vague speed plans

Super Metroid Project Base: 31 in any% and 55 in 104%, we'll see where I want to go from there. This shouldn't take long.

Super Metroid Z-Factor: going to sit on any% until someone beats my record (person? DCR? Leodox? foosda?)
probably going to improve my 100% using the difficult spore spawn skip/late charge beam route adapted from any%

Super Metroid: going to learn 14%, maybe improve any% and 100%. I'll switch to the Phantoon first route for any% when I get a low 47.
The issue with that route is its similarity to low% conditions while demanding speed comparable to your any% time. Learning 14% beforehand should help with that.

Metroid Fusion: I'm doing this for the 12 hour challenge. This is basically cheating because of how much Super Metroid I play, but it is on a console I never run on (GBA). Luckily my twitter bot hasn't managed to give away my game boy player yet.

Super Mario 64: not sure what my goals will be in this yet. I'll try to improve my 120 star time since I'm running this at SRX, which in turn should spark improvement in other categories.

Ocarina of Time: Practice any% no RBA/WW for SRX because forest temple light arrow GIM is really cool and I want to show it off.
I need to go back to MST and get the sub 2:20 that water BK skip took from me. I also want an any% run with void warp in it.
I kind of want to pick up a long category as well. Glitchless is most likely since I don't have N64 stuff yet.

Super Metroid Redesign: Metconst is having a community race for this in April. I'll be working on a tutorial for any% for people who are on the fence about joining, and I'll be doing some light practice of this for the race.

Ocarina of Time Master Quest: I have the disc, but I'm not quite motivated to do anything with it yet. Learning MQ properly will be a non-trivial effort. Running this alongside OoT might not be the best idea since the GC/VC controls being different will probably mess me up, but I definitely want to do a lot of MQ stuff later this year.

One thing I've noticed about myself as a runner is how much taking breaks helps me. I have interest in doing a lot of different things, but I don't branch out as much as I should because I'm too dead set on getting a time in a specific game/category that I feel I deserve. This has caused me to burn out all across SM64, trying to get sub 2:20 OoT MST, and trying to get 48 in SM any%. I fall just short of many goals I know I'm capable of, and it compels me to try and brute force achieve those times out of desperation when I'm not in the right mindset to do so. I know that at some point I will be getting 48 easily on bad runs of SM, so there's not much sense in trying to get it NOW when I could be doing something more productive. Every runner is different, but the more I figure out about how I work, the better I'll be able to do. Another example is when I was stuck at 1:57 SM64 120 star for several months despite it having minutes of mistakes, finally gave in and starting playing SM instead, then when I played SM64 again those minutes melted away within a week.

One of my biggest fears and reasons for not taking breaks when I should is that I'm afraid of never getting back to where I was, or that it isn't worth the derusting process. The examples above show me this isn't really a big deal for me, and having to reinforce prior learning isn't a bad thing and can help improve on stuff I'd glossed over before. Grinding is good for a short period of time, but in the long run I waste a huge amount of time doing fruitless grinding and getting literally no payoff for it when what I really need is to come back to a category later.