Step2: Goals

Marathon Training

The first thing to consider in training for a marathon is just what your goal is in the marathon. Do you just want to finish at any pace or in a specific time? Do you just want to cover the miles either walking or jogging, or are you aiming at a personal best time?

The starting point of your training program depends on how much running have you done in the past year, how regularly you have been running recently, your overall physical condition at the moment, if you practice other physical fitness or aerobic activities on a regular basis, and to what extent you wish to race the marathon. 

The training program itself depends on the goals you have set for yourself, if they are of course, realistic ones. Your goals should be both long term and short term. The long term goal is basically the marathon itself in this case. The short term goals are structured here on a weekly basis. Your weekly or short term goals depend on which category of running you belong to, which will be discussed below. From an inner point of view, we should know the goals we have set for ourselves on a daily basis. It is of course helpful to be reminded from time to time. Poems such as these can help tremendously:

“His matchless goal
    Is to set
A new aspiration-record
    Every day.”


“Your days of orphan-sorrows
    Are behind you
    And
    Not beside you.
Why, then, do you
    Helplessly cry?
Your days of excellence-joys
    Are ahead of you
    And
    Not beside you.
Why, then, do you not
    Immediately run and declare:
    THE GOAL IS WON.”

With that inspiration to reach our goal, we should immediately start, here and now, to run towards our goal.