Second-Hand Dreams
On where our running goals really come from
As runners, we hear one question particularly often at the beginning of the year:
“What are your running goals this year?”
Such a polite and harmless question. And pretty easy to answer by default. A race. A time. A distance. The next logical step on the ladder.
“Autumn marathon.”
“Trying to PB in the 10K.”
“Thinking about a hundred miler.”
All perfectly acceptable answers. None of them necessarily wrong. But if you press pause for a second and really look at them, an interesting follow-up question appears:
Who put that goal there in the first place?
Was it really you? Or did you borrow it from someone else and just forget to give it back?
Sub-Whatever
Road running loves clean numbers. A marathon under four hours. Then under 3:30. Then under three. And for some of us the pattern even continues. Same goes for the 10K: under an hour, under 50 minutes, under 40, and so forth.
These thresholds feel ancient and sacred, but they are basically graphic design. Lines someone once drew on a results list that suddenly turned into identity markers.
You are a “sub-3 runner” or you are not.
You “broke 40” or you did not.
You mastered the half marathon or you did not.
From a purely physical perspective, there is no real difference between a 3:03 and a 2:57 marathon. Your body does not care. Your life on Monday looks exactly the same. But emotionally, culturally, socially, it is a different planet. The 2 in front of your marathon time opens doors. It changes how you talk about your running, how others talk about it, and how you secretly talk to yourself.
I am not saying these time goals are bad. I have chased them myself for years. Some of my strongest memories in running are tied to a digital clock and a number I wanted to see on it.
But it is worth asking:
Did the goal grow out of my own curiosity? Or did I just accept that “a real runner” has to aim for sub-whatever at some point?
The infinite running distance
Trail and ultra running work with a different kind of magic, but the mechanism is similar.
You start with a trail half marathon. Then a marathon. Then a 50K. Then 50 miles. Then 100K. Then 100 miles. At some point, people nod approvingly and say things like: “The next logical step.” As if it is a promotion in an office job. As if there was a hidden HR department of endurance sports that keeps a file on you and sends a letter when it is time to move up.
The reality is more awkward. There is no end point.
You can always add more distance, more elevation, more days, more suffering. You can stack verticals, 200-mile races, stage races, backyard ultras until you literally fall apart.
You can live in a permanent state of “not quite there yet”, no matter how many finish lines you cross.
Again, there is nothing inherently wrong with that progression. Curiosity and courage are beautiful reasons to go long.
But there is a difference between “I wonder if I could” and “I guess I should”.
One is alive. The other is paperwork.
Chamonix gravity and other black holes
Races, just like numbers, also have their own gravitational pull.
Think about UTMB weekend. Even if you are not into trail running, your feed gets flooded. Finish line videos, drone shots, emotional black-and-white close-ups, brand campaigns, athlete announcements, you know the drill. People you know and people you do not know, all squeezed into the same valley, running under the same arch.
At some point, you catch yourself thinking: “I should probably run UTMB one day.” Not because you have ever looked at the course profile. Not because you feel a personal connection to Mont Blanc. But because the whole sport seems to point there. It looks like the place where “real trail runners” eventually end up.
The same thing happens on the road. Berlin, London, Boston. Races we talk about as if the marathon distance only really counts there.
There is nothing wrong with these events. Many of them are genuinely special. But it is worth noticing how little time we spend asking whether they are special for us.
Does this race genuinely call you?
Or is it just the loudest voice in the room?
What goals do for me
And what they do not
Road
For the road, I have a simple truth: time goals are tools.
I love training. Deeply. //Levelhead speaking here// I love the structure, the sessions, the feeling of moving through a plan, the weeks stacking on top of each other. To enjoy that part fully, I need a frame. A number to aim at. It does not always have to be a PB. Those days are getting rarer anyway.
Sometimes it is a barrier I have already crossed once. Sometimes it is the same goal in a different context. A marathon time on a different course. A pace that used to be brutal, now as controlled effort.
The number is not the point. It is an anchor. Something clear enough so I know what I am training for, sharp enough to focus my effort, but neutral enough that my whole self-worth is not chained to it.
Trail
On the trails, it is different. Out there, I never think in minutes per kilometer. The same loop on my home mountain can feel like a victory when I am fit, or like stubborn survival when I am tired or injured. The watch tells a story, but not the story.
