Why is goal setting so hard?

Didn't blog or run yesterday, because it was my son's birthday! I'm the mom of a 3 year-old now. Spent much of today getting ready for the big Thomas the Train birthday party he is having this weekend.

I did manage to squeeze my run in today. I did 7 miles at marathon pace (8:24). It was a good run. I'm a little unsure if 3:40 is a realistic marathon time for me, but after having dinner with a friend tonight, I think I'm going to go for it and see what happens. My friend ran 3:45 at his first marathon several years and ran a 3:10 and qualified for Boston this year at Chicago 2008. I ran 4:00 at my first marathon last year, so he thinks it is possible for someone to drop 20 minutes off of their time, based on his own experience of dropping 35 minutes off of his own time. The only problem is that he consistently runs over 60 miles per week, and I don't run anywhere near that much.

I get nervous about setting a goal. What happens if it's too easy of a goal, and I get to mile 20 and am feeling great. Yes, that is a wonderful thing, but could I have gone out faster and held a faster pace for the entire race? What happens if the goal is too challenging, and I'm forced to slow down or, worse yet, am not able to finish the race.

I've also talked to Ben at Big River about my whole goal setting delema. Now, you have to know Ben, and know that he would never tell anyone that their goal is unrealistic, so of course, he tells me that I can do it, but then he writes on my training plan that my goal is "ambitious." Is that a nice way of saying it might be a little too fast for me?

I'm pretty confident I'm in the 3:40-3:50 range for a goal, but just where in that range I am, I don't know. I guess I'll just have to see where my training takes me. Nine more weeks of training to go!