Setting a goal - Distance in under a set time. Can this be done please?

This isn't something the Goals system is designed for. The Personal Records feature sounds like a better match for what you are trying to do. You can see your Personal Records on your dashboard.

There are a few caveats to the Personal Records system. The big one is that Garmin only considers distances for complete activities to be records. i.e., if you set a 5K PR during a 10K run, Garmin Connect will not recognize this 5K PR. If you look at the Personal Records list, at the top you will see a little informational icon. If you click that it will open up a dialog that explains how the system works.

Travis

Thank you I will take a look at that. Appreciate your help.

if this is the way the goal has been set, then I think that it is a bit silly. From my point of view the majority of runners have in mind a certain time for a certain distance and very rarely a certain amount of km in a certain amount of time (which sounds more like a program, a scheme or a commitment). The fact that I cannot set my goals for running the 5 km under 19 minutes leaves me puzzled. Priority should have been given to this type of goals not the other way round.

The goals that you are talking about are often used by athletes to describe a personal best, but it can also be a target time for a particular course or event. I get it.

Unfortunately, that is not what the Goals feature of Garmin Connect does.

What are Goals?
Goals are targets you set to help you achieve a short term objective. For example, if you set a target to run for 10 hours over the next week, your Garmin device will keep track of how much you actually ran. And you can see your performance against your goal on Garmin Connect or your Garmin device.

Garmin is using the word goal to describe something that you can make progress toward over a period of time. You can only make progress toward the goal, and your progress over time can be displayed on a one dimensional graph. See this. The entire Web API is designed around goals being this way, and being so it is unlikely that you'd see significant changes in that area.

They may consider adding an entirely new feature and give it a name like Targets, but given how smoothly this whole modern Garmin Connect thing has gone, I don't think you'll see it happening in the immediate or near future.

I also believe such a feature would me more than welcome. They could either make a new feature (and call it target or sth) or they could just "upgrade" or expand the goal-feature that exists already.
I fully agree with Gruttosingel and Lisa that the majority of runners want to be able to run a certain distance within a timeframe and not a certain amount of kilometers within a time period.
Hope this forum thread can speed things up :)

I agree. The way Garmin is using the "goals" feature doesn't seem to be relevant to most athletes. I have never cared about running/cycling a certain distance over a certain period of time...except in one event - like a personal best (ie. run a marathon in under 3:30). Just my 2 cents.

Like Travis says - the goals are aimed at supporting your training plans and to help you monitor your mileage and time devoted to different types of training. PRs are oriented towards recording your progress against benchmark race times. You'll need to set your Goal within your workouts and when you achieve it then use it to update your PRs