Apologies as I’m a little late with posting my objectives this year, as I’ve been slightly distracted by my preparations for The Spine Challenger.

As I outlined in my review of 2016, there were a number objectives which I didn’t make as much progress on as I’d like last year. Okay I admit it, in some instances very little progress at all and on that basis many of these I’ve rolled forward into this year.

In recent years I have managed to hit many of my racing objectives and its the personal ones, or those away from running itself which I have struggled with. This year I want to re-address that balance and while I will still be racing, I want to focus on the non-running objectives as the priority.

My main race for this year, after Spine Challenger which I think of as a 2016 race really, is Lakeland 100. Last year I was really proud to get myself around the course and complete my first one hundred miler. It was a race that I really enjoyed and with my love of The Lakes, touched me in a way that no other race has to date. As such when the entries opened for the 2017 edition I was straight in there to book my place.

Aside from loving the race and wanting to re-visit the experience, there is a specific itch I want to scratch. During my build up to the 2016 edition I really believed that I could complete the course in under 30 hours but with the curve ball that was thrown during my build up, in the end I was delighted to be able to finish in 34 hours. With my knowledge of the course and a well structured training plan I am hopeful I can go back and achieve this goal in 2017.

So while I will be doing a number of races in 2017, this will be my one and only race objective for the year. As previously mentioned, I want my objectives away from racing to be a priority and while it will be difficult, I don’t want this objective to define my year.

As such these are my objectives for 2017 in order of priority:

  1. Improve my nutrition generally, stop the late night binges!
  2. Get more sleep
  3. Develop a regular meditation routine
  4. Go sub 30 hours at Lakeland 100

Hopefully 2017 will be the year I finally get the majority of these ticked off. I’m looking forward to the journey and will keep you posted on progress here.

Happy new year everybody and good luck with your running ambitions in 2017!