1,000 miles.

On Sunday 24th November I completed my annual mileage target: 1,000 miles of running in 2024. That means I hit my target 38 days early—10.41% of a common year. So, is that a good or useful target? Most management theory will tell you it's not, and needs to be changed. So what does hitting the milestone so early mean for how I'll run in 2025?

Me and 1,000 mile years: a brief history

Putting one round number into another round number is as pleasing as it is meaningless. It's very human.

This is the third consecutive year that I've run a one thousand mile year, and at 00:00 on 1st January 2025 it will mean absolutely nothing. It will mean more of a nothing than the nothing it means now: at the bells of New Year all the arbitrary numbers I've built around myself will, arbitrarily, be set back to zero.

And we go again.

In 2021 I noticed around the start of December that I was very close to running 1,000 miles for the year, but that I would probably fall a bit short of it. I decided to actively set a target for 2022: I would run 1,000 miles in one year.

Everything lined up well for me as 2022 progressed, and I made the mark on 23rd December. I did the final run—a nice bouncy 5km—with a few mates, and we planned the route so it would end at a pub. Lovely.

In 2023 I completed my 1,000 miles on October 21st, leaving a whopping 19.73% of the year's capacity under-utilised. I also didn't have a Christmas themed after-party to mark the occasion. Not great, not terrible.

1,000 miles is still useful, even if it's "easy"

So, if I know I can do 1,000 miles in a year—in fact I know I'll do it in much less than a year—what's the point in having 1,000 miles per year as a target?

One of my work colleagues (an excellent runner) directly challenged me on this when I told him I'd wrapped up my annual mileage target already. He said it's a bad target because it's too easy to achieve. But there are some good maths involved in 1,000 mile years that suit my lifestyle and my overall running targets. Here's the way I look at it all:

1. If I run 20 miles a week, for 52 weeks, I'll make 1,040 miles.
2. If I have two weeks (concurrent or cumulative days) where I can't run (bad weather, illness, injuries), I'll use up all the 40 mile buffer. These things will happen. The buffer will be used.
3. So 1,000 miles is a good target to have for me to maintain a 20-mile per week base all of the time.

What I don't do is account for big outliers. This year I ran Staffs in a Day (The Millennium Way) and the Lakeland 50, the year before I did The Lap and also bagged a good ultra distance at the July edition of the Rasselbock Run, 2022. The events and the build up to them really pile on redundancy miles, and lead to an early finish on the annual target.

So, really, I am making it a target to run 20-miles a week when I have nothing else on.

The trouble with doing weekly targets is that if I breakdown for one week, I lose the streak, and I may lose heart. Building 20-miles per week into a wider framework, tied to a loftier goal, allows for some messiness: the weekly result feeds a bigger goal. If it helps, think of a framework of nested results and goals like OKRs, and if it helps think about OKRs using Star Wars.

I actually have 3 sets of good results for a week:

• 20-miles: on-track
• 22-miles: ideal mileage (builds more buffer into the system)
• 25-miles: stretch goal—because it implies that I'll have had a lovely long run of 13+ miles to fit that into the week

OK so what's next?

Next year I'll do the Lakeland 50 again. I had such a great time at that event this year, and I learned a lot, so next year I'd like to build on that and make it around a little quicker. I'll be booking in some other events in Spring and early summer—a trail ultra or maybe one of Rasselbock's six-hour loop challenges (if you are Midlands based, these events are recommended). I will have a training plan in place to build to this. 1,000 miles will come easily, but will help me keep honest when I'm not on a more rigid plan and will make sure I don't drop off once the target event is completed.

It's a silly number that pleases my stupid human brain. There are other numbers I could consider. I'll make 180 hours of time on feet this year. I'm considering setting a time-based goal instead of a distance one for 2025, to stretch me to 200-hours. The only thing is I'm not sure what that will actually gain me. How will it improve or help maintain my running?

The good news is, I've already completed running for the year so I guess I can sit on my arse for December and think about it.

Follow me on Strava if you like that sort of thing.