Objectives for 2017

I've said before that unless you're really focussing on a particular distance, and if you're an average back-half-of-the-pack athlete like me, then there's no reason why you can't improve over all distances just by being fitter, faster, and taking better care of yourself.

I've got gradually slower over most distances following my fitness peak and Ironman adventures of 2012. 2017 is the year I reverse the trend. I'm going to try and set a new Personal Best time over every distance I have a proper time for, and is a standard distance. I always work better with a tangible target, and it's nice to have a reason to aim for a new PB (rather than just wanting a new PB).

Just for fun, I'm adding two stretch goals of running 2017 miles and getting my weight under 80kg - I've been there before, I know I can do it!

Happy New Year everyone, and happy running!

Here's what I'm aiming for:

Distance	PB	Recorded at	Difficulty
1 mile	00:06:53	May 2015 Westminster Mile	*	The parkrun wave - where I arrived late and flustered, and went off too hard. Legs fizzing and breath burning for the last quarter. I've since run invididual miles faster within parkruns.
5 km	00:21:14	June 2012 Beckton parkrun	*****	This will be very hard. Beckton inaugural was a slightly short course, and I was in peak Ironman fitness. This will be the hardest PB to break - I've run many hard 5km in 2016 and only broken 22 minutes once.
5 miles	00:41:38	August 2015 2nd Sunday 5	*****	The only 5-mile races I've done are a local trail race, including a nasty hill. Twice. Therefore, this should be achievable - however the race is more popular now, and the course narrow, so careful with the optimism.
10 km	00:49:57	October 2012 Clapham Common Race Series	*	This is the fastest timed 10km I have, however I've run in the 47-minute range in training since - therefore this should be straight-forward to better.
10 miles	01:19:17	September 2015 Cumberland Ale 10	***	I've only run a 10 mile race once, a small local race when on holiday. I put everything in, and had a really enjyable run. Might be challenging to beat.
1/2 Mara.	01:40:31	October 2012 Royal Parks Half Marathon	****	Coming out of 2012 after a seasonof Ironman, this one will be a challenge to beat. Requires sustained well-managed pacing, and a lot of pain!
Marathon	03:59:19	April 2014 Rotterdam Marathon	****	Went out with the aim of breaking four hours and made it by seconds thanks to the slowest sprint finish ever. To beat this I'll need to hold my pace in check in the first half.
50 km	06:20:59	July 2015 Croydon Ultra	***	Both 50km races I've completed involved a lot of walking, once due to injury, and once to prevent damage ahead of a more important race. It's a hard distance to guage.
50 miles	11:38:31	September 2016 Chiltern Wonderland 50	*	After just two 50-mile ultras, I respect the distance immensley. I feel I have a lot to learn, and therefor a lot of room for improvement, over the next year, so am rating this as easy to improve - but it won't be an easy race that's for sure.