At the start of 2018 I had set myself a goal of running under 17 minutes in a 5km race.
When I had initially set this as a goal I was currently about 2 minutes off my target time. After I had run this 19 minute race, it was quite overwhelming to ever think - how am I ever going to get there!
The first year of attempting this goal I really was not committed to it. My training was infrequent and my focus was not where it needed to be to achieve this. Fast forward to 2019 and I found a running coach who helped keep me accountable, I was able to immerse myself in running and find consistency with training while remaining healthy.
From a physical standpoint I was improving quickly and during 2019 my times dropped by over a minute and I was consistently running in the low 17’s at the back end of the year and at the start of 2020. In fact, I had run 8 races or time trials with times between 17:05 and 17:25 before I was finally able to crack the 17 minute barrier.
During mid April I was able to run an unofficial 16:56 for the 5km - 4 seconds under my goal time. I started training better and hitting sessions with confidence. Interestingly enough, 2 weeks later I attempted another time trial and threw down a 16:19. A 37 second improvement.
What happened?
The biggest difference is self-belief.
Prior to this I thought I did have self-belief as I kept telling myself that it was possible to achieve this goal. However this is a difference between telling yourself you can do something and having true self belief and unwavering confidence. I realised that while focusing so much on attempting to run this time, I was putting constraints on myself by running to my watch rather than running to how I feel or how far I can push myself.
We as humans love to have rules, constraints and limits. It makes us feel safe by keeping everything consistent and nothing comes as a huge surprise to us. When Eliud Kipchoge ran under 2 hours in the marathon he proclaimed that no human is limited. We alone are the ones who are putting these limits on ourselves. In order to find that true self-belief you must realise that no-one can and no-one may set YOUR limits!
