Goals... with no clear timeline yet. ha.

So here are some goals.  I want to say them now before I run this marathon and feel like I never want to run again.  Haha.

• I want to get to a point where I can run 20 miles often without falling to pieces.  
• This means I might have to work on my running form somehow but I have no idea how.  Maybe actually work on trying to learn Chi Running (although I was completely failing at teaching myself).  Or it might mean getting someone to videotape me running and then critiquing the hell out of the video, trying some new things, and taping me again.  As it is I have no idea what my running form looks like to other people, but I do know if I was doing it right my IT band/hip probably wouldn't hurt eh?
• I need to work consciously on getting faster.  And while doing that I need to remember that even though it feels awful it's still working me toward a marathon goal in the long run.  I always focus on the short-term and don't want to do the immediate thing that sucks even if it helps me with a longer term thing.
• I discovered as I was trying to see what marathon pace I'm capable of that I probably have a really crappy vo2max.  So I need to do more training to improve that.  I'm wondering if cycling would help with improving that as well... when I had my bike on the trainer in an easy gear and I was pedaling at a high cadence it was killing me aerobically after awhile.
• I want to do some interval training at an appropriate speed, but also try to do a wednesday mid-week run of 8 or so miles as a tempo run.
• I need to remember that marathon training HAS made me faster so I'm not as bad as I was last year.  This is improvement, even though I am still slow.
• I wish I had a way to develop a plan tailored to ME so that I could get faster in the most efficient way possible because I HATE speedwork so so freaking much.  I want what I'm doing to be of maximum effectiveness.  I thought HR training would help but I'm not sure.  I wish I had been a runner in high school or college so I could've had a coach :\
• I would like to keep my mileage at around 30 miles/wk minimum regardless of where I am in my training cycle.  This might mean some longer mid-week runs while keeping my weekend long run to 3 hours regardless of how far that is.  Or maybe my weekend long run will become somewhat of a speedier one as well so I can try to run further in 3 hours.  
• I want to work on my swimming this winter.
• All of this is because:
• I want to run a 4 hour marathon
• I want to run a sub-2 hour half marathon
• I want to do the OSU indoor triathlon in January.
• I want to do a half-ironman (to start)
• I want to start improving speed and fitness now so that the possibility of doing a full ironman can exist before I'm 40, without me having to be in action for more than 12 hours.
• I want to hold my head high(er) around other runners... I'm tired of being slow, and I want to be a serious athlete because I like serious athletes and want to hang out with them.  (and maybe date them. ha.)