Perhaps you've read what I have written in the past and you see this goal…you might be thinking, “Oh, John, give it up already.”

But I will not, because I think this is a very achievable goal.

It’s also something that will be written about a lot this year as I go through training so I won’t spend a lot of time on it here.

I wrote about this on Instagram after the New York City Marathon - I trained really well for that race, and I finished a minute slower (I’ll use the term slower in terms of time but at my best we’re not talking speedy here) than 3 of my 4 other marathons. (The 4th was a disaster and shouldn’t really count in comparisons.)

I am not disappointed by that fact - I was just surprised.

And I thought to myself, “Wow. I guess New York is a pretty hard course,” which is something I didn’t quite believe until I ran it. And then I thought, “I bet if I trained like that for Chicago I would have gone sub-5.”

But who knew when I’d get another chance to run Chicago.

And then the Chicago lottery happened, and I was selected, and I have the chance to try again in Chicago and I can’t pass up the opportunity to go for the sub-5 because who knows when the next opportunity will happen.

And really, it’s not like I’m shooting for the moon here.

It’s - can I stick to a pace for 26 miles?

I can’t honestly say I’ve executed my race day plan the way I’ve wanted to in my brief marathon career.

And for the aforementioned four marathons I’ve felt good about, that’s a matter of 3-to-5 minutes away from the 5-hour mark.

That’s kind of what I love about doing this - training and figuring out how to get to the point where I’m prepared and I know I’m going to make it through the marathon…the only question is how it’ll unfold.

In Chicago in October, my hope is that it will unfold in less than 5 hours.

I can’t wait. That’s part of why we’re doing this writing all year - it’ll help the days pass more quickly and help get me to October and Chicago.