We never plan to fail, we only fail to plan.

While this may well be a cliche, it still and will always remain a constant truth.

To say that I have been there and done that would be an outright lie, however, I have been to a few places and done a few things.

From a running perspective none of this has come about  without considerable work and effort on my part.

Nothing is ever a guaranteed given in life and this is more the case when you put it into a distance running context. It is possible, however, to increase the chances of success, again, this only comes about through hard work, consistent work and patient work.

Nothing puts a smile on my face more, than seeing someone who I know has put in the time and effort and then achieved success. I have seen many examples of this throughout my life time and in some cases I have had the pleasure of training with them. Without stating the blatant obvious examples, a few that come to mind have been:

• Lee Troop ( 3 x Olympian) 
• Sean Quilty ( Olympian for marathon after being a national 1500m medal winner)
• Rod DeHighden (2x Olympian)
• Nick Fragamini  (Stawell Gift 3km winner)
• Glen Quartermaine  (Sub 4 hour marathon)
• Nathan Doig (AFL Grandfinal boundary umpire)
• Raf Baugh  ( 2nd in the world Ranking for Biathlon & Successful owner operator of Front Runner sports management)
• Courtney Carter (State champion and now resides in Sydney)
• Shaphan Cox ( Dual state 5km track champion)
• Julie Gardner (State team representative)
• Todd Ingraham (State champion over multiple distances, Australian representative and Comrades marathon runner)

All these people share one thing in common, a commitment to achieving their desired goal. All these people, and this is only a few example that I have mentioned, put a plan in place and worked to it. They set a target, established some short term gaols and never lost sight of their end game. For some the attainment of the goal came quickly, for others like Nick, Troopy, Raf and Glen, they got knocked down a couple of times but each time they got back up and used the set back as a reflective process in refining the path to the golden egg.

The bottom line is that with any target or goal that you set yourself there will be set backs however, it is important to understand that these will occur and then plan for them so that you can continue with a way to manage things when and if they do.

Endurance sports athletes, of which distance runner are, always take time to develop, they develop a resilient doggedness, that is also found in successful people from all domains of life,  in pursuing their goals and this is why they succeed. They also, in nearly every case that I can think of, have someone that they can use as a mentor, coach or simple sounding board. They have someone who can offer an impersonal opinion of what they see. So never think you have to or in fact should , go at your goal alone as this will simply add another blocker to what it is that you are trying to do.

So don't plan to fail by not planning. Make a plan, make a start and set yourself on a journey that will increase your chances of success.

Barrel on wombats...