I'm finally home from the marathon! It was a crazy whirlwind weekend to say the least. I finished the marathon in 4 hours at 35 minutes. This was slower than I had hoped, but it's still a finish. The first 10 miles were very challenging because of the number of runners.

Did you know that over 30,000 people enter the Disney Marathon?

Imagine trying to get into your ideal running pace in the midst of several thousand other runners??? It's impossible. I was hoping to keep my heart rate under 160 beats per minute for the first 15 or so miles. By the end of the first mile, my heart rate was over 170 beats per minute simply because you have to run around other runners who are moving at a slower pace.This is rather stressful because you can easily trip and take a nasty tumble.

This increased level of effort in the early stages of the marathon made this run more challenging than I anticipated. In fact, I hit the "wall" at mile 18 and suffered through the last 8 miles. I just reviewed my training log and here are my training numbers:

26 weeks of preparation

62.3 hours of running

524 miles covered

72,836 calories burned

All of this for one 4 and a half hour race. It was a lot of work and I contemplated quitting several times throughout the journey. In fact, a few days before the marathon, my doctor told me not to run because of knee problems. I decided to run anyway. Why you might ask?

Well, I decided to run because I told everyone that I was going to run the Disney marathon. I made my goal very public. Once I put it out there, I felt compelled to keep going until I followed through. This is a major secret to achieving your goals. Here it is:

Make your Goals Public.

Tell everyone you can about your goals. This will force you to follow through because you don't want people thinking your a quitter. Right before I left for the race, I even made it harder on myself. I posted a link on this blog for readers to track my "live" progress throughout the race. Now I don't know how many people signed up for live tracking, but I do know some people did. The simple fact that others could see what I was doing forced me to keep going.

I basically burned all of my bridges for quitting.

If you have a really big goal and you want to force yourself to accomplish it, burn your bridges and make your goal very public. It will help keep you moving when things get tough. If you're like me, the last thing you want someone to call you is a "quitter." Use this to your advantage and put yourself on the line.


    1 Response to "A “Secret” Strategy for Goal Achievement"

    • Carlos Samaniego

      Rob, Congrats on the Marathon. Your set your mind to doing it, then took slight edge philosophy, and did a little bit everyday to complete your goal.
      Awesome!
      Carlos

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.