Goal-setting is what bridges the gap between running casually and running purposefully. Whether you’re competing with your own personal best or toeing the line with other runners in an upcoming race, the first step to being ready is setting a goal.
For many runners, the most common type of goal is based on mileage. Some of us set a mileage goal for the year and we divide it as we see fit over the different months. Others prefer shorter-term goals and set their mileage at the beginning of each month. You can do both with Smashrun’s first goal-setting feature.
To set a goal, click on the prompt under the goal header:
If you’re viewing your All Time stats, you’ll see the option to set a goal for the current month and the current year. If you’re viewing your 2014 stats, it will ask you for your 2014 goal and, if you’re viewing January, it asks for your January goal.
Once your goal is set, unless you’ve got private stats, other runners will see it as well!
If you’re a Smashrun Pro user, you’ll also know when you’re behind your mileage goal, because your number of miles in the progress bar will turn red and you’ll see an approximate value indicating where you should already be.
You can also edit your goals anytime just by clicking on it or, delete it by mousing over your goal and clicking the ‘x’ icon that shows up on the top right corner.
If you’re not yet ready to set a goal, no problem. It’s smart enough to know not to show up when no goals have been set, so other users don’t see it when they visit your profile. Although, you should really give it a try, because we’d like to see what sort of running goals you’ve got this year!
Is there a cosmetic bug on the yearly goal? “I want to run x km by Jan 1st, 2014”. Surely that should be 2015 for a 2014 goal?
Hi Rich, Yup that’s a bug. Although, the goal is correctly set to end on Jan. 1st, 2015. We realized it was a typo after the immediate follow-up patch we released at 5am. Bummer. We’ll try and sort that out quickly 🙂
Thanks for implementing this! I like the live tracking of the distance goals, especially the extra pointer showing if you’re ahead/behind your target.
It would be great though if there were live tracking of other types of goals (Speed, participation). E.g. Showing your current furthest run if you’re aiming to run a marathon, or showing your current fastest speed when aiming to beat your 5k PB.
Some sort of check-box system that you could tick off as goals are completed would be great too. of the sort of thing I’m thinking. Just some ideas.
I would also like to see additional goal types. The one I’d like to see most would be sessions per week.
That’s a great idea. A lot of people have already indicated that they’re interested in goal setting on the headliner feature. If people continue to express interest we’d like to set up a variety of goal types either automatically tracked or manually checked off as a new pro feature.
Just noticed the goal setting – that’s going to help me a lot I think. I have a monthly plan, but I hadn’t looked at in a week until I noticed this new feature. Thanks!
I love the concept but I think you have a font size display issue when it comes to Google Chrome. I only see “In 2014, I will” in each goal and it is in a very large font.
I just installed Firefox and I am seeing the same problem. I tried it on Internet Explorer 8 and everything is a dark grey so I can’t see anything!
Hi Paul,
Can you send us an email to hi@smashrun.com for the IE 8 issue? Maybe include a screenshot as well. We released a fix that should’ve automatically removed “In 2014, I will” and “In January, I will” when you only input a mileage goal without editing the actual text field. Currently, the font size actually changes depending on the amount of content that’s within that text field. For example, if you typed a paragraph, you’ll see that the font size will be significantly smaller whereas shorter goal text will be much larger. You can edit the goal by clicking it too!
Love it!
Thank you! I’ve been busy and just got a chance to look at this. Love it!
Love the 1.0 version!
With January running to the end, I’m planning for February. It would be nice to be able to set future goals a couple of days (or weeks) ahead of time.
Hello,
Goals are good… 🙂 I have set 80 kms for January and set 100kms for February. The widget says that currently I’m at 88 of 100 in February. Somehow Januray kms are included in the sum.
Would be nice if the widget could make an “educated guess” if the goal would be completed based on the average run days, lenght and the remaing days from the goal date.
This should be fixed. There was a weird caching issue that appeared to include January’s mileage in February but, we patched it up today so let us know if you find otherwise!
Coincidentally, we were just talking about incorporating “educated guesses” into goal setting but it’s most likely going to be part of the pro version that’s currently being voted on within the headliner features 🙂