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Are you rushing your goals without realizing it?

Writer's picture: Dylan BellesDylan Belles

Coaches and athletes talk about "process, process, process."


It’s become a buzzword—almost a dismissive term—handed to someone who might be rushing their training progression or performance goals. It’s easy to wave off seemingly irrational impatience with a simple, “Trust the process.”


But what exactly do we mean by process?


Let me provide an example.


Imagine an athlete aiming to run a 3:30 marathon. They’ve clocked a 3:45 before and have a solid few years of running experience. However, they’ve never followed formal training—the kind that blends daily runs of varying distances and intensities with structured faster workouts.


This athlete is motivated. They devour every article, binge every YouTube video, and fully invest themselves in the sport. With this knowledge and motivation, they feel ready to dive in, determined to transform from a 3:45 marathoner to a 3:30 marathoner.


So, they ramp up. Faster workouts? Check. Harder, marathon-style long runs with sustained faster segments? Absolutely.


At first, the training seems to be working. Confidence builds and they are clicking away just fine. It's the beginning of a program and nothing has pushed them far beyond their limits.


But soon, cracks begin to show. As the mileage grows and the marathon-paced long runs—the cornerstone of their program—become grueling. Recovery stretches into days. The rest of the week becomes a battle to regroup for that one big run. Before long, their long runs implode, confidence crumbles, and injury looms.


This runner has gone way too far outside of their comfort zone. The body wasn't ready for this size of a shift.



Here’s the hard truth: transforming your running isn’t something you can rush.


I mean, you can try, but I promise you that road doesn't lead to healthy places.


Ask someone who’s been training for the distance for a decade. They’ll tell you those grueling long runs with faster segments? Those weren’t possible right away. And you can forget the fancy buzzwords and double thresholds. This is not where anyone begins. It took years of gradually increasing training volume, fitness, and recovery capacity—multiple cycles, not just one.


That’s the process.


In a way, I believe you have to earn it. You can't move from one place to another until you are ready for it. For me, this usually means that I want to exhaust all my resources and time doing everything with what I am doing now before I introduce something so drastically new or different. This might mean I want to to maximize how much running I can do in one day versus splitting it into two, running 90 miles a week before I go to 100, or let's say doing my threshold runs at 5:00 pace before I jump to 4:55.


The process isn’t going from 0 to 100. It’s chipping away—a little bit at a time. It might feel slow, but this steady progression is the sustainable path. It’s the fastest way to achieve your potential and sustain it year after year. If you push too fast, you risk setbacks that could leave you further behind than where you started.


I'll give you a personal example.


I was a hungry runner going from High School to Collegiate running. I had the mind work harder than most and I took full advantage of that. I neglected the help and advice of my coaches and I jumped into higher mileage and faster runs ( especially my long runs) way too soon. I went from running an all-time high of 50 miles to 90 miles (for several weeks on end) within a year. I saw massive improvements...for about a month.

Guess what happened next? I cratered.


I was later forced to take a full month off of training because I had stupidly overcooked myself. I tried to skip steps and it bit back.


I did this at least another 2 times in the seasons after until I finally got it together. That's when I sat down, created a spreadsheet, and wrote out exactly what I was going to do in the years to come. Included in this was mileage progression, goal time progression, and time spent under mandatory rest. For the 3 years after tha,t I hit every single goal. Can you believe that?


Patience is the cornerstone of progress. Don't get me wrong, you still have to work your butt off, but you can't bypass the steps to get there. The process isn’t a buzzword; it’s the deliberate, thoughtful steps that lead to lasting growth.


Trust me, I know and understand how frustrating it is to not reach the goal you set for yourself. And trust me, I know how easy it can be to see something new/flashy/trendy and want to sail right into that because someone succeeded with it on social media. But, you have to follow a process of time commit to what you're doing, and see that through in a responsible manner.


Oh, and be truthful to yourself along the way! We all have an internal thermometer that tells us when we're running too hot. Listen to that, and keep yourself cool.

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