What’s your ‘C’ goal?

If you are training for a race you probably have a goal.

The training you do will be focused on this goal, whether that is to get you to the distance or get you your PB. You’ll train for a good few months, you might turn down social events because of your training, your reading list might be all about running, and it might start to be all you think about.

So with all this focus on one day and one race what happens when things go wrong? When the weather on race day is completely different to your training weather , when you wake up with a migraine or an upset stomach, when you’ve had a stressful week at work and haven’t slept well?

No one knows what race day will bring. It might be a perfect combination, or it might feel like everything is conspiring against you.

This is where having more than one goal can help. Having an A goal, a B goal and a C goal is a way to make sure that whatever the day throws at you, you will still finish your race with a feeling of accomplishment for all the months of training you have put in.

But this looks slightly different depending on what your main goal is

If you are running for a PB it might be

1.  run your PB time
2. match your existing PB
3. enjoy the race and finish strong

If you are running a new distance your main goal might be to finish the race, anything else is a bonus

1. enjoy the race and finish strong
2. run the race without walking
3. run a time that makes you happy

If you are returning from injury your main goal might be about not getting injured again

1. get to the start line injury free
2. enjoy the race and finish strong
3. finish close to your PB

You can see that having three seperate goals means that whatever happens on race day you will have achieved a goal, it takes away a bit of the stress and anxiety you can feel leading up to the race (those “what if…” questions) and can help you feel prepared whatever the day throws at you.

So, tell me, do you have one goal or a series of goals when you are training?