Published: 27th February 2025
It’s a bit late in the year now to be calling this post a “New Year Running Goals” post, but as the first race of the year is still 6 weeks away, I think I can still write a post about my 2025 goals. For the past few years, I’ve battled with a variety of running related injuries. Probably bought on by my enthusiasm to train before my body is quite ready for it, and an incredible ability to ignore the early niggles. This year, my main goal is to get through without doing myself another fairly major injury. I was doing well towards the tail end of 2024, until an unfortunate (possibly dog related) stumble and twisted ankle led to another avulsion fracture. Nothing too major, but still frustrating. 2.5 weeks in a splint, 3 weeks off running, but I was forced to get myself to the gym to strength train. This may have made some difference to my running since… who knew strength training was good for you?! The first race this year is the South Downs Way 50, a race I’ve had my eye on for a few years now. I want to use it as a tester for the full thing; the full 100-miler. The race is a little daunting, with all my ultra races to date either being time-based, or very beginner friendly, with the whole weekend available to finish Race to the Stones. For SDW50, the cut off is 13-hours and the terrain is a bit tougher than the RTTS route. 50 miles in 13 hours is perfectly achievable, but it does require me not to dawdle too much. Training has been going pretty well, feeling less like I’m managing a broken body than previous years, just the odd ankle related ache to manage. I’m feeling cautiously optimistic about how it might go.
Assuming I don’t ruin some part of my body (toenails excluded, I always seem to lose one…), this will provide some decent mileage ahead of going solo again for Endure24. I’m putting less pressure on the race this year, but it would be nice to keep moving for the full 24-hours. 17 laps (130km) seems like a good goal for this year, though really I’d be delighted to reach the hallowed 20 laps, 100 miles. We shall see how the body feels closer to June. The final race currently in the calendar is Sea2Sky in September. This race is a mere 53km, but does contain some decent climbing – the race doesn’t get it’s name for nothing. It takes place in Wales and makes use of some of the steep mountains in the Eryri national park. I won’t be doing this race alone; Alex and James will be joining me for the full distance. Or I’m joining them, it was James’s idea after all. Alex has previously been confident that he could beat me over an ultra, how I’d love to prove him wrong… not that I’m competitive or anything.
So those are my three big races for the year. No doubt I’ll find some other races to fill the gaps too. But the main goal still remains to get through the year without some major injury. Will I manage it? Watch this space…
Distinctly Average Ultra Runner 