Learning from a Project “Post-mortem”

The project I chose to review is from my personal life.  Last year I decided I wanted to run a half-marathon in November.  For those of you who don’t know, a half marathon is 13.1 miles, and requires training if you’re not already a distance runner.  The furthest I had run up to that point was a 5K (3.3 miles) so I definitely needed to develop a training schedule.  A typical half marathon training schedule is about 10 weeks long.  At the time I was commuting weekly to Tulsa, OK from Seattle, WA and I was anticipating travelling to TX later in the year.  After some research, I developed a training schedule that I felt would help me to prepare for the race in November.

Some factors that affected my training schedule:

• I spent 12 hours a week travelling by plane.
• I spent 4 nights a week in a hotel with access to a hotel gym (treadmill).
• I was working on an online Masters class that required a minimum of 10 hours of work a week.
• Tulsa, OK is flat and humid.  Seattle, WA is hilly and cold in November.

Based on my training progress on the treadmill, I set a goal of completing the 13.1 mile race in 2 hrs 30 mins.  On Sunday, November 27, 2010 I ran the Seattle Half Marathon in 2 hrs 34 mins.

What contributed to the project’s success or failure?

I believe the project was successful because I spent a great amount of time researching and planning for the race months ahead of time.  I found that every milestone I hit motivated me to reach the next one.  I talked about the race daily and continued to do research on training techniques.  Because my training time in the gym was limited, I tried to maintain good time management.  For example, if I had reading to do for school, I would read on the bike in the gym.  Toward the end, I spent a lot of time visualizing myself running the distance and crossing the finish line.

Which parts of the PM process, if included, would have made the project more successful? Why?

I feel like I utilized several aspects of Project Management in my plan which contributed to my success.  Aspects outside of the PM realm, such as travel and academic activities, complicated my training but good time management (and lack of sleep) helped me to meet my goals.

(I plan to run three more half marathons this year.  My next runs are in April, June and November.  I don’t have any plans to run a full marathon.  26.2 miles?  Are you nuts? )