I'm not sure if setting goals is the greatest idea in the world, but here are my goals for 2009, as I continue my effort to run a race in all 102 counties in Illinois.
Coming in to 2009, I have run races in 27 counties, mostly in central and northeastern Illinois. My first goal for the new year is easy enough: I would like to add 13 new counties this year. I ran in 16 new counties last year, so 13 shouldn't be too difficult.
Although quantity is important, I would like to do some new areas this year. In particular, I would love to knock out at least four counties in the upper Wabash River Valley, which is a difficult area to get to from Springfield, where I live. In particular, I have my eyes on races in Clark, Crawford, Jasper, Richland, Edwards and Wabash counties.
I wouldn't mind knocking out some races in southern Illinois, with Alexander, Massac, Williamson and Jefferson counties being high on the list for 2009. Also, there are seven northwest counties (Jo Daviess, Stephenson, Winnebago, Carroll, Whiteside, Ogle and Lee) and I would love to run a race in one or two of those counties this year. Of those seven, I've only run a race in Winnebago.
Last spring, I compiled a list of 18 counties that I couldn't find a race in. Since then, I have discovered that some of them do have races and, in fact, I have already run one in a county (Bond) that I didn't think had any races. Still, since organizing races year after year is tough, I like to focus on these counties, in case they don't have races in future years. So, we'll see if we can do some of the counties in 2009 that made the original list.
Also, I would like to work on distance runs. Many counties only have 5ks, but if I can find longer runs, I prefer to do those. Coming in to 2008, I had only run one marathon and one half marathon. In 2008, I ran five halfs. I have my eyes on at least two halfs for 2009, plus the Illinois Marathon in Champaign County.
So, these are the goals. We'll see how it goes.