Off to the Races for 2019

By Sasha Gollish

With the announcement from Eliud Kipchoge earlier this week that he is returning to the Virgin London Marathon to battle it out again on the roads with Sir Mo Farah, it looks like 2019 is setting up to be a pretty incredible year for our sport. Kipchoge’s announcement also got me thinking about race goals and how runners of all abilities can set up for an incredible year ahead.

Using target events, as a way of setting goals is a great method stay motivated during the early months of the year. Especially if you’re finding yourself still floundering post-holiday season and dare I say, winter running.

I loved what my friend Jenny shared about the holidays. It’s a time of friendship and laughter, family and food, and letting go of our otherwise rigid schedules to celebrate all that we have to be thankful for. Missed a few runs over the holidays? Who cares. Now is the time to get back to a routine, and having an event on your calendar will keep help you get back to training.

This week also happens to be the official start to race season. The Chevron Houston Marathon and Aramco Houston Half Marathon may not be part of the Abbot World Majors series, but don’t let that fool you, it is an awesome event and happens to be on really fast course. I also happen to be running the marathon again.

Alongside me there are a host of Canadians coming down to compete. The women’s half marathon is stacked. Leading the way is Natasha Wodak, who won the Pioneer 8k on Sunday. Dayna Pidhoresky is also lining up alongside Catherine Watkins and Lindsay Tessier. Tessier is coming off an amazing performance in the Berlin Marathon last September and I’m really excited to see what she can do in the half marathon.

East coaster Kate Bazeley is joining me in the marathon. I had decided long before running Berlin that I wanted to run Houston. It has always been a target race for me. Everyone who has gone down to this event has always come home with amazing things to say about it, so I knew I had to run it at least once.

What’s interesting about running Houston is that is has caused me to press pause on setting 2019 goals and resolutions. I have felt like setting running goals without running this race did not give the race its due. But goal setting and resolutions have always been an important part of what I’ve done previously. In this back and forth with my resolutions and goals I’ve learned that I’m respecting this race; don’t worry I’ll share my resolution and goal setting process with you next week when I sit down to do it.

While you might think that running an early season race would change what I did through the holidays it really didn’t. With birthdays that include mine and my brother’s, plus Christmas,  I indulged in all the food, some of the drink, and still got in the work. Training through the holidays is not for everyone but it has always worked for me. I am one of those people that has to be in constant motion, otherwise I get ‘running legs’ in bed and just cannot sleep.

So get to your computer, or grab you phone and start your search of the places you want to run in 2019. Then write down your goal races for the year, plan your racing schedule so that it fits with your life and head out there and see world!