Coach’s Corner | The Art of Goal Setting and Getting It Done.

by Chase Parnell — November 18, 2019 — 📷: Katie Grenier

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“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” -Norman Vincent Peale. If this quote made your eyes roll, that’s okay, I’m right there with you. But, I also will not deny the truth of its lesson. Listen, we only get one chance at this life and if you’re a runner or an aspiring runner, we don’t want to look back on our lives when we’re old and gray and wonder if we had more in us. If done in a healthy way, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by shooting for the moon, dreaming big, and being intentional about maximizing your own personal running potential.

Right now, it seems the buzz is all about going easy on yourself and being comfortable and being okay with… everything. That’s all fine and dandy, you do you, but I also think its still okay to be audacious and loud, push yourself to dig deep, channel your inner William Wallace, charge hard and do big things.

I’ll never forget when Gwen Jorgensen, after winning Olympic gold in the triathlon at Rio, came out and said she was going to try to win Olympic gold in the marathon in 2020. That really left a mark on me. I have so much respect for anybody who is willing to put themselves out there in that way. And now, regardless of whether she ever pulls off her dream of winning gold, she set the highest bar possible for herself and now has a lasting motivational tool to help her get out the door each day as she fights for her goal with passion.

That being said, I’m not going to say that everyone should be trying to win gold at the Olympics or that they should hang their hat on an uncompromising desire to finish in the top ten at Western States. What I am saying is that you should be shooting for your own personal moon, whether that be finishing a 5k after being completely sedentary for decades or winning your local 50k after barely breaking the top ten in years past. In choosing your goal, pick something that 90% of you thinks is impossible but 10% thinks there just might be a chance.

If you don’t know where you’re heading, you 100% will not get there. So I am giving you permission to set a daring goal for yourself. And you know what, winter is a time for dreaming. There is ample time to lay the foundation for an epic summer 2020. So let’s do it… RIGHT NOW. 

Seriously, open up a word doc or better yet, grab your most specialest mole skin journal, you know, that one that makes you all warm and cozy, and let’s get started.

Pick a Goal that Scares You. 

Fear is a very normal and healthy feeling. And it is an absolutely wonderful motivator. I want your goal to be aggressive enough to dread what it’s going to take to get there. My personal belief is that most people sell themselves short. They don’t know what their body is capable of or they haven’t even scraped the surface of their true potential so they set goals with those misconceptions in mind. 

Okay, so is a goal surfacing in your mind? Does that goal or objective excite you? Scare you? Can you visualize yourself completing it? Does the image of you completing it make your heart flutter a little bit? If so, you’re on the right track. 

Now, formulate one sentence that encapsulates your goal and write it down. I am not a huge fan of tiered goals. Lots of people create multiple goals going into a race or event as sort of a softener of failure. I don’t believe we should open the door for failure to enter the mind at all. If you’ve decided you want to run sub-3 in the marathon, don’t give yourself a “B-goal” of running 3:10. Run sub-3 and do what it takes in training to get there! If you don’t hit your goal, you’ve failed, big deal. Failure is a good thing if you view it as a stepping stone to get to where you want to be. Immediately upon failing, we should go inward and analyze what happened and decipher what corrective measures need to be taken to improve. Side note: if you’re interested in this how to do better next time process, I wrote a full article on it here.

Do you have your sentence? Make sure it’s specific. None of this wishy-washy “I want to do my best” stuff. It must have a clearcut objective with a succeed/fail element. 

Don’t move on to the next step until you have that puppy written down. 

To make you feel better, I’ll join you. Mine scares the absolute crap out of me and it’s a huge reach. I haven’t secured my spot yet but my intention for 2020 is to race UTMB again. So if I get in, my goal will be to run it in under 24 hours. I understand that time probably doesn’t mean much to most of you out there, but for those of you that are familiar with UTMB, you understand what would be required. For context, I ran UTMB in 2015 in 30 hours. Sure, that was only my second 100 miler and I’ve grown a lot since then. But still, if you run sub-24 at UTMB you are probably going to end up in 15th-25th place depending on the year. This is the most competitive ultra in the world. I have no business saying that type of time is within my reach. But that’s my goal. It’s a big dream. And I’m planning to do what it takes to get there.

Build a Framework to Achieve Your Goal.

Okay, so you have your goal. You’re already nervous and we’re months and months away. That’s good. 

What you need to do now is create mini-objectives that you are going to try to hit in the months leading up to your goal race or event. I recommend that you schedule something four months out, two months out, and one month out.

I’ll run through a few examples to get you thinking. 

Example #1 – Pete

Goal: Pete runs Miwok 100k every year and his goal is to run sub-10 hours. The closest he’s gotten has been 10h 45m. Taking forty-five minutes off his best time is a healthy jump but he wants that sub-10 hour club BAD. He’s shooting for the moon. Good. 

Four months out: Because Miwok is in early May, four months out is early January. Pete knows he really needs to be laying a solid base and making sure he isn’t slacking through the holidays. So Pete pencils in that he wants to hit weekly base mileage of 50 miles per week. In the past, he has slacked off, drank too much spiked eggnog and didn’t start ramping up until February. This mini-goal of 50 miles per week through the holidays and being only slightly more conscious of what he puts into his body will set him up to improve on his prior performances. 

Two months out: Pete likes to race his way into shape, so he pencils in Way Too Cool 50k in March. This will serve as a phenomenal workout and good indicator of his fitness. Hopefully his base phase helps him improve on his PR on this course.

