Goal-setting
Expand your definition of success.
Last week, we talked philosophically about why we run. This week, we're talking about practical goal-setting.
Here's a secret: anything can be your goal, anything you want. Use a race or a time if that's what you need; use a route or a certain streak of running days.
In my practice, my goals are usually tied to routes. I’ll plan a course and then run it until I can make it without stopping because, yes, I still stop sometimes, and then I’ll keep going and practicing that same course as part of my training pattern until I can complete it without being tired. It’s like a mini race only for me. It’s tied to how I feel, tired or not tired, successful or not successful, instead of a more basic quantitative metric like time.
That works for me, but I’m aware that this approach is based on having run in this body for decades now. I have a lot of information on what fatigue, stress, success, and exhilaration feel like for me. If you’re just starting out with running, or in the midst of a big transition in your running career, like going from being a competitive athlete to being a daily one, this approach might not work for you.
Common Goals
There is a foundational problem with common goal-setting frameworks: for most people, they are not sustainable across more than a five year span.
For this reason, let’s talk about some basic, common goals people have: races and times. When most people start or get back into running, they want to achieve something concrete and immediate, like running a 10K or qualifying for the Boston Marathon. Many athletes run their ongoing practices off these goals entirely as well; each year, they will try to run certain races or achieve certain times. This is a great, successful framework, clearly, for many people, and can continue to be useful to them for several years. There is a foundational problem with this framework, however: for most people, it is not sustainable across more than a five year span.
I characterize this unsustainability as foundational because the basis, the foundation, of the goal is either static, ie, to run certain races or achieve certain times, or predicated on linear improvement, ie, to run longer distances or in harsher conditions. This foundation for achievement does not allow the runner’s ability to fluctuate in their performance, or for the measure of success to change while still allowing the athlete to feel successful.
The Agony of Aging
Many runners have written about the agony of noting that their distance times have slowed or their comebacks from injury have lengthened. The disappointment, even despair, that they’re going through is palpable; it affects their relationships with running. They no longer feel successful in it. To me, that is a tragedy. Your body changes over time; your life changes. Sometimes you’re busy, sometimes you’re not. Sometimes you’re strong and sleeping and free from injury, sometimes you’re sick and working late and have nagging pain. When we think about our running careers over decades and as practices instead of individual races and as points of achievement, those different contexts can also expand.
Small Goals-Big Goals: A Real-Life Example
To illustrate this phenomenon, I’d like to share something personal this week: in May this year, I had gave birth to my second child. Childbirth, ICYMI, is no joke. I’ve got a lot of goals for my running practice this year, some informed by the deep learning I’ve done in my body over the course of my two pregnancies, some informed by my previous come backs from injury. To start off, though, in late May, my goal was both small and large at the same time: to build my abs back up again so I could support my kick through and to run a quarter mile with good form. So small! But also: so large!
After childbirth, your body is different, but not necessarily worse.
A quarter of a mile is nothing to most runners, especially serious ones. We don’t even notice a distance that small. But when you’ve used your abs differently than normal for months, and finally used them to push out a child (or if they’ve been cut through in a Cesaerian, an experience I’ve also had), your body is different. But not necessarily worse. Our best approach as athletes trying to set goals for ourselves is to allow ourselves to be successful from where we are now in our practices, and to not see injury or time off as bad or as set backs, but as informative to our practices. There’s a lot of data coming into your body when it changes through years, injury, cross training, and time off, if only we choose to use that new intelligence.
Achieving Your Multi-Faceted Goals
To wrap up, maybe you need to set some new goals, but are struggling on how best to do it. My advice: break it down into tiny steps, like everyone says, but in addition, break it down into as many facets as you can. That means not just finding the basic quantitative metrics like the splits you want to progressively hit or the distance you want to run, but to pair those metrics with different facets, like mindset, overcoming the most dreadful parts of your course (for me, the flat straightaways; I can’t stand a straightaway), or your cardiovascular fitness. Treating these facets of your run as goals in themselves will help you develop a more rounded, dimensional approach to your runs. They expand your definition of success not so you can feel good about yourself all the time but so that you can see that improvement is not always measured in the same way does not necessarily progress linearly.
Finally, now that you have your collection of goals, each as important as the other, you can achieve them in unison. You get to decide which goal is the most important to you in any one run or run week or season. Rotate your goal focus as you achieve each goal, and you will have more opportunities to find improvement and joy in your runs. You are the decider of success and failure, and each of those concepts has far more facets than are usually discussed. I’ll see you again next week, but for today remember: go run.