have a plan

After you circle the date on the calendar, you need a plan. If you have no plan, chances are pretty good that you won't accomplish your goal.

You have to pick a plan that you trust. There were many marathon training programs out there but I picked one that would get me in shape to finish. I didn't set out with an aggressive time goal because I wasn't even sure I could finish it.

I got a "beginners" plan and decided to stick to it. I am glad I did this early in the training because when people find out you have a goal, they all have some advice on the best way to accomplish it. I am not saying that is bad, but if you listen to ALL of it, you will be so confused that it would not be beneficial at all.

I had people telling me to eat certain things and others telling me to stay away from them. I had people telling me I had to run a ton of miles right from the beginning while others said small incremental steps were the key.

I had to have a plan I trusted and I had to stick to it. I may have tried things that were advised but they served as modifications to the original plan. Many of the suggestions were great and I implemented many of them, but again, they were in addition to my base plan.

My point: you cannot have a "plan B" without a "plan A". There can be no modifications if there is nothing to modify. If you don't have a plan, others will give you one but you probably won't end up where you want to be. Plans are good. People who don't like to plan are normally unorganized, their life is typically chaotic and they probably don't accomplish much.

Did that hurt? Don't get mad at me if you are unorganized, you are the one that won't admit it.