Connor’s Corner: Personal Conquest

By Connor Danz, Creative Editor

Something that cannot be stressed enough on how important it is to have a fulfilling and meaningful life is goals. Having goals, in general, will give you a firm direction in your life that will allow you to focus your mind, body, and spirit on achieving that goal. 

But goals can come in many different forms depending on how you make them and how you apply them in your life. Generally, the two most common forms of goals you see are short-term goals and long-term goals. Short-term goals being the minor objectives you sprinkle in a small window of time, while long-term goals are the ones that take place over a long period of time, and at the end of that time, you want to be in a better place in life.

This whole topic of goals initially came into my head after my 1600 meter (1 mile) race at the first track meets of the season for the Outdoor track. Since my 8th grade year, I have been constantly training for the three-track seasons year-round. I have maintained this schedule consistently since I started running for the main reason that I have no natural talent for running. I love running, but I’ve never had any natural skill, so to make up for that fact, I have to be constantly training.

To justify this training, I had multiple goals set for myself in both the short and long term for 5Ks and especially the mile race. In the mile, I broke it down by 10-second intervals, so I would run a 7:00 mile one meet, then I would try to be down to 6:50 by the next meet, and so on. My long-term goal would be dropping it down a minute, so over time, going from 7:00 to 6:00 miles.

Back to where the idea for this came from, until now, and for the past year, my mile personal record (PR) time was 6:18. This was taken from my last meet that took place before covid during indoor track. Since then, I have spent a great deal of time training and refining my diet in service of one of my longest-standing goals, breaking the 6-minute mile. 

At the first meet of this Outdoor Track season, I made sure the only race I was running would be the mile so I could focus all of my strength and energy on hitting my goal. It was one of the most exhausting races I ever ran, I had the other runner in the race from another school on my heels for ¾ of the race. This was until the last lap when I used every last muscle in my body to lose him until we were half a track away. The last 100-meter stretch was the hardest sprint I have ever done as I kicked open my stride and just flew to the finish line.

My final time was 5:50.