How will you set the goal and run a marathon? It requires preparation if you want to minimize the risk of going down and drop out of the race. All of your small “inadequacies” enlarges towards the end of the race if you are not properly prepared. How to set the goal for your exciting marathon is a long-term project with a lot of goal-directed training and organization of everyday life. the keywords are:
- Prioritize
- Organize
- Optimize
Setting The Goals – Your Marathon Base
If you are facing your first marathon, it will in return be a milestone event in your life. The consciousness of having completed a marathon marks your personality as a “gold medal” which increases your self-esteem. It is the runners’ “apprenticeship test”.
To ensure, that you do not follow a completely unrealistic training program, it may require that you clarify your current preconditions. The best training solutions to a marathon is based on a goal-setting and capacity analysis, where you have to consider the circumstances of your:
- Physical capacity
- Mental capacity
- Training background
- Injury history
- Current training pattern
- Age
To answer these questions, you can ask yourself questions like: how many years have I trained? How much have I trained? How long was my longest training run? Do I have experience from other sports, so I can jump in at a higher training level?
How much have I been running in competitions? What kind of speed training have I done? Have I had problems with my heart, should I consult a doctor, etc? Also, your civil status can be relevant. If you have family, you probably have to organize the training so it does not go beyond family life.
If you are working at night, it can disturb the training rhythm and make it difficult to follow a training program. Similarly, will hard physical work means that you can be too tired to run when you get home.In this way, you can find your current status as a runner. Then your training can be built up around these conditions and the planning can be prepared.
Set The Goal Increase Your Motivation
To continue with the actual planning and execution, you must define and set your goal. And also consider your most important training equipment. If you run ordinarily, your goal is probably the run itself in nature, getting together with others and the inner calm after running, etc.
However, it is necessary to have a more specific goal if you want to accomplish a full marathon, so the arrow in the compass points in the right direction – toward your chosen goal. Only then, you can begin your actual preparations.
In basic, a goal is a mental imagination about, what you specifically wish within a given period. It manages your focus on what is important to you. Motivation is the driving force behind our actions. When we are motivated, we make decisions and act.
The base that supports your motivation is your values, i.e. what means something to you, and what is important to you. The importance of your values is that they can be a compass for what you want. Ask yourself good questions like:
Set The Goal For a Marathon 6 Months from Today.
Keep on asking questions like this and write down your answers. This will help to clarify your motivation. If you find enough important arguments to reach your marathon goal, you can also raise your motivation, and find a way to achieve it.
Maybe you remember the old way of expressing motivation with the whip and the carrot, which means there are two kinds of motivation: something we want to avoid and something we want to attain.
A way of stressing soldiers is, to let them march without telling them how far they should go, what the meaning is, or how long it will last! It works extremely destructive for most of us. This kind of situation is something most of us want to avoid, because of the negative consequences. In general, we could say we are motivated to move away from something.
A motivation here could be: “I want to avoid being overweight, lazy with bad health as I get older, so I have to be medicated and also take medicine for the side effects. So I want to do something to move away from that.”
Set The Goal That Make Sense For You
The opposite is, to have goals that will give us meaning and direction. We all have dreams and wishes for what we want to attain with our lives – we are motivated to move towards something. A motivation here could be: “I want to be slender and healthy as I get older, so I can enjoy being with my family and grandchildren.
So I want to do something to move towards that.”If we use both of them, it will be easier to create momentum forward.
Motivated behavior can be identified by dedication, persistence and intensity. When we are dedicated, there is a clear sense of what we do and we are attentive and concentrated. Persistence is reflected by the fact that we keep on going, even when it becomes hard and there is adversity.
Intensity is reflected by the fact that we are trying, we strive and are willing to invest many resources in what we do.
Goal–Setting Process
To help you clarify your marathon vision, you can use some of the segments below:
- Maybe you would like to show your neighbor, friend, colleague, or spouse that you can reach an extreme goal!
- Maybe you would like to surprise the whole world with what you can do, after having trained a long time in secret!
- Maybe you have a dream; you want to make it into a reality with family or others as spectators!
- Maybe you are a Salesperson and know that you have a good approach to clients if you have the same experiences as they have!
- Maybe you have a charity purpose
If you make your vision more personal, it will have greater power with “I” first like:
- I want to experience the ecstatic with thousands of other participants after passing the finish line…
- I want to raise money for …
- I am running this marathon in honor of my Dad who …
- I always put others before myself, and it leaves me exhausted and worn out. It is time to make ME a priority and live a long happy healthy life for my family…
Set-Up Your Marathon Goal
By following this 5 Step – plan above and answering the questions you’ll move from “vision into reality”. The plan will help you to clarify and make your running vision concrete – with a goal. If you are a little nervous it’s absolutely okay.
Because most of us don’t want changes and answering the questions above, will probably trigger a kind of resistance within you. Take one small step at a time and don’t hurry. You’ll see results faster than you believe.
If you are interested in how to set goals for your marathon base like me I started here. I hope you like this post and if you have any questions about setting your goals for your marathon base or want to leave your own Personal review, please leave a comment below.
Hello, What an insightful posting..I feel like i’m learning too much these days. My running journey has taught me so much, particular the importance of setting realistic goals. It helps me direct my energy.
Thanks for sharing the 5 steps plan in setting my marathon goals and I’m pretty sure it will help me a great deal.
Hi Hillarydandy
Thank you for the comment
– Seems you are on the way
Be Well
hellooo dear, thanks alot sharing such an amazing post it really has been helpfull alot, i see you have wriiten a thorough article here, these has been one of the most thorough and laid down article ive read so far, its really crazy with what you can accomplish with the right post, i already saved these post so as to come back for future reference.
Hi Skuchmane
Thank you for the comment and your compliments
Be well