Goal setting for the athlete in you

In this blog, I will take you through my marathon running experience and highlight the importance of setting goals for the athlete in you.

Marathon 1. As a beginning marathoner, I learned how to set goals the hard way. When I started running, I set a huge goal, an awesome goal that I knew I could achieve. My goal was to qualify for the Boston Marathon. I needed to run a qualifier marathon in under 3 hours and 10 minutes. That’s 26.2 miles at 7-minutes and 15-seconds per mile. After 4 months of training, I put myself to the test and ran the Memphis marathon only to end up passed out on the side of the road at mile 21. After an hour of failed attempts, I couldn’t find the strength to stand and finish the last 5.2 miles. Medics took my bib and carted me off to the hospital tent. My race was done.

Set reachable goals. Looking back, I questioned myself, “What went wrong?” “Was it my training, my taper, my diet, my shoes?” After several weeks attempting to gain insight, the issue became painfully clear. Simply, my goal was unrealistic. I realized that for a first-time marathoner who had never run cross-country or a race over 13 miles, finishing 26.2 at top speed was overambitious. Knowing your abilities is critical for setting reachable goals. By evaluating your goals and reflecting on your performance, you can and often should change your goals along the way. From this experience, I recalibrated my goal.

Staircase your goals. There was another problem with my goal. To qualify for Boston was a long-term goal, but yet I tried to achieve it in the short-term. I only trained for 4 months to qualify for the world’s top marathon. Your short and long-term goals must be mapped out. Think of a staircase where each step is a goal. Start with a short-term goal and climb one step at a time until you reach the top, your long-term goal. Looking back, a better short-term goal would have been to just finish the first marathon healthy, on my feet. Setting a more realistic goal at the start would have made for a much more enjoyable experience.

Challenge yourself to enjoy the journey. We often set challenging goals. This way, we don’t get bored. Challenge is a good and necessary motivator, but I believe setting attainable goals allows us to enjoy the journey as well. Otherwise, we are turned off by the whole experience. I cannot stress enough the importance of having a positive experience. This will leave you confident, energized, and more motivated to get back out there and achieve your next goal.

Marathon 2 and 3. I took this approach for my next two marathons. My goal was to cross the finish line happy and healthy, which was still challenging but ensured a more enjoyable experience. After finishing a marathon in San Francisco and another just outside Boston with a smile on my face, I gained confidence and was extremely motivated to take the next step up the goal staircase.

Marathon 4. This January, I believed that I was ready to run a qualifying marathon time. Leading up to the race, I set many short-term goals that would prepare me to achieve my long-term goal. These goals helped me stay motivated and on track from day to day. When it came time to perform on race day, I had no doubt. In Orlando, on Disney’s marathon course, I achieved my goal and qualified for the Boston Marathon by 26 seconds. That’s a difference of 1 second per mile. Looking back, as I said in the beginning, I knew I would achieve this goal. I just didn’t know that it would take 4 marathons to do it.

I believe that by setting reachable short-term goals, challenging yourself, and enjoying the experience are all critical to achieving your long-term goals.

by Joe Villapiano