Most readers know by this point that my big scary goal that I’ve been talking about for years—a podium at the Leadville 100 trail race—didn’t happen this summer.
It’s never about just the end goal.
Hear me out.
It sounds corny, but even before Leadville didn’t go my way, I told Johnathan Levitt on his podcast, For The Long Run, that I felt like my Leadville goal was already a win because of the work I had done to get to race day. For two years, this big goal controlled my training calendar and my daily habits. I wasn’t perfect, but I was pretty damn close when it came to following my training plan, doing all the workouts, and doing all the extras that I would need to do to excel at Leadville. I did the qualifier at altitude in order to race at altitude before the race itself. We lived in an altitude tent. I ran, a lot. I did my morning routine religiously, I went to physio anytime I had a minor niggle to nip it in the bud early, I ate SO MUCH. I was as ready as ready could be—arguably in the best shape of my life. I dialed in the gear, I practiced drinking so much Tailwind on long runs. I had the race planned out to the smallest detail, a great crew assembled. I had put myself in the best possible position to do well.
We know how that went: A rolled ankle at mile 38 that resulted in a really bad sprain and a hobble up and over the mountain before I had to stop. Before that, things were going great—exactly according to plan.
And that’s the thing with goals. Sometimes, things happen. Running at the pace I was running, there was always going to be a risk of slipping on loose rock: If I was running slower, perhaps I wouldn’t have crashed. But if I was running slower, I wouldn’t have been going back and forth in third/fourth place, closing in on second. You take calculated risks, and sometimes they pay off, sometimes they don’t.
Talking to mindset coach and sports psych Betsy Butterick last month for some other articles I was working on, I felt so validated. We talked about the concept of breaking down a goal from the outcome goal that you don’t have much control over to the pieces that you do have control over. And the overarching question is: “Who do I need to become to put myself in the best position to achieve this goal?”
That question and its answer will shape you into the person you want to be. That’s a much bigger win than any finish line could ever provide. And if you haven’t thought through your action plan for the next year in that context, I highly recommend it. The answers are really interesting!
You can move on regardless of outcome
This is a big one that I’ve learned this season—it wasn’t a mental struggle for me, but it’s been interesting realizing how other people think about a race that didn’t pan out. People keep asking if I’ll go back, if I still have something to prove with Leadville. And sure, I may go back eventually, but at the moment, I’m not planning to. That’s because in my mind, that goal is done. I didn’t get it, but that doesn’t mean I need to keep trying or I’m a failure.
It means Leadville 2024 is over, what’s next?
That could be Leadville 2025, but that would be a separate, new goal. It’s not just a constant extension of the exact same goal. That line of thinking gets you stuck in a potentially never-ending spiral.
I think this is the problem: We often think about events without tying a year to them, and that takes the T out of the SMART goal framework. (The T is for timebound.) When our goal doesn’t have a timeline attached to it, and it’s just the race, it’s easy to get stuck in the idea that you must go back.
Going back to the same event—a Revenge Tour, if you will—might be what you want to do. And that’s great… But it’s not the same goal, it’s a NEW goal. It’s Leadville 2025, not Leadville 2024. You’re back to the drawing board, and if you don’t have the same excitement and motivation as you did the year before, it’s okay to consider a different race. Leadville 2025 is not what I want to do with my next year of running, for a multitude of reasons. (Living in an altitude tent for another year being one of them!)
It’s okay to move on to new challenges even if you didn’t hit your goal in the last challenge. For me, I feel like I did give Leadville my all, and I’m good with leaving it in the past (for now). On the other hand, there are goals I have missed before, like when I was chasing the La Cloche FKT, that do still sit in my mind as goals I want to go after again.
All that to say, don’t feel as though if you missed your 2024 season goal, you need to chase the exact same goal next year.