Episode 02: Emily Abbate
S.M.A.R.T
Before our interview with Emily Abbate I had never heard this acronym before.
SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable (Achievable), Relevant and Time-based. The term dates back to the 80s and was used as a management tool to set goals and know when they had been achieved.
Even though I had never heard of it before its something that I have instinctually been learning how to do over time. We all have goals right - Run a marathon, make sourdough bread, do 10 pistol squats in a row, start a business, the list goes on. And I am especially guilty of running straight at a goal, head first with sometimes no clear plan.
Take the marathon, it’s always been a bucket list item for me. So in 2018 I decided it was time. To qualify for the New York marathon you have to run 9 qualifying races and volunteer in one. The awesome 9+1 program. I registered for the races with no clear training plan. I wanted to qualify as fast as possible with little to no prep. I am a relatively fit person so I figured I would be fine. What I didn’t factor in was work was very busy and I had stacked all my races very close to each other. I was so focused on running the Marathon I skipped all the little steps before that. So you can imagine what happened. I ran my 9 races, a lot of times the morning after a late night at work, half awake. And sure I qualified for the marathon but not without hurting my knee. So badly I had to defer the 2019 marathon I qualified for to 2020.
I am taking a different approach this time. I started slow at the beginning of the year, very slow. Running just a mile at a time. This has happened over the last 5 months, breaking up the process into small, achievable sections:
Run a mile without stopping
Run a mile without pain
Run a faster mile without pain or stopping
Run 2 miles and so on.
As I got comfortable on my knee my milage increased and so did my speed. So I am running the fastest I have ever before and pain free. It’s a longer process sure, and sometimes I want to skip the steps but in my experience that hasn’t worked. Breaking it down has also meant that I have stuck with it. On days when the motivation is not there it’s easier to say I am just going to run a mile than it is to try and do a 10k because it’s more impressive.
You could say it’s a SMART way to achieve my goal.
