SECTION D

SMART GOAL SETTING

"The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don't define them, learn about them, or ever seriously consider them as believable or achievable." Denis Waitley

Now that you have an idea of what you want and where you are at with respect to running, it is now time to set some goals. Setting goals has been found to be a powerful tool to achieving success and keeping people motivated.

In this section, meaningful running goals will be set. This means that statements will be made that reflect what you want to achieve. Since you can achieve anything you want, but you cannot achieve everything you want, you must prioritize the list of dreams that has been developed.

Out of the list of dreams, you cannot possibly achieve all of them, and nor should you. Going after these dreams will mean a significant investment or time, money, energy, talent, and opportunities, and running should only be a part of your life forming a proper balance. You will this need to prioritize.

Prioritizing of the dreams has already been done in the previous chapter where you have chosen the top 3 dreams. These should be items that you really desire and you would love to achieve. These dreams though might not be achievable immediately. Work needs to be done on defining the dreams in such a way that they will convey an actual goal.

A goal, in order to be effective and drive people towards it, should have the following characteristics. The goal should be Specific, Measurable, Action-oriented, Realistic, and Time-constrained. In other words, it must be a SMART goal.

SPECIFIC

The goal should be specific. Getting faster is not specific enough. Get a PB at a 5 km distance is more specific. Going under 19 minutes at a 5 km distance is even better. If the goal is only associated to running, such as losing weight, the goal could be to lose 10 pounds.

MEASURABLE

The goal must be measurable. This goes along with being specific. A goal defined specifically might already be measurable. The goal could be to cut one minute off my 10 km time. The distance can be measured, and the time can be measure. The goal could also be related to training. For example, a goal might be to run 3 times a week for 30 minutes each time. This goal is specific and can be measured. The goal must be measurable or else how would you know if you have reached the goal.

ACTION-ORIENTED

A SMART goal must be action oriented. It cannot be a state. It must be relate to doing something so as to indicate what needs to be done. For example, I "want to be" a runner that can run 10 km in under 40 minutes is not as powerful as I "will" run 10 km in under 40 minutes. The action verb will indicate what needs to be accomplished. Since the universe rewards action, this is the way the goal should be stated.

REALISTIC

Any goal to be a motivator and get you committed to reaching it must be realistic. When a goal is not realistic and the person does not really believe it can be reached, then the commitment is lacking and the effort will not be there to permit the goal to be realized. Choosing a goal that is realistic is based on your present status as examined in section C. If presently you are running only as a recreational athlete, it would not be too wise to have a goal to win a gold medal at the next Olympic. This would not be realistic. A gold medal can remain a dream, but it should not be used as a goal that will indicate action on your part. A more appropriate goal for a recreational runner who has a vision of Olympic gold might be to complete a race, or race a certain distance at a certain time. To assist in defining what is realistic, you can use the POTENTIAL IMPROVEMENT section below. You can also talk to a coach or very experienced runners.

TIME-CONSTRAINED

In order for a goal to move people towards it must be time-constrained. A timeline associate with it, will entice people to move towards the goal. "Someday running a marathon" will not invite people to do anything towards training or completing a marathon. "I will run the New York City Marathon in 1997" is much more effective. The timeline set will be based on the goal itself and the present status. For example, running a 10 km under 30 minutes in the next month when the personal best is 40 minutes run 3 months ago would not be realistic. Following is some guidelines as to how much improvement can be expected for a period of time.

POTENTIAL IMPROVEMENT

In order to assist people in determining what they should aim for, Table D1 gives guidelines as to how much a person can improve over a certain period of time based on their present level of performance. Table D1 is only based on personal observations and extremely rough estimates. The values presented would not necessarily apply to everybody and are certainly not assured. The guidelines are probably more accurate for people who have been running for 5 years or less. It also assumes the training will not increase by more than 25 % in a cycle of 4-6 months. The cycles are explained in the Planning section. For people who have been running for over 5 years, improvements are still possible, but the values might not be as valid. An increase in volume would also be required. Major improvements might be possible if the 25 % rule is violated, but this path is fraught with uncertainty since it can lead to injury and prevent the attainment of any running goals.

TABLE D1 - POTENTIAL IMPROVEMENT

Distance	PB Personal Best	Potential improvement within a cycle	Potential improvements within 1 year
5 km	30	2	5
5 km	25	2	3
5 km	22	1	2
5 km	20	45 sec	1:30
5 km	18	30 sec	1:00
5 km	17	20 sec	45 sec
5 km	16	15 sec	30 sec
10 km	60	5	8
10 km	50	3	5
10 km	45	2	3
10 km	42	1	2
10 km	40	1	1:30
10 km	39	45 sec	1
10 km	38	30 sec	1
10 km	37	30 sec	45 sec
10 km	36	20 sec	45 sec
10 km	35	15 sec	30 sec
half-marathon	120	5	12
half-marathon	105	4	8
half-marathon	95	3	5
half-marathon	90	2	3
half-marathon	85	1	2
half-marathon	82	45 sec	2
half-marathon	80	45 sec	2
half-marathon	78	30 sec	1
half-marathon	76	30 sec	1
half-marathon	75	15 sec	1
		Within 6 months
marathon	5:00	20	40
marathon	4:30	15	30
marathon	4:00	10	20
marathon	3:45	5	10
marathon	3:30	5	10
marathon	3:20	4	8
marathon	3:15	3	6
marathon	3:10	2	5
marathon	3:05	2	5
marathon	3:00	1	4
marathon	2:55	1	3
marathon	2:50	1	2
marathon	2:45	1	2
marathon	2:40	1	2

