This is a hard post to write.  I’m a driven, ambitious, Type-A person and always have been.  I like setting goals, and more important, I like achieving them.  I don’t like revising them.  But I think, in this case, I have to.

In November I told you about my “Zero to Hero” goals for postpartum fitness.  Later, I shared with you my plans for getting there.  I was really excited about all three goals: to run the GW Parkway Classic 10-Miler in the short term; lose the baby weight (which I fondly refer to as Peanut cushioning) in the medium term; and be a healthy mom in the long term.  I’m still totally committed to the medium and long-term goals, but I think I need to rethink the short-term goal.

Upon first blush, it didn’t seem all that crazy.  The race was months out, and ten miles is not unheard-of for me.  I’ve run the Cherry Blossom 10-Miler and the Virginia Wine Country Half Marathon, so I know that I am (or at least, have been in the past) capable of completing the distance.  The Parkway was a race I’d always wanted to run, so I had that motivating me.  And I have a training buddy: my sister-in-law, who said she’d like to prepare for and run the race with me.

But here’s what I don’t have: time.  When I was training for my 10-miler and my half, I put a lot of time into it.  I worked out or ran almost every day, and I did long runs of up to 11 miles on the weekends.  That was hours and hours of time that I dedicated to getting ready for those races (and I was still slow – but hey, I finished and that’s what I wanted).  Those races were great, and I felt so proud of myself after I finished.  (Especially the half marathon – I was going through some tough times during my training, and crossing the finish line was a big vote of confidence in myself.)

These days, I just don’t have the hours and hours it takes to get ready for a big race like that.  (It might not be a big race to some, but it would be to me – especially after not really running for a year due to a foot injury, then pregnancy and C-section recovery.)  I have to build up a baseline of cardio fitness again, and I have to do it while working full time and caring for a newborn.  If I started training for a 10-miler, that would eat up more free time than I have – and worse, it would take away from time I could be spending with Peanut.  I want to be a fit and healthy mom for her, but I don’t want to spend hours away from her while she’s so tiny – I want to enjoy this special time with her and think about running later.  So I am admitting, as painful as it is, that I’m just not in a place right now where I can devote that much attention to race training.  When it comes to workouts, I need to get in, get out, and get on with my day.

Still, you can’t set short, medium and long-term goals and then jettison the short-term goal completely.  Once I decided to forego training for the Parkway, I knew I needed another short-term goal.  It’s not that I want a neat and tidy blog post; it’s more that I like having some short-term success and I think it helps me stick to those medium and long-term goals better.  So I said to myself: Self, what were you really looking to get out of your short-term goal to run the Parkway?  I thought about it and concluded that what was behind my choice of that goal was a desire to get back into the road racing scene, because it’s fun and because it gives me achievements to help me along in my journey.  I don’t have to target the Parkway as a goal race; I can target any race that I want to do.

So I checked out some other races in my area, and I picked a new goal race: the Healthy Strides Community 10K, in April 2013, at Burke Lake Park.  (There’s also a 5K option if I decide I need to drop down.)  It’s a more manageable distance and – bonus – it’s at one of my favorite northern Virginia parks.  I know the race course very well, since hubby and I have hiked it quite a few times – most recently when I was 11 weeks pregnant.  (That was a long day.  I slept in the car on the way home.)

I’ll do the Parkway someday.  Maybe in 2014 – who knows?  Maybe when Peanut is a toddler, she’ll drive me so crazy that ten-miler or half marathon training will sound like a vacation.  In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy shorter workouts, get back into the racing scene with some more reasonable distances, and snuggle my baby as much as possible.

Have you ever revised a goal?