Well, it didn't quite happen

The main thing I said at the beginning of last year was that I wanted to get at least 10 English Champs points

throughout the year. Having never done an English Champs race, I had no real inkling of what that meant.

As it happens, its pretty hard for someone of middling fellracing standard, and by mid season I had revised the score to a rather less ambitous single point. It came right down to the wire, and I came in in the late 40's at the last race of the season- Sedburgh. The exact placing was either 48th or 49th depending on whether you count Female runners as being in the same race. I do, so therefore, 2 points it is.

Beyond that, I didn't really have any specific goals in place, apart from continue through university and just keep running. I kept a tally on the amount of ascent I was doing throughout the year, vaguely planning on trying to get more than last year (88,000m), and by December 31st, the scores on the boards were 110,000m, or thereabouts, which I was pretty happy with.

Over the past few days I've been sitting down with a calendar, a white board and a pen, and working out which races I can and cannot do this year - work commitments unfortunately rule out at least one weekend a month, and wednesday nights are pretty hard because of Mountain Rescue training/meetings. I've come up with a decent list, but which doesn't actually involved any of the English Champs this year.
The focus, instead lies around the club championships, where enjoyment is actually more the key, than actually winning (though I'll still be going as hard as I can in order to try and stay ahead of Chris and Caity, and try to beat Mark O...one of these days....), and also the North Welsh Championship.

Funnily enough, there really aren't all that many Lake District races on my board, simply because they clash with other races that I want to do - or that they fall on working weekends.
Well, a year away from Lakes racing, and away from the English Champs won't do me too much harm. I'll still be getting in a decent amount of competitive racing, and although there are about 30 races planned, I'm sure I'll end up getting drawn into a few others.
That being said, 30 races would be my busiest year ever, and considering its my last year of Uni, and training is stepping up a notch again, well, this could be an interesting one.