Goals, Goals, Goals!!!!!!

I have a love/hate relationship with New Year, New Year resolutions and in particular setting goals! I know having a purpose and a goal helps to keep us motivated but it's soooooo hard to keep on track and stick to new goals and new intentions.

But what I do love about this time of year is thinking of all the new ways I can help break down some of the barriers that get in the way of running, which is why I just love planning the January beginner's course. This year the focus really is on what happens between planning to run and actually stepping out of the front door!

This year my focus for the beginner’s and any returners to running is to really support and help participants develop a more personalised and individualised tool kit and skill set which plans for life’s demands and obstacles; not only will the course teach people how to run in the physical sense, but also how to keep running.

Here’s a snippet from week 1

"I know from my own experience that when I plan a run it often begins with feelings of excited anticipation, I imagine myself running with wild abandon as I remember the feel-good feelings that I feel once the run has finished. I sometimes imagine the conversations I’ll have with my running buddies as I look forward to catching up.

But I also know at any point between putting my running gear on and stepping out of the front door, there can be a number of unexpected factors—like bad weather, a last minute cancelation from my running buddy, or a smudging of doubt about how the run will feel, and before I know it, that path of good intention is paved with numerous reasons not to go and I’m back on the sofa, faster than I can say "jog!"

Each week the aim is to introduce different strategies that are designed to build confidence, remember your meaningful reasons to run, as well as learning about the principles of training; my objective is to enable you to maintain your running looking at the many factors that can influence your decision to maintain or stop running altogether.

If you’d like to read more about Goal Setting here’s an article I’ve recently published on Substack

Maybe your goal is just getting out of the door and being consistent or maybe it's a race that you've not run before or it could be to get faster without being injured.Over the years (and, as always, through lots of learning the hard way) I’ve come to understand that knowing when and what to chose as your next goal is a skill in and of itself.

When you have built up your aerobic base and you’ve ticked off your target of “getting round” the distance that you were building up towards, you will need to decide what your next target will be. Are you going to work towards running the same distance more quickly or will your aim be to run a longer distance?

Finding your next goal can be quite overwhelming, especially if you’ve had a disappointing race in the past that has knocked your confidence. Fear of failing can be extremely crippling at times, almost choking you to the point that it stops you performing because your fear turns into anxiety that almost grinds you to a halt.

Your next goal will influence your training programme; if you’d like to run the same distance but do it more quickly, you know you will have to add some tough interval sessions into your training plan. These sessions are hard, they can hurt and at times lead to disappointment, and sometimes this can be block, because why on earth would you want to do that, especially as the goal race seems so far away.

These skills aren’t learnt overnight, they are developed over time, over many sessions, many races, and many years. Most of you have not seen my disappointments, my successes, my tears, my failures, my 18 months of taking a step back, taking the pressure off and how I learnt to love running and racing again. I used to feel the pressure so much I entered races under a pseudonym and got my best times, of course no one can see them now and I’m fine with that.

When we challenge ourselves, set the bar a little bit higher, we become vulnerable because there is an element of stepping back to square one. Whenever a new skill is learnt, for example how to run longer at a faster pace, you need to develop this skill so you become more capable at it. You need to learn not to go out too fast, how to hold your pace, how to slow down and how to keep going when the fatigue kicks in.

If you decide your next goal is to be able to run a longer distance, then you know that there is a time commitment to this, and you need to consider carefully if this realistically (key word!) fits in with your lifestyle. Have you got time to rest, recover and fuel properly? Can you maintain your work and your relationships around it, without burning out?

Your running journey isn’t linear, it depends on what you want at certain points in your life, do you want to keep pushing yourself in the pain box or would you like to ease back and take time to smell the roses? Both are valid. As runners get older there is a significant shift to running longer and moving onto ultra-marathons. The ultra-running community just love running and run for the love of running, without the expectations of pbs and results. There is a lot to be said for this, it’s a different type of running. Don’t get me wrong it still hurts and there is still a skill set to learn (how to run with a camel pack and enough food to feed a small army, how to poo in the woods, that sort of thing…) but it’s a different kind of pain.

I love to use the analogy of equating pain management to a tap of running water; for a shorter distance the tap is fully open and you are in the pain box, it hurts, it’s full on and hard to control. For the longer distance the tap is less open, a slow drip, drip of pain, the pain is there but it’s a slow feeling that builds over time whereas with a 5k it’s on from the start!

What I’m trying to say is, yes, of course stay where you are with your running if you’re happy, but if you have an itch, a small fire in your belly that won’t go out, try not to be frightened of it. Just like everything else in life, when we learn something new there will be disappointments until we get used to the new skill. It’s ok not to be good again, to be uncomfortable but to push through it, and learn how to develop and use it so it soon becomes second nature.