2024 Goals

I am not one for New Year Resolutions. In fact, I’ve hated the idea of resolutions for as long as I can remember. As a person who has reached many milestones later in life than typical, I have come to believe that it’s never too late to start (whatever). Thus, some random point on the calendar is neither a good motivator nor necessary to wait for, in my opinion.

However, I do acknowledge that it can be easier to imagine working towards a goal within some bound amount of time. (That’s the “T” in SMART goals, right?)

And, as it happens, I am sitting here at the end of 2023 waiting for my groin muscle to heal so I can get back out on the trails and start training for my next big race. I hadn’t planned on what that race was before now because I was focused on training for the California International Marathon (CIM) and didn’t want to overcommit myself to a winter trail race until I could think a little more holistically about my 2024 calendar.

All of which is to say that I am targeting, coincidentally, an early January comeback, and have developed an idea for what I want to accomplish running-wise in 2024 and the thought occurred to me that I should make a similar effort for other areas of my life. 

And then, coincidentally, I read a post on Threads from someone reflecting on their 2023 goals and they had divided them into several broad categories such as “Health and Wellness,” “Skills and Creativity,” and “Friends, Family, and Community,” and I thought that was a neat way to approach the idea. So I adapted their categories to make more sense for me and started to plug in some goals.

I am a little short on a couple categories. But I will think about them while we are on vacation starting next week.

Running & Health

Before the start of my 10th and toughest trail race: Mammoth TrailFest 50k (September 23, 2023). Accomplishing a big goal requires plenty of fuel, in this case starting with a Spring Energy Hill Aid.

  1. Finish 4 x 50-milers [I turn 54 this year so this seemed like a neat idea. If one of these has to be a 50k due to scheduling, that would still count]

  2. 50 Strength workouts [I only did 25 in 2023]

  3. Complete a 100-miler/Western States qualifier

  4. Run a PR at CIM (currently 4:16); an acceptable plan B for this goal, in the event that my 100-miler is in early November will be to just finish CIM

Scholarship

  1. Finish Immigration article

  2. Resisting Reform: ??? [I don’t exactly know what is realistic or even what I want to accomplish with transforming my dissertation into something more interesting and useful, but I need to do something with that can be identified as progress.]

  3. Write at least 10 posts on my DEI work

Skills

  1. [yeah, no idea what skills I want to develop or learn that is not related to running.]

  2. [no idea]

Family & Community

  1. Volunteer at 3 races

    1. Way Too Cool 50k, March 2

    2. Canyons, April 26-27

    3. Western States, June 29-30

  2. Volunteer with Del Campo XC [now that I am officially retired from soccer, I plan to put my fall volunteer energy into Oliver’s cross country team]

  3. [Need at least one more Family goal]

Adventure

  1. Climb to the peak of Mt. Tallac with Julie

  2. Climb Half Dome (permit dependent) with Julie

  3. [Need one more adventure] with Julie

Tom O'DonnellComment