Last year, after finishing the Greater Manchester Marathon in a time of 3:05, I decided that as a pre-30 ambition (I’m turning 30 on the 9th of June!) I wanted to run a sub-3 marathon. That meant I had a year and a bit to knock 5 minutes off my time; simple.
What I didn’t realise at the time was that the only events I would end up entering that year, would be hill-saturated, tricky trail marathons and I also foolishly got into running ultras. On top of this, another pre-30 ambition was creeping up, to run the length of the country; carrying all my stuff along the way.