I set out at the beginning of 2024 with what I thought was a pretty significant and challenging running goal for the year, to run 2024km in the 2024 calendar year.
I knew, given my previous running efforts and the distances that I had been running, that it was inside the realms of possible but it would take dedication and consistency throughout the entire year (something that hasn’t always been there over such a long period of time).
Despite the year starting off really well, there were some significant challenges that arose in the middle part of the year – injury. In April I started having pain in my right foot which kept getting worse. After seeing a podiatrist and having scans done it was discovered that I had torn my plantar fascia with there being a 1.5mm tear near where it connected in my heal. Interestingly, this wasn’t from the running but from going back to play hockey and having the wrong sort of shoes, the soles were too soft and didn’t provide enough support). In addition to this, I strained my hamstring on two separate occasions, again playing hockey…maybe there is something in that I should have considered when having my goal! What this meant is that having being able to run over 1,000km in the first four months of the year, I was only sitting at the 1280km at the beginning of October. At this point, I had two choices – abandon the goal or find a way to go for it and see what happened. I chose the latter.
The final three months of every year I have decided to repeat an additional challenge called “the 90 day challenge” where I try to run 700km in the final 90 days of the year. If I managed to do that in 2024 it would take me just short of my final goal of 2024km so there was some additional incentive. The challenge started off reasonably well, with me running 216.8km in October. I was pretty happy with this effort as it was the first month I had been able to run over the 200km mark since April and it was done with no pain. It did, however, set me behind the km rate I needed per term to reach the goal which would mean increasing the kms in the last two months.
November proved a great turning point for me and another challenge helped me significantly in my efforts – participation in Movember. The school that I teach has participated in Movember for the last few years and I was asked to organise the school team for this year. Movember is a charity that raises awareness for Men’s Health, unfortunately too many men die young due to not looking after themselves and their health. As well as raise money and grow a moustache, it is possible to set a physical challenge. I used this to set the challenge of running 250km in the month of November which I announced at a staff meeting to the entire school community. This was a big goal for a few reasons: 1) I had only ever managed to run 250km on one other occasion and that was during school holidays; 2) November only had 30 days making it a shorter amount of time. The task went well, but I got to the final running day and needed to complete a 21.2km in order to reach the goal. Under the encouragement of a good friend, who joined me for the last 11km of the run, I undertook a different running route to reach the goal as I started in Attadale and ran back towards the South of Perth Yacht Club in Applecross before turning around and running back to Leighton Beach on the coast. This took me to a total of 253.1km for November and a total of 469.9km for the challenge – a big December was going to be needed.
I entered December hopeful of being able to not only reach the goal of 700km in 90 days, but also now feeling confident of possibly attaining the 2024km in 2024. Success would depend on a few variables, mainly me staying disciplined throughout the month and not getting injured. The month started well, the first week was the final week at school which helped me setup a good routine and structure with the early starts. I ran all five days including four runs of 16km each and one 12.5km run, a solid effort. The next two weeks saw my running route change with us going on our holiday to the town of Denmark in the Southwest of Western Australia. I knew that this time would make or break the challenge and committed to the early morning starts, running not every morning but seven of the ten days we were away and increased my distance up to 18km per run. Upon our return, in the lead up to Christmas I kept this rate going completing two 17km runs before a shorter 13km run around my holiday route of Lake Monger and Herdsman Lake. The final of these runs on Christmas Eve took me past the 2000km. Unfortunately, at this point my calves tightened up and I had to take the next four days off. The final three runs of the year were an 8.4km run followed by an 11km run (this took me to the goal of 2024km) before finishing the year on New Year’s Eve with an 11km run.
The 2024 year is now done and my stats for running are as follows:
| Total Distance: | 2,030km |
| Total number of runs: | 176 |
| Average runs per week: | 3.3 runs/week |
| Average distance per run: | 11.5km/run |
| Average pace per run: | 5’38” /km |
| Total time running: | 190:24:48 |
| Average time per run: | 1:04:54 /run |
The feeling of accomplishment I have for being able to complete this challenge is hard to put into words. In doing this challenge I have learnt many valuable lessons about myself and what it means to overcome challenges and adversity and a lot of negative speak from others. So many people told me that I wouldn’t be able to do this and joked that I was setting myself up for injury.
So where to from here?
2025 starts tomorrow and I need to set myself some new goals to achieve running wise. Reflecting on my strengths, having smaller achievable amounts seems to work well with me achieving a bigger overarching goal. One thing is for certain, I want to set myself an even bigger goal – something that seems impossible unless it takes 100% commitment. I won’t be just trying to run 2025km, but rather will aim for 2500km.
Looking forward to hitting the pavement again tomorrow.
A new day, a new year, a new challenge awaits.
