If people are not laughing at your goals, your goals are too small.

Azim Premji

Professional runners have big fucking goals. Often unrealistic, often ridiculed by people who could only dream of what those runners are capable of achieving. But they still have them, and they do everything possible to achieve them.

It’s with that in mind that I’ve decided to set myself some big fucking goals for this coming year, what I’m calling my ‘season’. So let’s go through the make-up of this season, which I’ve covered in brief before.

At the moment, I’m in my ‘pre-season’ which has been a sustained increase in training intensity and weekly miles, augmented by a couple of races – the first of which was a 5k road race in February, the second of which is a 10k trail race in about 9 days time.

After that, my season kicks off in earnest. As previously mentioned, the first half of the season is focused on the ITRA National Series, with the first race being the 21k Jabulani Challenge Trail Half on April 6th in Sydney.

After that, there’s a quick turnaround of three weeks before the second race of the season, the Bottlebutt Trail Half in Port Macquarie on April 28th. This sets up my ITRA National Series challenge with only one race to go before my ranking becomes official.

That final race is the Lakes Trail Festival 50k, my “A” race for the first half of the season, held in Hawks Nest on July 6th. There’s a big gap between the second and third races, and for good reason.

Stepping up from the half to ultra distance requires some dedicated training, including some training on course. The course itself at Lakes is much flatter than the previous two races as well, being held mostly at sea level, so the type of running required is much different – I’m anticipating a lot of the course to be pretty runnable with no where near as much climbing, so having the stamina to run for extended periods is paramount.

Plus putting your body through 50 kilometres is hard enough, and requires some pretty serious adaptation, then add into the fact the terrain is hugely different to the other two races and it becomes pretty obvious why I felt the need to have such a large gap between races. I did briefly toy with the idea of adding the Coastal Ascent 21k (held in early June) to the calendar, but felt the terrain of Lakes would be best served by training on the course more than having another race to run.

At this point, I’ll conclude the first, trail focused, half of the season and move into the road half. But the first port of call after Lakes 50k will be listening to my body and resting as much as is needed.

At the moment, the road half of the season is pretty sparse. Unlike the trail half, no races are currently confirmed. I have a couple of races tentatively penciled in the calendar, but they change almost daily at the moment. The more I think about it, the more daunting this entire second half of the season becomes.

For the last two years my focus has been entirely on trail running, with the only road running being done during training (save for one road half marathon in April 2022), and generally when coming back from injury to build up base fitness again. Frankly, I’ve forgotten how to train for road races.

I take some solace in the fact, as mentioned earlier, the Lakes 50k is mostly flat. At the very least, I’ll have built up a level of endurance running that will make the transition to road running a little more easier. But, again as mentioned, 50k is still 50k and I don’t know how much recovery I’ll need. At a minimum, I don’t expect to be back running for at least two weeks.

Which then brings into question spring marathon season.

There are two possibilities, with four race options, for my “A” race of the second half of the season. It really depends on where my fitness is at to determine where I go.

First option, and currently my favourite choice, is the Sydney Marathon. The chance to run a World Marathon Major next year (presuming) is easily what’s pushing this race into the prime spot. It would also be my first marathon and would be a huge accomplishment (see 42.2 and the rite of passage for more detail). The thing that leans against it is the time between the Lakes 50k and the Sydney Marathon – about 10 weeks.

Is 10 weeks enough to recover from a 50k trail race (even if it’s moderately flat) and then go straight into a marathon prep? I think it’s a tad generous, to say the very least, and the more I think about it – even as I’m writing this – the more I convince myself that Sydney, this year, is not the smart choice.

Which leaves race number two – the Melbourne marathon, held about four weeks later in mid-October.

Melbourne is on the list for a couple of reasons. Firstly, its major sponsor (Nike) is a former employer of mine, and to this day I still run almost exclusively in Nike gear – head to toe. Secondly, I used to live in Melbourne and have always held a soft spot for the city. Getting to run my first marathon there would be a real nice salute to the city from me.

Plus changing the prep stage from 10 weeks to 14 weeks is much more comfortable.

Third and fourth options are essentially the same – the half marathon races on each of the above race days (presumably, Sydney doesn’t have a half marathon listed yet, but the website does suggest more distances will be announced).

So there’s all that. Where were we? Oh yeah, goals.

I have set up goals for races, the ITRA National Series, and the end of the year. They fall into three basic categories: Achievable, Stretch, and Big Fucking Goal.

Going through each race, my goals are as follows:
Spartan Trail 10k, 16 March: Achievable: 1:30:00; Stretch: 1:10:00; Big Fucking Goal: sub-60 minutes
Jabulani Challenge 21k, 6 April: Achievable: 3:00:00; Stretch: 2:30:00; Big Fucking Goal: 2:15:00
Bottlebutt Trail Half, 27 April: Achievable: 3:00:00; Stretch: 2:30:00; Big Fucking Goal: 2:15:00
Lakes 50k, 6 July: Achievable: Just finish!; Stretch: 8:00:00; Big Fucking Goal: sub-6 hours

Then the goals for the ITRA National Series:
Achievable: Performance Index above 400 points; Stretch: 500+; Big Fucking Goal: Top 100 nationally, Top 20 in age/gender category.

For the marathon the goals are: Achievable: FINISH!; Stretch: sub 4:30; Big Fucking Goal: sub 4 hours.

As much as the BFGs are truly out-there for my level of running and training right now, as I write them my mind is instantly drawn to the thought of how fucking good it is going to feel to achieve them. And this, I feel, is where the power of BFGs really come in.

It’s not the fact that, to look at them, they seem far outside of what is achievable for you. It’s that you’ve had the gaul to write them down, stare them in the face and dare to think how you’re going to achieve it.