Why did that race not go as planned?
I’ve asked myself that question several times throughout my running career. Sometimes the weather changed, the course was harder than expected or something went wrong during the race. More often, though, the answer was already there before I reached the starting line.
The problem was how I had set the goal.
A race goal has to come from the training you completed. It can challenge you, but it can’t ask for an ability you haven’t prepared. Your plan prescribes the effort for each run, while your watch shows the pace that effort produced. Together, those results tell you whether the goal you chose still fits.
When the goal and the training agree, you can race with confidence. When they don’t, the excitement of race week can turn a wish into a target you were never ready to chase.
Set Your Goals Before the Season Starts
Before I begin a training plan or racing season, I write down the races I’m considering and what I want from each one. I also look at how those goals fit together across the season. My larger goals usually come near the end of a training cycle, after earlier races have helped me build fitness or learn something useful.
Writing the goals down matters. A goal that stays in your head can change every time you feel confident, tired or excited. On paper, it becomes something you can compare against your training.
You can ask whether the race fits your current experience, whether your schedule gives you enough time to prepare and whether you’ll have access to the terrain or conditions the event requires. Those questions are easier to answer before training begins than during race week.
Your first version of the goal doesn’t have to remain fixed. Training gives you new information. You may progress faster than expected, lose time to illness or discover that a course demands something you haven’t been able to practice. Writing the goal down gives you a starting point, not a promise you must keep regardless of what happens.
Use A, B and C Goals for Race Day
I set several goals for nearly every race. An A goal represents the best realistic outcome if training and race day come together. A B goal gives me a strong result to pursue when the best-case outcome is no longer available. A C goal identifies what would still make the race meaningful when the day becomes difficult.
The Canyons 100K gave me a clear example of why that framework matters.
I entered the race with 3 goals:
- Goal A: Finish in under 12 hours.
- Goal B: Finish in under 15 hours.
- Goal C: Finish the race and earn a Western States 100 qualifier.
I began training with Goal A in mind. As the race approached, however, I had to look honestly at what I had completed. Canyons has 16,000 feet of elevation gain, and I hadn’t been able to spend as much time as I needed on climbing-specific ultramarathon training.
That missing preparation mattered. I could have kept telling myself that sub-12 hours was possible because it was the goal I wanted most. The course wasn’t going to care what I wanted. Goal A required climbing preparation I didn’t have.
Before the race started, I accepted that Goal A was out of reach. I chose to race for Goal B or Goal C instead. That wasn’t giving up on the race. It was using the evidence from training to choose a goal I could still execute.
I finished in 14:44:44, just under my B goal of 15 hours. The result meant more than getting beneath the number. I had tracked my preparation, recognized what it could support and adjusted before the race began. That allowed me to enjoy the journey from start to finish instead of spending the day chasing a result the training had already ruled out.
Match the Goal to the Training You Can Actually Do
A time goal is a claim about what your training has prepared you to hold. It isn’t separate from the plan. The goal and the plan have to be set together.
If you want a particular marathon result, your marathon training needs to prepare you for the demands behind that result. That includes more than reaching a certain weekly mileage. You need the consistency, long-run development, race-specific work and recovery that allow you to sustain the required effort across the full distance.
RPE tells you how hard to run each session. Pace describes what that effort produced. As the training cycle develops, you can look at both. Are you completing the prescribed work at the intended effort? Is the pace you see at that effort moving closer to what your goal will require? Can you sustain the work late in a long run without turning the session into a race?
Those answers matter more than one unusually fast workout. A strong day can show what is possible when everything goes well. A pattern across several weeks shows what you’ve actually prepared.
You also have to consider specificity. A hilly trail race requires climbing and descending. A hot race asks you to manage heat. A long road race requires you to stay controlled over repeated miles. You don’t need to recreate race day in every workout, but the training has to address the demands that will decide whether your goal holds together.
A goal you haven’t trained for is a wish. There’s nothing wrong with wanting something beyond your current fitness, but it belongs farther down the road. You can build toward it through another training cycle instead of forcing it onto the next starting line.
Set Goals That Aren’t Finish Times
A race clock isn’t the only useful way to measure a season. You can set goals around consistency, strength, recovery, fueling or how well you manage the work alongside the rest of your life.
Your overall fitness may improve because you complete strength work regularly, return to another activity you enjoy or become more consistent without feeling worn down. Those changes may eventually support better race results, but they’re worthwhile before they appear on a finish clock.
Nutrition can be part of the same picture. You might practice eating before long runs, carry enough fuel during training or plan recovery meals instead of leaving them to chance. The goal isn’t to make every meal perfect. It’s to build habits that help you complete the training you’ve chosen.
These goals can sit beside an A, B or C race goal. They give you more than one way to recognize progress, especially during a season when a finish time doesn’t tell the full story.
Set the Goal and the Plan Together
A good race goal should make your training more specific, not simply make race day more exciting. It should help determine what you need to practice, what progress looks like and when the evidence says you need to adjust.
A structured plan turns a goal time into a series of sessions you can actually run. It places the harder work, easy running, long runs and recovery in an order that lets each one do its job. As you complete the plan, your effort and results show whether the original goal still fits.
Explore our running plans to choose a plan and race goal that work together from the first week through race day.
