Setting realistic goals

It’s the time of year when some people start looking ahead to spring races. Though it may seem far off, if you’re planning a marathon or half-marathon you may well be already well into training. If you wait too much longer, that chance will have passed.

Picking a spring race also, for many, means picking a goal they can work towards. If you’re picking a goal it needs to be realistic. Pretending you’re going to be able to run an outstanding time over a distance you’ve never tried means there’s a good chance you’re setting yourself up for failure.

Make it attainable

You want goals that will challenge you, not ones that you’re bound to miss. Think about a result you will be happy with, not a result you probably won’t be able to hit. Think about what you’ve run in the past and how much work you put into that. Weigh it against how much more (or less) effort you’re willing to put into the new goal. Consider how much of a time commitment you’ll be putting in.

Make it trackable

Make your goal something that is easy to track leading up to the race. A specific time makes the most sense, but it could be something else, as long as there are obvious checkpoints you can measure. You want to be able to know if you’re on pace to hit your goal beforehand so you can adjust training accordingly. Showing up on race morning simply hoping you’ve done things correctly is not how you want to approach your goals.

Make it timely

You won’t get the results you want trying to cram training for a longer race into a short period of time. You’ll likely be more satisfied picking a race that fits the time frame you have to train. You need to dedicate a certain amount of training time to compete safely in long races and, unless your goal is to sit on the sidelines, you’ll struggle to hit it if you hurt yourself trying to fit the training into a reduced schedule.