For the last five-plus years my race calendar and training schedules have been in place several months (lie: years) in advance. Everything pointed towards The Goal, which was qualifying for Boston (BQ), and my races pretty much followed this schedule:

February – Surf City Half Marathon
April – Hollywood Half Marathon
May – Mountains2Beach Marathon
September – Ventura Marathon
November – Santa Clarita Half Marathon (if I wasn’t too beat up by then)

Basically, two half marathons as a ramp-up to back-to-back marathons, and then a cool-down/end-of-the-year half before I’d go on vacation. Well, this past November, I unexpectedly qualified for Boston. Yes, it was not on the plan. The plan was to run it as an assessment marathon to see where I was, run my two tune-up halfs, and then go for Boston in May at M2B. Qualifying for Boston was AMAZING (yes, all caps!)…and it also through off my entire racing schedule for the first half of 2017. Quality problems, I know.

After talking to Trainer, I decided to run track for the first half of the year. The plan was to enter some meets and “race” (read: survive) the 800m and 1500m events. Cool. Sounds like a Plan. Well, my BQ marathon happened on November 12th, and while I planned on taking a solid 2-3 week break, I hardly anticipated the 2-3 month break that inevitably occurred. Between an almost three-week European vacation, suffering a freak injury on my way to starting track season, rehabbing from that injury, and then finding out I had missed the open track meets and only the invite-only meets were left, I found myself in the last week of February still without a plan other than to “stay healthy” for Boston. In 2018.

This ambiguous, semi-Letsky Gosky attitude did not sit well with me. I am someone who has a five-year plan ALWAYS. I have goals upon goals and in several different areas, so this was unchartered territory for me…which, it turns out, is exactly where I was supposed to be.

Podcasts are your friend when you do as much aqua jogging as I do (because old). One of the more standout ones was a coach for high performers, who discussed the basic tenets of a workshop he offers on The Champions Blueprint. One of the steps in the blueprint occurs after one achieves a goal, and that is a period of adaptation and pause. Adapting to my new status meant realizing the identity I’d had for five years – “Someone trying to BQ” was different now. I wasn’t prepared for this new self! So that took some getting used to as I realized that my 2017 race calendar would need adjustment. Then came the pause. A time to rest and recover and then choose my next goal. Perhaps this is where I rushed things, as sitting still can be so jarring for me. At any rate, my freak injury somewhat forced The Pause, which apparently was going to happen with my consent or without. Ha.

As my rehab progressed, and I finally got strong enough to run again, the next goal slowly came into sight…And it wore pastel t-shirts and suits. Yes, I’m talking about that landmark ‘80s television show Miami Vice! In addition to bringing back Don Johnson’s career, it also gave us the bravado of Philip Michael Thomas, who played his partner, Ricardo Tubbs. Thomas coined the acronym “EGOT”: Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony, in reference to his plans for winning all four.* And that’s when my goal hit me: I would EGOT the All-American standards for all four road distances! I have already hit the USATF All-American standards for both the half marathon and full marathon distances, and this May and June I will try to do the same for the 5K and 10K distances. You guys, I haven’t run a 10K in over five years. The pain of going that fast is making me weep inside as I type.

But I’m totally excited by this goal! I will have to train hard for it, but it should keep me healthy. Yay. So here we go…USATF Masters EGOT plan is under way. If only I could figure out an acronym for these acronyms.

Total Mileage for Week: 25
Long Run: 8 miles
Outdoor Workout: Hill sprints and 200s

*It should be noted that Thomas has not, as of yet, been nominated for any of these awards.