An Eight-Minute Mile

In an attempt to be efficient, I’ve already made my New Year’s Resolution. I resolve to train to be able to run a mile in 8 minutes. Some of you may think that this is pretty slow. If you think that, you are much younger than I am. According to the stats of the only timed race I ran last year (some of you may remember that Lisa beat me by two seconds in this race), if I can make an eight minute mile I have a good shot at placing in my age division.

I’m currently running a mile in 8 minutes, 49 seconds. So how do I plan to pare those seconds down? Seven seconds at a time. If I run three weeks at each new (faster) speed, I should be running 8 minute miles starting the second week of June.

So I guess this is more a goal than a resolution. I’ve set a goal and established milestones to help me achieve it. It’s classic goal setting – the type that we teach the Horizonte Young Parents and the girls at JO&A. It’s classic because it works.

At the beginning of the year our club set three goals. How are we doing?
- Membership Goal: 65 members. When we set this goal we had 42 members. We’re now at 52!
- Fundraising Goal: $20,000. So far, with two fund raisers done and two to go, we’ve raised $4,800.
- Program Goal: Domestic Violence and Refugees. We had a great presentation in November on empowering women refugees. We donated many of the leftover toys and clothing from Breakfast with Santa to the refugees, and we assisted 6 refugee children with new clothing to attend their mother’s funeral. We have “Crop ‘Til It Stops” coming up in January, with proceeds designated for a domestic violence project to be determined by the Service Committee.

We have accomplished much the first half of the year. Yes, we have more work to do, but the finish line is in sight, and we will cross together.