Let's Hear it for Fuzzy Goals!

People talk a lot about goals. About how necessary they are and about how to set them:
Be very specific!
Write them down!
Make them public!
Have A, B, and C goals!
Dream big!
But have definable, smaller goals along the way!

I'm not here to say any of that is bad advice, or that I never use any of those techniques, but as it is the time of year for goal/resolution-oriented posts, I've been doing some reflecting on my own goal-setting techniques.

The thing is, my best running results have come when I threw the specific time goals and race goals out the window and focused only on process. That is a 100% truth in all of my seasons of racing, in every running era of my life. The vaguest goal of all - To Train Well and Hopefully Run Faster - has been the one that has worked best for me.

There was one spring season where I really wanted to break 18 minutes in the 5k. I felt like then my life would be complete. I thought about it a lot, I knew the splits, I visualized, I wanted it very much. I ran some good races, and some prs, but in the end I came up about 5 seconds short. In the ensuing off season, I focused on working on some weaknesses, and early the following season, with no specific time expectations, just wanting to see where I was, I hopped in a 5k and ran about 17:45. I blew through that 18 minute barrier without even thinking about it.

One fall I was training for a marathon. Every amateur marathoner wants to break that 3 hour barrier, but I thought I probably wouldn't be ready for another year or two. Instead of training for a specific marathon pace, I focused on doing my long runs by feel and letting my body figure things out. By the end of the segment, it was apparent that I was in killer shape, and that running under 3 hours shouldn't be a problem. But instead of going out at sub 3 pace, I ran by feel, starting well slow of that and easing into it, just like I did on all my long runs. I ran by feel and crushed it, running 2:56 on a big negative split and feeling like a million bucks.

After that race (a 14 minute pr), all of a sudden the Trials standard (which at the time was "only" 2:46) seemed, well, if not reasonable, at least a possibility.
Naturally I thought that I just needed to do a little bit more in my next segment. I am not one of those people who has to be held back all the time, but I still managed to get myself in just enough of a hole to cause a hormone imbalance and overtraining, which sidelined me from serious training for 6 months.
My next segment after that, armed with new knowledge about what I needed for recovery and nutrition, and eager to get back on my Trials quest, I attempted to run through this little nagging pain in my arch. The nagging little pain turned into full blown Plantar Fasciitis, and my foolish attempt to run through it sidelined me for another 6 months after the marathon (that I had to drop out of anyway).

Yes, I was learning my limits, but the point is that I had been blinded by that "dream big" goal. I wasn't being smart. I wasn't focusing on staying healthy. Distance running is a long term endeavor. The single biggest thing that helps you improve is consistent training. I knew all that and still I was blinded by how awesome it would be to qualify for the Olympic Trials! Holy cow, what an awesome goal, right?

Having goals like:
doing my stretches after every run
remembering to stand up more at work so I don't get desk-job hamstrings
going to bed by 10 pm on weeknights

is not very exciting.

Process goals generally aren't very exciting. And maybe I'm just getting old, but over the last few years I've finally learned that process really is almost everything good about running. Races are fun and are a nice reward for hard work, but you have to love the process to love running. And you have to work on improving your process if you want to improve.

So, with a new year upon us, I'd like to give a big shout-out to the often under-appreciated small, boring, process goals. Because 95% of running is the process.
And to vague, fuzzy goals. Because "Run Faster" can handle modifiers (than last season, than last race, than ever, etc), and because in the big scheme of things, that's all any of us really wants, right? We just want to run faster.