LONG TERM GOALS

One way to set goals is to look at the long-term goals which will then define your short term goals. This involves setting a 10 year, 5 year, 2 year and one year goal. To choose long-term goals, you can use your dreams. Your top 3 dreams would be a good source of goals. Related to these, write out a specific statement that is measurable, action-oriented, realistic and includes a time. For example, I will run a half-marathon in 1:30 by next summer. What would be even better is to pick a race. The number of goals related to running should not be more than 3 at a time and the best number is usually one so you can focus.

Looking at long term goals is one of my favorite way to set goals around running. I envision where I would like to be in 1 year, 2 years, 5 years, and 10 years. What would I want to accomplish. The 1, 2, and 5 year goals can be interim goals for the 10 year goal. For example, when I started running, I had a goal to run a marathon. I knew I would not be ready to run a marathon in my first year, so my 1 year goal was to run a half-marathon. My 2 year goal was to complete a marathon, and my 3 year goal was to do a good marathon. I actually followed up on this where the first year I competed in my first half-marathon in Kingston, the 2nd year I completed the Ottawa Marathon but I had to walk, while in my 3rd year, I completed the Ottawa marathon and did not walk.

To assist in setting these 1, 2, 5 and 10 year goals, write out the goals in Exercise D1. Writing down the goal is crucial in the attainment of it. Writing down a SMART goal is actually half the work of reaching the goal. It takes time to come up with proper goals, but the time invested is worthwhile.

EXERCISE D1 - LONG TERM GOALS

My 10 year goals for running are: *___________________________________________

*__________________________________________

*__________________________________________

My 5 year goals for running are: *___________________________________________

*__________________________________________

*__________________________________________

My 4 year goals for running are: *___________________________________________

*__________________________________________

*__________________________________________

My 3 year goals for running are: *___________________________________________

*__________________________________________

*__________________________________________

My 2 year goals for running are: *___________________________________________

*__________________________________________

*__________________________________________

My 1 year goals for running are: *___________________________________________

*__________________________________________

*__________________________________________

You should now have a set of Specific, Measurable, Action-oriented, Realistic, and Time constrained goals for the next 10 years. Every year though you should only have a maximum of 3 running related goals. Otherwise you energy will be dissipated and you might not reach any of the goals.

SHORT TERM GOALS

Assuming you have 1,2 5 year goals, with a 10 year vision, all goals will need to be reduced to goals within a year that you can work on. Thus you must look at a long term goal and choose interim goals. For example, if a 5 year goal is to run Boston, and your present status is that you have been running for one year and you have a PB for 10 km of 48 minutes, then the goals might look something like this. In the 4th year, you will need to qualify let say with 3:40 if you are a woman under 35 year of age. In your first year you might decide to simply complete a marathon, in your second year you might want to run under 4 hours and in your 3 rd year to run under 3:50. You will then have goals for the next 5 years. If you reach your goals earlier, BONUS!. Every year you can monitor your progress.

Another way if a person does not have a long-range view is simply to start with year 1 and if improvement is desired, see what can be done for a particular distance. For example, for a 48 minute 10 K person, the 1st year goal might be 44 minutes, 2-year goal might be 42 minutes, 3-year goal might be 40:30, 4th year goal might be 39:30 and 5th year goal under 39 minutes.

An alternate way is to concentrate on items within the goals that are directly under your control. Winning a race is not always under your control. You do not know how other competitors are training. Times are also not always under your control, i.e. heat and wind can affect your race time. What is under your control is the amount of time spent training and how long the distance and the effort. This will remove some of the pressures and disappointments of waiting for the final race, and you will know on a weekly basis if you succeed. With time or placing, you get little feedback until you race so you have to set interim goals.

Goals in running can also be related to simply completing a number of races, travelling to races, completing longer and longer distances, or simply related to running continuously. Whatever the goals are, write them down. The sheets are included for this purpose. Since the goals within the year are the ones you will be concentrating on, use Exercise D2 to summarize your goals for the year.

The next section, planning, will indicate what steps are required to get you to your goal. If the steps do not match the timeline, it will be a good reality check and indicate if the goal or the timeline on the goal should be modified.

EXERCISE D2 - YEARLY GOALS

RUNNING GOALS FOR THE YEAR ______

Goal # 1: ____________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________

Goal # 2: ____________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________

Goal # 3: ____________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________