Regionals is the Northern Regional Championships for NSW Little Athletics. Regionals is 23 days away. The first three placegetters go through to the NSW Championships to be held in March. Kas has made the regional finals for the last few years and has finished just outside the placings in both 800m and 1500m. This year he is keen to make it to NSW Championships.

Kas has a best time on grass for 1500m of 5min 38 seconds, though he has run a 5:18 on a synthetic track. Regionals will be run on grass. He believes a time of under 5:00 will be sufficient for him to make it through. He is not sure which is most important to him, making it to NSW Championships or running under 5:00 minutes.

Comments on goal

The goal is well constructed, but the time frame is very short. However, he does have a solid base of training and is experienced in mental preparation, but has had minimal training and competition over the current holiday period. Having the goal will increase his focus and motivation for the next 23 days.

The goal is exceedingly ambitious. It represents an improvement of nearly 40 seconds (or over 2.5 seconds per 100m) on his best 1500m time on grass.

How will this goal impact on other areas of his life?

This program should help Kas to focus on his general health. His schooling should not suffer because it is a short time period, he is currently on school holidays and there will still be time to do school work. He has a number of other sporting commitments that can be supported by his general fitness work.

Concerns

This is a difficult area in a case study. To make the case study relevant, negative issues need to be discussed. These issues are relevant for people coaching or managing the athlete but are not helpful for the athlete.

Loss of interest: Training hard and results not coming quickly enough.

Strain on the body: If the base is not solid enough and if sufficient attention is not paid to diet, sleep and general body maintenance, a goal with this degree of improvement will test the body, both in terms of injury and general health.

Ambition of goal: This is an exceedingly ambitious goal and the athlete could still achieve great success even if he doesn’t totally reach this goal. The athlete, for instance, may run a 5:05 and still feel disappointed and yet that would be an outstanding achievement. The goal is sufficiently ambitious so as to motivate the athlete.

Support of his coach: While he has set this goal, he has yet to discuss it with his coach. His coach may believe the goal is too ambitious or that the training program is too heavy or that he should be preparing for a different event.

Publication of his goal: Displaying his goal and his progress toward it will enable competitors to see his level of progress and they can lift their level accordingly. Kas’s view on this is if they improve that will help him improve and only make it easier to achieve his goal. The publication of the goal will put extra pressure on Kas, however he feels this will be good to keep him focused and he has confidence in his ability.

Day one

In the words of Goethe, “Whatever you can do or believe you can do begin it. Boldness has a certain genius about it.” Following this advice Kas decided there was no time like the present to start the “strive for five”.

To do this he:

Identified a number of attention areas
Developed a draft activity plan
Did a training session

Progress Reports

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