Goal Setting for Runners: When the Number Becomes the Problem
Can you PR and still be dissapointed?
Goal setting for runners is something I think about a lot. And this story is probably why.
I had an athlete run a one hour PR in the marathon. Roughly 4:10 down to 3:10. Sixty minutes faster in one cycle. And when we talked after the race, they were disappointed.
The goal had been to BQ. To crack three hours. They hadn’t. So in their mind the block was a failure.
I didn’t know what to say to that. Like genuinely I was just sitting there kind of blown away. A one hour PR is one of the most remarkable things I’ve seen in my coaching career. It takes everything going right. A great block, a great day, a body that responded to training in a way that exceeded every reasonable expectation I had going in. And they were bummed. Like actually disappointed.
I think about that one a lot still. Because it showed me something I’ve watched play out in smaller ways probably a hundred times since. When we let a time goal define what success means, we hand over the keys to something we have very little actual control over. And we risk missing everything that’s right in front of us.
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When the Number Takes Over
Here’s what I’ve noticed. When someone is really locked into a specific goal time, the natural ups and downs of a training block start to feel different. A hard workout where the paces don’t come isn’t just a hard workout anymore. It’s evidence. Proof that the goal is slipping, that the body isn’t cooperating, that something is wrong. And that’s just not how training works. We are not the finished product in the middle of a block. We’re somewhere in the middle of a messy process that has peaks and valleys and weird weeks and breakthrough days that come out of nowhere, and none of those individual moments tell the whole story.
What breaks my heart is when athletes check out. They get to some point in the block, do the math in their head, decide the goal isn’t happening, and mentally leave. They stop fighting for the best version of that training cycle. And the tragedy is that they still could have had something incredible. Just not the exact number they came up with back in January.
I’ve also seen it go the other way. Someone runs a massive PR and they’re disappointed because it wasn’t the specific number they had in their head. That one gets me every time. Like your body just did something it’s never done. And we’re upset about that?
The BQ Trap
I have a lot of athletes chasing BQs and look, I get it. It’s a real thing to want. But what I see happen is every single block becomes a referendum. Did I BQ or didn’t I. Success or failure, nothing in between.
And here’s the thing about that. Even if you hit it, you might not get in anyway. That’s just the reality of Boston right now. They’ve changed the cutoffs before and they’ll change them again. You could run the race of your life, hit your number, and still not get the email in September. That’s a real thing that happens to real people.
On the flip side, this block might be the one that doesn’t get you there but sets your body up for the block that does. The training you put in, the fitness you built, the things you figured out about yourself as a runner, none of that disappears because the clock read 3:02 instead of 2:59. It’s all connected. It doesn’t start and stop at the finish line of one race.
What I’ve Noticed at Higher Levels
One thing I noticed running at a higher level and being around people who competed seriously is that nobody really talked like this. The goal was to compete. To get fit. To see what the body could do when everything came together. There were loose time goals but there was this understanding baked into the whole thing that you just don’t know how a block is going to go. You might take off. You might have a workout six weeks in that changes your whole sense of what’s possible. Or it might be windy on race day and the time you had in your head just doesn’t mean anything anymore.
The best runners I’ve been around respond to what’s happening. They stay in the process and let the goal be a rough direction rather than a verdict they’re waiting on. That feels like a skill to me. And I think it comes from trusting that the work itself has value no matter what the clock says at the end.
Training Is the Canvas
I think about training as a journey and a reflection of who you are. The block is the canvas. What are you painting on it every day?
Because so much happens in a training cycle that has nothing to do with the finish line clock. You might meet someone who becomes a close friend. You might figure out something real about how your body responds to certain workouts. You might learn you’re tougher than you thought, or that you need more sleep than you’ve been getting, or that running early in the morning before everything else starts is one of your favorite things in the world. You might have a genuinely awful workout and find out you know how to pull yourself back from the edge of a bad day. All of that is real. All of that matters. None of it shows up in whether you hit your goal time.
When we reduce a whole training block to a binary, did I hit it or not, we risk missing everything that actually happened while we were too busy staring at the number.
A Different Way to Score the Week
Something I’ve used for myself and started talking through with athletes is a different way to think about measuring a week of training. Instead of tracking against a time goal that’s months away, what if you just asked yourself some simpler questions at the end of each week.
Did you give yourself the best shot at a good workout? Did you get to the right place with the right stuff? Did you show up with a decent attitude or did you drag yourself through it? Did you find something to enjoy, even on the days that were a grind? Did you do anything that made the people around you better?
If you can honestly say you averaged somewhere around an eight out of ten on those things across a whole block, I think you’ll get more out of yourself than any time goal could produce on its own. Because those things compound quietly. Preparation compounds. Attitude compounds. Showing up fully week after week compounds. And then race day comes and you see what the canvas looks like and whatever the clock says you’ll know what you put into it.
Let the Chips Fall
That athlete who ran a 4:10 and then a 3:10 was ready to BQ the next cycle. The fitness was there. The body had responded. The work had been done. They just needed one more block to let it finish what it had started.
The goal was never wrong. The timeline just wasn’t theirs to decide.
Show up every day and try to be the best version of yourself. Let training be the thing you pour yourself into and see what it gives back. Don’t let a number you came up with in January put a ceiling on what this block can mean.
See where the chips fall. You might be surprised what’s waiting there.
