My best and worst miles of 2024
Running wrapped 2024, plus some goals for 2025 (or lack of?)
According to Strava, I covered 1,661 miles (2,673 km) last year. I ran around two thirds of those, walked the other third and went on one token bike ride. Oh, and let’s not forget the two miles I clocked up paddling around Coniston Water in a Canadian canoe, listening to James Blunt - a clear highlight.
Obviously these are only the miles I bothered pressing record for. I’m sure all the popping to the shops or walking to the pub or the endless trips back and forth to the kitchen to make yet another cup of tea must have added up to plenty more. These are clearly the ones that felt significant though; the ones covered with some sort of intent (and with a charged watch battery).
Like most things I do, I’m sure those numbers hover in the middle: more than some, a lot less than others. I’m mostly ambivalent about the figures. I’ve never set any firm distance goals for myself but I’m always happy if I manage to run 1,000 miles in a year. To me, that says I must have gone out at least semi-regularly and that I can’t have been too injured - both wins in my book.
It’s nice to think about what those numbers represent though. Within those miles are fun days out with friends, trips to new places, finishes of things I wasn’t sure I could do and loads and loads and loads of squashed cheese sandwiches. I’d be lying if I said they were all good miles (there was also a fair amount of traipsing around in the rain, feeling abject terror at the sight of various farmyard animals and rolling both ankles a worrying number of times) but on the whole more miles means less time moping on the sofa. That’s got to be good, right?
So, perhaps for my sake more than yours, I wanted to do a quick roundup of my best and worst miles of last year before we move on from 2024 entirely. I thought about scrolling through the archives on Komoot and Strava but decided to rely on memory in the end. If they were that good or that bad then surely I would remember them? Human memory might be famously hopeless, but perhaps it can usefully self-selecting too.
The lists are ordered by what came to mind first, rather than by severity or chronology. I’ll start with the miserable miles though, so we can finish on a high.
My worst miles of 2024
The final climb of the George Fisher Tea Round, up Barrow, both times I attempted it last summer. You’re already knackered with well over 3,000 metres of climbing in your legs so far and you see this hill looming above you, which looked like nothing on the elevation graph, and you think, I’ve got to go up that?! It’s only a 300m climb but it feels like summiting Everest.