Before you tackle any training program you need to have goals. Before the season you should set your training goals, which are necessary to achieve your racing goals. Training goals can be expressed in weekly mileage, minutes of runnng per week, number of quality workouts, and/or number of workouts per week. At LO, we will use number of workouts per week and total minutes run per week.

Even more important is setting your racing goals.

To set upn proper racing goals you need to honestly evaluate yourself on three levels: Minimal, Reasonable and Optimal.

The Minimal goal is the "no matter what" goal. You will al least achieve this goal--regardless of what kind of adversity or challenges you have to deal with (weather conditions, social life, etc.)

The Reasonable goal is a good solid goal where some things go well and perhaps others don't; but you compete to the best of your ability for that day and execute your race plan.

The Optimal goal is what you want to achieve if everything goes as well  as expected (the stars are aligned), you compete to the absolute best of your ability and you set a new personal best or record (PB or PR).

Remember that you should set up goals for each individual race in a similar manner. It is very helpful to set up a race plan with intermediate "split" times to reach on your way to your Reasonable goal.

An example of specific goals for a junior with a good off-season training background looking to improve on her 5:20 1,500-meter performance.

Minimal	Reasonable	Optimal
150 minutes of running per week in 5 or more workouts	180 mins/week in 5 or more workouts	240 mins/week in 6 workouts
Improve 800 time to 2:35	Improve 800 to 2:30	Improve 800 to 2:25
Complete 8 x 400 @ 85 secs.	Complete 8 x 400 @ 82	Complete 8 x 400 @ 80
Set PR at District	Top 6 at District	Top 2 at District
5:15 for 1500	5:05 for 1500	sub 5:00 for 1500