Whether you are an elite athlete or a beginner, you must set goals. Goals are so important as they give you purpose, structure and motivation. When you set a clear goal you provide yourself with something to strive towards.

You may decide that your goal is to run a marathon in 3 hours and 30 minutes. Now every time you go for a run, it has a purpose attached to it.

Goal setting provides you with structure. Now that you have this goal of running a marathon in 3 hours and 30 minutes, you can work out a training plan to achieve the goal. Instead of just going out for a run when you feel like it, you now will have a weekly and monthly training schedule to keep you on the right track to achieving your goal. In addition, goals provide you with the motivation you may have previously lacked. Now when you don’t feel like going for a run, you are able to think back to your goal and use that to help get you out the door. You know that goals aren’t achieved if you don’t put the work in, so you lace up your trainers and head out the door!

Here I have explained a few benefits of goal setting, now I will walk you through how to set them. Many of you have probably heard the acronym S.M.A.R.T when it comes to setting goals. However, you may be thinking, what does S.M.A.R.T stand for? for and how can you use this to help set your running goal? Below I will answer these questions and stay with the goal of running a marathon in 3 hours and 30 minutes.

Specific – Your goals have to be specific. Thankfully for us runners, this is easy to achieve. There are many races that happen globally every weekend. This allows us to pick a specific race that correlates to our goal. For example, you may choose to do the London Marathon for our sub 3 hours 30 attempt. This is a specific race that only happens once a year.

Measurable – This is in relation to how you will measure success or failure in your attempt at a goal. Again, as runners, we are pretty spoilt as we have easily quantifiable measures to compare our efforts against. In our example, this is covering the 26.2 miles of a marathon in 3 hours and 30 minutes.

Attainable – What are the odds of you achieving this goal? Now, this is not to say that you should set easy-to-achieve goals but when we are setting goals for running we have to respect our physical and mental health. Using our example, if you can comfortably run a half marathon in 95 minutes you would be in a good position to have a shot at running inside 3 hours and 30 minutes for a full marathon. Whereas if your best half marathon time is 2 hours, maybe 3 hours 30 is currently out of your reach.

Relevant – Goals are intertwined with creating habits. We are more likely to stick to something if it is relevant to us and has a deeper meaning. This may be running inside 3 hours 30 to go quicker than a family member or to raise money for a charity close to your heart. Whatever your why is, make sure it is as strong as it can be.

Time-Bound – How long are you giving yourself to achieve the goal? You are looking at 20-24 weeks' worth of build-up for a marathon. Therefore, scheduling a marathon that is in 6 weeks is not advantageous. This relates back to our first bullet point of specificity. We are able to select a race that fits our schedule and work back from there.   

In conclusion, goals are incredibly powerful and should be set in all aspects of our lives, including our running. We are able to use S.M.A.R.T. goals to make the goals as clear as we possibly can which will give us the best chance to succeed. I hope this helps you in your future running endeavours.  if you want more personalised guidance and support, don't hesitate to contact us and see how Mako Running can help you achieve your running goals, one step at a time.

Take Care

Coach Wilson