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Re: Goal Times [M~] [ In reply to ]
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1. Generally. The shorter the race, especially if I have done it before, the more goal times mean.
2. It depends. Sometimes the cards just aren't in your favor. For example, I did a HIM last year in driving rain while I had food poisoning. I missed my goal time by 52 min. However, people were dropping out in T1 and on the bike because of the weather, and it was the most miserable that I have ever been in a race, so I think just finishing under those circumstances was good enough.
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Re: Goal Times [M~] [ In reply to ]
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When I enter an event I'll typically have some sort of idea of what time I'm aiming for, but by the time I get to race day I'll have revised that goal (sometimes up, sometimes down) based on the training I've done so that I'm generally toeing the start line with a realistic goal in my head. If it's slower than the goal I originally had in mind because life got in the way of my training and preparation, then I might be a bit annoyed with myself and it might galvanise me to refocus my training, but I don't let it get in the way of my enjoyment of racing.

I'm generally comfortable adjusting goals on the fly during the race if I need to. Typically this is because I've misjudged the difficulty of the course or conditions, in which case I have no problem recalibrating and am still happy as long as I feel I've raced to the best of my ability on that particular day. On the few occasions where I've had to change goals because my performance on the day simply isn't where I thought it was, either because of training, taper, illness, whatever, then that's more annoying but I can still generally mentally put poor preparation to one side and just enjoy the day for what it is.

About the only race I can remember where I really felt disappointed with myself was one where I fixated too much on a goal and let it screw up my performance. It was the only open marathon I've done, I had a conservative goal of 3:30 but was thinking I might get close to 3:20 based on a couple of half marathons I'd done in the spring. I had a few late training disruptions due to a minor injury and some work travel, and then race day was hot and sunny which isn't ideal for me. Told myself I would set off on goal pace and then adjust if I needed to, went through halfway at 1:43 and feeling pretty good, and started thinking that 3:25 or below might be on the cards, since I often negative split. Started to tighten up a bit through miles 15-18 and with hindsight if I'd eased up at that point I was still capable of doing low 3:30s. As it was I pushed on at 3:25 pace and then got hamstring cramps at ~21 miles and hobbled home for a 3:42. It wasn't missing my goal that annoyed me. The travel, injury and conditions probably caused that and all were out of my control. What annoyed me was turning in a performance that was probably 10 minutes slower than I was capable of, and which was entirely due to my pig-headedness in ignoring what my body was telling me.
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