It has been a pretty good year so far. My flumpometer rating is pretty high with 4 marathons (Vienna, Liverpool, Gothic and Transgrancanaria) and 2 ultras (St Wales and Amersham) ticked off in the space of 3 months. Not to mention the halves, tens and a 20 miler too.

But this year is all about the progression towards the 100MC and also widening my experience. And so, the race calendar looks like this. I will probably drop out of some for unseen reasons, and will add a few more impulsively but this is it at the moment.

There are a few highlights and firsts.

Race to the Tower – First multi day, and camping too. 2 marathons in 2 days. Drinking and fun overnight. This will show me just how far away I am from being able to even think about Fire and Ice.

Star Runs – my first Saturn Running race and also the 10K in York with Luke will both be Boba Fett races.

Ware 10 – our version of Man vs Horse with nippy Lewis being the horse. There is a 10K and a 10 miler. Given how fast Lewis is he will be running the 10 miler, I will be running the 10K, he will be running the 10 miler, and we shall see what happens.

Leigh – am I looking forward to this? 105.5 laps around a track somewhere near Manchester. A lot of people have illustrated their disgust at this concept, but me? I get to run it, experience it, and blog it so you don’t have to. You’re welcome.

Hell on the Humber – Another lap race, but this one is a section from the Hull Marathon I ran last year. Laps of the Humber Bridge, each 4 miles. 6 hours to run as many as possible, starting at 7pm. I just need seven before I can head to bed.

Green Man – the rescheduled ultra around Bristol will be my first self nav race. Am probably more worried about that than the actual run itself. It is a 50K and I have already run two. I have a lot of marathons before that, and trail too. I bought a Garmin eTrex to help with the navigation. But we shall see. I may just need to run with someone.

Athens – a large crowd is heading to Athens and that cheers me up as I was already signed up to what would be my first ever repeat marathon. I loved Athens when I ran it in 2016 but I was broken. My aim is to take an hour off my time from 2016, and given I was gimpy and limpy, there is a good chance of that.

This should allow me to end the year on 38 marathons. Fingers crossed. Could be even more.