside my comfort zone.

More or less. I was challenged in a few different ways this fall: dealing with injury while trying to get faster at the same time. It’s pretty impossible to balance the two; I knew I needed rest, but I was also restless. I wanted to see what boundaries I could push, but was simultaneously scared of hurting myself, burning out too quickly, of just feeling the freakin pain. But I think — and journaling helped me a lot when my stupid head wouldn’t shut up — that I was able to get better at knowing when to take it easy and when to dive into mile repeats.

Stop being so hard on myself.

Kind of. I think I’ve come to accept that my stubborn nature does more help than harm. However, here are some success stories: For the second half of December, I had a haaard time getting myself to run in the mornings (6am alarm clocks and freezing temps is never something to jump out bed for). So…I just let myself sleep. I have all winter when I train for Eugene to wake up early and potentially freeze to death, so there was no need to get ahead of myself. Example two? I saw SO many people on Twitter run 10,342 miles on new year’s day, or go to seven different fitness classes, or run races right as the clock struck midnight. And while that’s insanely awesome, I was equally, totally, 100 percent satisfied with drinking copious amounts of whiskey and champagne on new year’s eve and spending the whole next day in my bed. So…there’s that (:

All of my love to Lauren, Ro, Morgan, and all the #sistersinsport who have made this happen/have been along for the ride. Tis only the beginning of a beautiful thing!