Goals direct your training and fuel your ambition. They're essential for maintaining a long-term running program. Picking the right goals, however, can be difficult. Set a goal too high, and disappointment will follow. Put the aim too low, and you'll miss out on the joy of significant achievement.

The right goal for you depends partly on what motivates you to run. If you enjoy competition, your goals will center on getting faster. If you're motivated by health concerns, your goals may focus on losing weight or getting those cholesterol numbers down. To help you stay on track, I offer seven challenging-yet-attainable goals, and a training plan for each.

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The plan: Complete a weekly workout of five 800s at a pace 10 seconds faster per 800 than your usual 5-K race pace. Recover between intervals for the same amount of time it takes you to run the 800. Make the workout progressively more difficult by increasing the number of intervals to seven, then gradually reducing the rest breaks to 30 seconds.

2. Goal: Cut 2 minutes from your 10-K time.
The plan: Once a week, run 1600-meter intervals at your goal 10-K pace. Start with three repeats per workout and build to five. Initially, recover for the same amount of time it takes you to run each interval. Once you can complete five intervals per session, begin paring your recovery time down to 1 minute.

3. Goal: Knock 5 minutes off your marathon time.
The plan: Most marathoners lose huge chunks of time in the latter stages of the race. To save time and finish strongly, try this workout every couple of weeks. Run 12 to 13 miles at 30 to 60 seconds slower per mile than your goal marathon pace, then run the next 5 to 6 miles at your goal marathon pace. Also, try running 8 to 12 miles at this goal speed about once every 10 days.

4. Goal: Weight loss.
The plan: Extending the length of each workout by just 5 minutes will drop 4 pounds from your belly, buns or thighs over the course of a year. You can take off 3 additional pounds by running a faster-than-usual speed for just 8 minutes per workout. Those 8 minutes don't have to be run continuously. You can run eight 1-minute intervals and achieve the same results.

5. Goal: Improve health and fitness.
The plan: Mix a variety of workouts into your training program--hard efforts over hilly terrain; fartlek sessions, in which you spontaneously alternate between bursts of speed and easy loping; and longer-than-usual exertions in pleasant surroundings. All these will help you lower your risk of heart disease, cancer and early death.

6. This Glute Workout Will Ignite Your Power.
The plan: First, start your races more conservatively. A slow finish is often the result of a too hasty beginning. Second, to increase your closing speed, do workouts that make you run hard when you're already somewhat fatigued. For example, cover 4 to 5 miles at a steady, moderate tempo and then run a mile, 1200, 800, 400 and 200 at increasing speeds. Rest for no more than 30 to 60 seconds between these intervals.

7. How to Start Running.
The plan: Begin by running 8 x 200 meters once a week 2 seconds faster per 200 than your usual 5-K race pace. Gradually increase the distance to eight 600-meter reps at this same speed. Then follow the same progression (from 200 to 600), but this time at 4 seconds faster per 200 than your 5-K speed. Rotate such sessions with 1-mile repeats at 5-K race pace and 2-mile intervals at 10-K race pace to build stamina.