Goal Setting for Endurance Athletes
Every endurance athlete sets goals—whether it’s chasing a PR, qualifying for Boston, or finally finishing that 100-miler. Goals give direction. They help shape training blocks, fuel long runs, and drive us through race day lows.
But not all goals are created equal.
If your entire mindset is wrapped around one outcome—one race result—you’re building on shaky ground. When the weather turns, your stomach flips, or someone else simply runs better that day, everything can unravel.
At Trailhead Counseling DFW, we help athletes build goals that hold up when the trail tests you. That starts with understanding three key types:
Outcome Goals
Performance Goals
Process Goals
Together, they create a more resilient, flexible, and grounded approach to chasing big objectives.
Outcome Goals: The Results You Want
Outcome goals are what most athletes start with:
Run a sub-3:00 marathon
Podium at your next 50K
Qualify for Western States
They’re exciting. They give your training purpose. But they’re also largely out of your control. Someone else’s performance, race-day conditions, or sheer luck can take your best effort off the board.
Use them for direction—not identity.
Outcome goals can inspire, but alone they are not great goals.
Performance Goals: How You Want to Show Up
Performance goals aren’t about the result. They’re about how you run, race, and respond—especially when things get hard.
Think:
Hold steady effort through the final climb
Maintain pace through aid stations
Refocus quickly after a setback
These goals are more within your control. They reflect mindset, strategy, and adaptability. And they keep you grounded when the race starts writing its own story.
Performance goals are where resilience lives.
Process Goals: What You Can Actually Control
This is where the real work gets done.
Process goals are the daily and weekly habits that build performance over time:
Get 8+ hours of sleep
Follow your recovery plan
Fuel every long run
Practice breathwork or mental skills once a week
They’re not flashy. But they’re the foundation. Lay the bricks, one day at a time, and you build something strong enough to hold up under pressure.
Before You Set Goals—Reconnect with Your Why
A well-written goal means nothing if you don’t know why it matters to you.
Ask yourself:
Why do I train?
Why do I race?
What role does this sport play in my life?
When goals align with a personal “why,” they’re more sustainable, more motivating, and more fulfilling. When they don’t, they become just another way to measure your worth. I’ve found that most athletes are motivated by one of two things:
Love: curiosity, purpose, gratitude, joy
Fear: insecurity, pressure, shame, comparison
Training from a place of love feels expansive. Training from fear? Restrictive, anxious, heavy.
Ask yourself:
Am I training to become the athlete I want to be—or to prove I’m good enough to be here at all?
Understanding your “why” and how that is or isn’t connected to your worth allows you to start with a solid foundation for building your goals.
Mental Flexibility > Outcome Fixation
The best goals are goals that can be adjusted. Being mentally tough isn’t about grinding harder. It’s about staying flexible when things don’t go as planned. This means that the best athletes set goals but don’t become overly fixated on them and can adjust their goals based on the day so that they can find success no matter the outcome result. This skill is known as emotional agility and it is a trainable skill for all athletes. An example is a “do your best goal.”
“Do Your Best” Goals: When the Day Doesn’t Go to Plan
Sometimes your stomach turns on you. Or the trail turns to mud. Or your legs just don’t show up.
On those days, “Do Your Best” goals keep you from spiraling. They help you:
Keep moving forward
Stay focused on what you can control
Leave the trail proud, even when the numbers don’t reflect it
Sometimes people think of “do your best” goals as failure or toxic positivity, they are neither of those things, they are a way of training your brain to create and find success even in failure. They are the resilience that endurance athletes must have to be success because not every run or race is a breakthrough. These goals train the brain to understand that each run is not only a success or failure but can be viewed as an opportunity to train resilence.
Your Next Step: Reflect + Realign
Set aside 15 minutes to write your answers to the following:
What’s your current outcome goal?
Is it within reach? Is it actually yours?
What performance goals support it?
How do you want to show up when it counts?
What process goals will you commit to this month?
Are they sustainable? Do they reflect your values?
What’s your “why”?
Is it built on curiosity and care—or comparison and fear?
At Trailhead Counseling DFW, we help athletes:
Build mentally sustainable goals
Navigate pressure and performance dips
Train mental skills like focus, reframing, and emotional regulation
📍 Based in Dallas-Fort Worth.
🧠 Serving endurance athletes nationwide through virtual sessions.
The trail tests you. We train you.