At the beginning of the year, I (Jen) wrote about goal setting. I had publicly proclaimed my goal of running a sub 3-hour, 45-minute marathon in an attempt to qualify for the Boston Marathon. My training was going great until late February/early March when work and life got in the way. I did the smart thing; I reevaluated my goal.

It has taken me a long time to learn to deal with the adversity of training and racing. After my first Ironman, there is a picture of me pouting as I look up at the clock. I had finished more than an hour slower than anticipated. I didn't have mechanical or nutritional issues; I just didn't have the fitness and speed required to hold the pace for the time I had as my goal.

I've been racing a long time and met my goals numerous times, but I've also failed to reach my goals just as many times or more. As I've become more experienced, I've learned to manage this adversity as well as manage my expectations and goals in such a way that I am able to stay motivated and train for the next race.

That's why after I realized that my training was not on track for the marathon, the first thing I did was change to racing the half marathon rather than the full. This allowed me to scale back my training miles. Training had started to become a chore. And if you aren't getting paid to race, training and racing need to be fun or an addition to your life, not something that causes you to stress out.

That doesn't mean there aren't going to be days where you have to force yourself to get in a workout or push through discomfort during a high-intensity or high-volume workout. In general, training and exercising should be an addition to your life.

Training and racing should improve your health, not harm it. Sometimes modifying your goal along the way is critical to success whether that means reducing the pace or decreasing the length of the race to keep training in alignment with your life.

But what if you keep your original goal and still don't meet it? During long races like a marathon and Ironman or any event longer than two hours, there is a lot of opportunity for things to go wrong. You could have a nutritional problem or a mechanical issue could end your race early or force you to limp along at a much slower pace than planned.

It is key to have three goals for any major race. The first goal should always be to finish with a smile on your face. The second goal should be to finish at a comfortably hard pace. The third goal should be a stretch goal like my 3:45 marathon. It should be difficult, but possible with the right training.

I still believe in setting goals that are a reach. The human body is able to do amazing things. The joy of reaching these goals is far more satisfying than the pain of not reaching them.