Was It a Disaster Year?
- Andy Hood
- Oct 28
- 4 min read
10 January 2025|Running Ramblings
It starts in early December with a steady trickle, followed by a full on flood of posts toward year end and into January declaring the stats from your Strava Year in Sport. Every poster commenting about how good or bad their year has been, charting their highs and lows of training and races.
I’ve firmly resited posting mine on my social channels, for no other reason than I am just not a follower of the crowd. I’ve always charted my own course, pushed the boundaries and forged my own way forward, often with the look of dismay on my parents faces as they were called to yet another school meeting. I’m sorry about that Mum and Dad but I turned out alright in the end.
My Strava Year in Sport 2024
So, here we go. This is the first time I’ve posted my Year in Sport (running, it’s all running) and I’ve kept in the comparison stats to 2023, which you’ll see are all in the red. And that’s why I’m here writing about it, because the red is a firm positive in my 2024 running year.
My Instagram feed is full of runners, and the frequent annoying advert for a product that looks impossibly amazing sold by Temu. Everyone runs for their own reason; to compete, for health, enjoyment, to socialize, to explore.
In recent years there has been an explosion of running trends, Run Every Day (RED) or Club 365, where the goal is to streak for as long as possible, neither I subscribe too. They are not wrong, they are likely right for those that take part, but I place a higher value on rest days, 2 of which I programme into every week.
Neither do I subscribe to the Double Day trend, where the goal is to run double digit miles every single day. Some days my runs are 4 or 5 miles, others are 20+.
Researching athlete performance
Much research has taken place into athlete performance, in January I am taking part in a Rhode Island Uni study into performance of runners and endurance athletes. I find it useful to give back to those researching a sport I love and there is much to learn from chatting to those conducting the research.
The school of thought is for most of us average runners, and let’s face it compared to the sub 2 hour elite marathoners we are all average runners, taking 1 or 2 rest days a week is vital for building muscle, allowing recovery, increasing blood circulation and removal of waste products (no that does not mean a big dump) and the building of strength and endurance. Critically it reduces load stress too and lessens the chances of injury.
There is a great article from Runners World which I’ve linked at the end of this post, it doesn’t side with any particular number of days per week but instead looks at the pros/cons of anything from 1 to 7. I’ll let you read it rather than rattle on here about what it says.
2024 must have been a disaster right?
So what happened to my running in 2024, lower miles, less elevation, less active days and 28% reduction in total time, it must have been a crap year right. Wrong. I finish the year a faster, more accomplished runner who better understands his body. And that is all thanks to introducing much more structure around my running.
Read the blog post from January 2025 ‘The Problem with Runna’ and you’ll note in mid 2024 I opted to use the Runna training and coaching app, it gets great reviews, is built by runners and uses intelligence to monitor your performance, giving real time feedback. Setting up Runna was easy.
I stuck to my 5 days a week schedule, told the app what some of my times were for 5K, and half-marathon and let it do the rest. The programme is comprehensive, includes all the types of runs it should, easy, interval, tempo, long, hill repeats and neatly divides it up into the days I want to run.
I am covering less miles, but have increased my endurance and speed. The extremely hilly UTMB Cote D’Azur ultra in November was completed with ‘relative’ ease, I use relative with a large pinch of salt as anyone who knows that course will understand it is far from easy. But the programme delivered me to the start line in great shape ready to take it on.
And the Winter Maintenance programme I’m currently in has seen my speed increase hitting PB’s in the 5K, 10K and half distances.
Previous programmes haven’t stacked up
The past few years I’ve designed my own programmes with a little research from the web; whilst these had the usual mix of run types there was less knowledge behind the distances and the speeds at which I should be running these. Meaning I likely over ran, too many miles, too hard on the body. A personal run coach can set you back hundreds of pounds a month, Runna is £100 for the year, and for me it’s working.
As I turn to 2025 my thoughts are on the 4 ultra’s I have in the diary, my measure of success will be feeling prepared at the start line, finishing the race, nursing sore legs in the days after and going through the year with little to no injury.
In conclusion
So my Year in Sport at first glance looks dismal, all the red may indicate I was going to tell you all about the problems I had during the year, when in fact I come out of 2024 and into 2025 a much stronger runner.
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Article notes
Written January 2025
Author has no affiliation with any brands discussed
All images are authors own
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