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HEALTH&FITNESS
COMMENTARY:
RUNNING
February15
If you don’t know where you’re
going, how will you know when
you’ve got there? Setting goals
can help keep you motivated,
says VERNE MAREE.
F
orgive me if I’m a month late
with this New Year’s Resolution-
type topic, but we magazine
editors work somewhat ahead
(or should do), and it’s difficult to write
about setting exercise goals when your
real purpose in life is to polish off the rest
of that second, just-in-case and wholly
gratuitous Waitrose pudding – together
with the spare jar of brandy butter.
Moving on. For a beginner, the first goal
is to
make running a habit
, an activity
you regularly do two, three, four or more
times a week and
would start to miss
if you couldn’t get to
doing it. This phase
can take anything
from a few weeks, if
you’re lucky, to five
or sixmonths or even
longer. Or you might
conclude, before
you’ve developed the
habit, that running
isn’t the sport for you.
If you do decide
to make it a part of
your life, think about
what you want from running
. If you
just want it to help you maintain basic
cardiovascular fitness and burn off your
morning latte and muffin, running for 30
minutes three times a week should do
the trick. But if you’re curious to discover
what you might be capable of, you’ll
probably want to start running further,
perhaps faster; maybe look for a local
race to sign up for.
Of all the popular sports, running is
possibly the most intensely
personal
,
and so are a runner’s goals. You may
see the marathon (42.2K) as the obvious
distance to aim for, and many do; but
there’s nothing to say you should. You
could aim for the half, or for the 10K, or
simply stick to 5K races. You could join
the hash for some serious jungle-bashing
and socialising. You can be a runner
without ever even entering a race.
After my first miserable, gasping
trot in Singapore’s soupy atmosphere
(probably at midday!), I set myself just one
goal: to jog three
times a week for
30 minutes, merely
to maintain a basic
level of fitness until
wemoved to amore
reasonable climate.
That was 14 years
ago – luckily, I did
eventually manage
to acclimatise!
If the
marathon
(or the half) is your
long-term goal,
however, it’s helpful
to set a series of
reasonable interim goals – to run races
over shorter distances like 10K, 15K
and 21.1K, for example – to keep you
motivated and on track. To paraphrase
from local marathon guru Dr Ben Tan’s
book,
Run for Your Life! The Complete
Marathon Guide
, one’s goal is seldom
simply to complete a particular distance;
you may also want to finish in one piece,
within a specific training timeframe, within
the training hours that you are prepared
to commit to, or achieving a certain rate
of improvement.
“Failing to
plan
means planning to
fail,” said Benjamin Franklin (first). Once
you’ve decided on your achievable
goal, write it down. Then find a doable
programme to help get you there;
runnersworld.com is just one of many
useful resources.
All the experts recommend keeping
a detailed
runner’s log
, or diary, where
you record such things as the date
of your run, the route, distance, time,
weather conditions, any injuries, who (if
anyone) you ran with, and how you felt,
both physically andmentally. Again, you’ll
find many printable versions on the web.
GPS
runningwatches
likemy Garmin
Forerunner 220 record exercise data
like distance, pace and heart rate that
can be uploaded to your computer for
further analysis, if you’re so inclined.
“There’s a coach in every watch,” says
the advertising blurb.
A Cautionary Tale
Many years ago in London, I had a very
short, rather stout and (l’ll be blunt) direly
unathletic neighbour who’d never run a
step in anger. Let’s call her Lottie. One
day, having seen me returning from a
training run for my first half-marathon, she
decided she was going to run amarathon
Exercise to stimulate,
not to annihilate. The
world wasn’t formed
in a day, and neither
were we. Set small
goals and build upon
them.
– Lee Haney
Martinmark | Dreamstime.com