November: Setback

   Running school starts when you fail at a goal. In fact, pity the runner who never succeeds in failing; dreams drawn from the safe side of life handcuff great character. By contrast, a spectacular failure reveals a hero.

   But what about the goal you abandon untested or unfinished – the marathon date scratched from the calendar, the bewildered shrug at the bathroom scale, or the humbled phone call to beg off a workout with a running mate? These minor defeats can kill a training program outright and cast a pall of doubt over all other goals you attempt. They're poison for a runner.

   This is a shame. All running goals begin with a gamble of the imagination. Training gives you a steady, if imperfect, stream of information, which should periodically bring into review your original goal. Workouts should wise up your dreams, alter them, extend, or dump them – all without provoking feelings of defeat. World-class runners have a genius for letting their training programs reveal the goal that matters. All other plans and desires slip into memory like rehearsals for opening night.

   Of course, we all make bad training decisions, and the trick to letting go of a goal you can't reach or don't have the heart to attempt lies in training down, which is just a fancy way of distinguishing baby from bathwater. It's easy enough. Begin by eliminating interval training, hill charges, and any other form of speed work from your program altogether. Reduce your total mileage by 10 percent per week for four weeks, then maintain. Don't expect these workouts to be glorious or gratifying. They're grinds - places of unvaried humility to bury defeat, to reassess, and, eventually, to begin dreaming again.

   Training down is good for your body, especially after extended periods of hard workouts, because it gives muscles and connective tissue weeks to heal thoroughly. It's a time to isolate the causes of chronic pain and to begin the maddening search for a remedy. It's a splendid occasion to begin cross training for the diversion it brings to your workouts and for the many ways it strengthens core muscle groups. Incidentally, if you hate running with others, now is the time to revisit those prejudices.

   Few of us will abide this running purgatory for long. Just watch: within a week or two you will find yourself entertaining a new goal for the focus and motivation it brings to your workouts - or you'll want to stop running entirely. Resist both alternatives. Instead, take careful stock of your best abilities as a runner, which change over time, and begin an ongoing and tough-minded assessment of the ways you find joy in training. Above all, be patient and doubtful of ambitions that arrive with thunderous clarity.

   Better goals evolve. Their traps and false hopes are stripped away with miles of exertion and sweat. Be willing to let this happen. And when a new goal holds as much possibility and excitement at the end of a workout as it does at the beginning, it's probably time to start training up.