One month out: Pete will run the American River 50 miler in early April as his key tune-up race with the intention of taking it easy on the first half and crushing the second half. By intentionally running the first half easy, he’ll still get a great workout but save a little in the tank for his Miwok sub-10 hour attempt one month later. In years past he ran American River all out and would arrive at Miwok a little sluggish. 

Summary: Pete has a plan. Miwok doesn’t feel like a million lightyears away because he has goals to keep him on track during the buildup. He’s doing a few things differently this time, which should pay off when he goes for broke come race day. 

Example #2 – Sally

Goal: Sally has always dreamed of running the Boston Marathon, but always assumed the qualifying time to get in was way out of reach. F that. Sally is 37 so she has to run 3:35 to get into Boston and she has only ever broken 4 hours once, in 3:57, back when she was in her early 30s. She needs to improve her PR by 22 minutes. She’s a midwesterner, so to give her the best shot possible, she picks what she knows is a fast course, Grandma’s Marathon on June 20, 2020. Epic. Awesome. Let’s do it. 

Four months out: Sally decides she needs to work on strength because in the past she really whittles her body down to nothing as she builds up to marathons. Sally pencils in that during January and February, she will maintain a consistent 40 miles per week plus she plans to get shredded in the gym. She commits to hiring a trainer to keep her accountable on the strength side. She’s hoping that the muscle she builds during the base phase will keep her strong in those late marathon miles where pounding on pavement typically broke her down to a slow hobble towards the finish.

Two months out: Sally knows that she needs to get comfortable at her goal marathon pace so she schedules in a 12 mile tempo at her goal pace of 8m 12s per mile. She’s already nervous for this workout. It’ll be a reach but if she can hit it, she’ll really be able to draw on that confidence at Grandma’s Marathon 8-9 weeks later. 

One month out: Sally scours the internet for a half marathon within 100 miles of her house to find the perfect race to get her ready for Grandma’s. She needs a flat fast course, ideally one with a pace group because she feeds off the energy of other runners around her. With a marathon goal of 3:35, if she runs even splits, she would come through half marathon at 1:47:30. So for this half marathon race, she sets the goal of running sub 1:45 to give herself a little buffer and build confidence in her ability to handle her goal marathon pace. 

Summary: Sally is super nervous but she’s excited to test herself as she ramps up to Grandma’s Marathon. She has never put a big workout on the calendar nor strategically done a half marathon race to prepare for a marathon. This plan might just take her to Boston. If she fails, she’ll reflect on what worked and what didn’t work, and try again next year. 

Example #3 – ME. 

Goal: I want to run sub-24 hours at UTMB. I ran 30 hours in 2015 but feel like I left a ton of time out on the course. This was mostly due to lack of hiking proficiency, spending way too much time in aid stations, and generally not having the experience to tackle a race of this difficulty. 

Four months out: I am going to focus very intentionally on power hiking with poles through the entire spring as that was a skillset I lacked last time. I penciled in a big effort late April on Dog Mountain, a 3,000 foot climb in three miles, which is accessible in winter because it’s at a lower elevation on the Columbia River Gorge, just a few hours from our home in Bend, Oregon. Four or five laps on Dog Mountain will not only be a great workout, it will also simulate the relentless nature of the climbs at UTMB. I plan to also purchase a pass to the gym so I can work on my leg strength. I’m a string bean and rarely do actual weight-training but in order to survive the 62,000 feet of +/- elevation change, I know I need to firm up to better handle the trauma.

Two months out: Once my entry into UTMB is confirmed, I’ll register for the Old Cascadia 50 miler, a beastly course with 12,500 feet of climbing in the Oregon Cascades, just 45 miles northwest of Bend. Hopefully I’ll get a nice fitness boost from the intensity of racing.

One month out: I recently put my name in the lottery for the Eiger Ultra Trail 100k in Switzerland. This is a massively difficult course in the Swiss Alps with 22,000 feet of climbing. That’s a pretty stout amount for a 100 miler, let alone for a 100k. Pole work and power hiking skills will be the name of the game there so hopefully my work in the spring will pay off.

Summary: Sub-24 at UTMB is way out there. Many professionals have gone over there and failed to break that barrier. I’ll be in way over my head, but its a worthy goal and one that gets my heart racing. I have way more experience now, I’m not drinking alcohol anymore as part of my One Year No Beer challenge (latest update on that), and I’ll have the Eiger race as a great simulation. We’ll see how this all unfolds. 

You Can Do This.

You now have your goal and you have a framework to get you there. If you need someone to help with the day to day of training, consider joining Patreon and supporting us at one of the levels that includes limited coaching services. It’s a bargain when you consider the cost of full-blown coaching these days.

Okay, time to “land the plane” on this installment of Coach’s Corner. I’ll do so with one final tip that I recently implemented myself. It’s really been helping me in my build up to Cal International Marathon (CIM) on December 8th. 

Go online and find an epic picture of the race or event that you are planning to use to achieve your goal. Then take a screenshot and make that picture your wallpaper and screensaver on your phone/computer/tablet. I found a picture of the start line of CIM with all the elite competitors lined up at the front with thousands of runners visible behind. Looking at that photo makes the race a reality for me. Whether I like it or not, I’ll be toeing the line in similar fashion, rubbing shoulders with all those super fast looking cats. I’m getting amped to run and having that reminder on my phone every time I pick it up helps me to make sure I’m doing my due diligence in training. 

Alright everyone, thanks for the read and all your support of Treeline Journal. If you’re feeling brave, please put your goal down in the comments. It’ll help you solidify your objective and inspire others!