What stays with me is the experience. The weather that turned halfway up. The quiet section in the forest. The rock where I always stop to breathe and look down. It is allowed to be the same old mountain, over and over again. The relationship changes, even if the GPS track does not.
Races
With races, I have one personal rule that I did not consciously design, but that keeps showing up:
I can only fully commit to a race if it calls me.
Sometimes this call is loud and dramatic. Western States. Sierre-Zinal. A course that connects places that matter to me, like the Aosta Valley.
Sometimes it is soft and slow. A small local ultra. A race that keeps popping up in conversations. An idea that keeps returning during easy runs.
When a race truly calls, something in me wakes up. The Levelhead in me starts drawing training plans and color-coding weeks. The Punk gets pumped and is ready to suffer for the fun of it. Purpose and direction click into place. It feels like turning all the dials up to 11 for a limited time.
Right now, no race is calling me. I am injured, or half-injured, or just not in a place where I want to throw everything into one day on a start line. And that is fine.
Not every season needs a plot. Not every year needs an A-race.
Sometimes the most honest answer to “What are you training for?” is “I am just trying to be able to run without pain again.”
Or simply: “I am running because I like how it feels, even without a concrete goal.”
The moment after
It is tempting to define a goal by the moment we achieve it. The marathon clock stopping at 2:59. The buckle of the first 100-miler in your hand. The email that says “You’re in” for a dream race.
These are powerful moments. They are allowed to be.
But if you really want to understand a goal, look at the moment after.
What does your life look like in the weeks after you ran that time, or finished that distance, or crossed that finish line? What changed, besides the line in your Strava bio? What did you have to give up to get there? Time, health, relationships, curiosity for other things?
And, maybe the most uncomfortable question: once the glow fades, do you feel more like yourself, or less?
This is where the difference between a second-hand dream and a true, self-chosen goal becomes visible.
A borrowed goal often leaves emptiness, or the immediate urge to find the next one before the silence gets too loud.
A real goal, even if it hurts, tends to leave a quiet sense of alignment. You look back and think: “Yes. That was mine to do.”
Crosscheck
I am not trying to talk you out of your goals. Sub-X marathon, first ultra, UTMB, backyard ultra, and a local 5K. None of these are inherently pure or corrupt. They are just containers.
What matters is what you pour into them.
There is no secret committee watching. There is only you, your body, your time, and the story you are trying to live. And in that story, you are allowed to choose your own dreams, instead of wearing someone else’s hand-me-downs.
Everything Not Running
I used to watch a lot of movies. At some point that just… stopped. Streaming changed a lot. Millions of movies just a click away. Too many half-hearted scripts, too many loud trailers, too much scrolling before you even press play.
But recently I watched a film that gave me that old Hollywood feeling again: Highest 2 Lowest. It’s a big, emotional story about two people at opposite ends of success in the rap game who collide for a few days and quietly rearrange each other’s lives — part redemption, part road movie, part love letter to second chances. With an unfathomable Denzel Washington acting for his life in this leading role. I was fully locked in for more than two hours.
It’s not subtle, but it’s sincere. And if you get the chance, I honestly recommend watching it in one sitting and letting it punch straight through your cynicism.
On Repeat
Oh oh, I’m starting to repeat myself. We’ve already had Malev aka Malevolence. But since this band never ceases to amaze me, I’m happy to give them a second spin!
The song pick is an older track from their 2022 album “Malicious Intent,” namely “On Broken Glass.” It has everything heavy music needs, plus an absolutely killer video as a bonus.
Bonus tip: play it loud.
I gave up on road running time goals a long time ago. Trying to hit an arbitrary number just to compare myself to others kept leaving me disappointed.
It’s funny though as I’ve just gone through that bigger step after bigger step on the ultra side.
Last year was a huge year for me and I fully committed to two races that called me and they both really broke me. I think this year is going to be a bit of a reset year with nothing too crazy in distance and prepare for the next round of huge events on my list.
There's a lot of wisdom here, and some good questions. I have to admit to sometimes trying to plant goals in other people's minds... maybe they've just finished their first 100k, and I say "you know, 100k's are a gateway drug...". I say it lovingly, as a congratulatory joke, but it implies that they need to go further, and maybe they don't. It really is better to be called into your next Hard Thing than to be pushed into it by other people's expectations.