I’m the kind of person who likes to stack my goals; I line them up so when I achieve one, I have another goal waiting in the wings. I do this in all aspects of my life; personal, professional, and now physical.

In the simplest of terms, I like to always have something to reach for so I am always moving the goalposts.

When I started running the best advice I ever received was to ‘set small goals and celebrate achieving them.”  I took that advice to heart and to this day I celebrate every accomplishment.  It doesn’t mean I go out and buy myself expensive things, or get new running gadgets.  My celebration can be as simple as getting some new music, or making a pizza, or on one occasion an audio book I have always wanted. Sometimes, my celebration is a simple, ear to ear grin and a little fist pump in the air.

In setting my goals I make sure that I’m not just going after one thing. Once I’ve achieved something, I move on to the next thing and move my goalposts so there’s another one beyond that. Another way I could describe it is the dominoes effect. One goal topples but there’s another one behind it and another one behind that and so on.

My recent achievement, running a 5k in under 40 minutes, was a huge accomplishment for me. I still feel pretty amazed at having done it, but now I’m focusing on my next goal while mulling over the other goals I have lined up.

What are my goals you ask?

• My current goal is to run 10k without stopping or walking.  I’ve only gone 10k once before, this summer at the Flora Women’s Mini Marathon, and I ran/walked it. I’m working on getting to the point where I can run the entire distance. I’m not concerned with time, I just want to go the distance!
• After that, my goal will be to run 5 miles in an hour or under (my current best time is 1:08:06.
• Concurrent to those goals, I would also like to continue to shave time off my 5k, which I hope will happen naturally as I train for the longer distance.
• And, as always, my racing goal is to always beat my previous race times.

Regarding racing, I have two races I’m planning on signing up for:

The Donore Harriers Jingle Bells 5k this December 6th (which will be a new route I’ve never run before; exciting!) and

The Raheny 5 mile on January 25th.

After my success at the Dublin MoRun, I’m feeling really confident, and excited about my running plans; though I did just turn around and knock on wood!

How do you decide on your running goals? What running achievements are you trying to accomplish? I’d love to know so please leave a comment below!