2024 has arrived and we've got the running motivation you need to kick off your year on the trails. Whatever your goals this year, we’re here to ensure you launch them into action and keep that momentum going!
One thing’s for sure - if you’re in the market for inspiration, you’ve come to the right place! We asked for expert advice from elite off-road athletes and skills experts to make sure you have your best year of trail running yet.
Coming up: injury advice from top physiotherapist Paul Hoborough; a rejuvenating recipe from sports nutritionist Anita Bean; and a word on mindset from adventure legend and mindfulness guru, Sophie Roberts. Plus loads more tips to supercharge your running practice. Let's jump in.
1. Boost your speed
If speed is your goal for 2024, inject your consistent steady-pace training with a weekly speed session. Such is the advice of coach Dave Taylor from Fell Running Guide. “There are no shortcuts,” he says. “Consistent, regular, easy running with some harder efforts will be your best performance enhancer.”
Try a hill rep session every week. Here's the 5 step process:
– Jog for 10-15 minutes at an easy, conversational pace to the base of a gently sloping hill. You can use bridge or subway ramps and steps in multistory car parks if you live in a flat place.
– Run up the hill at a very fast but sustainable pace (where you can’t chat but might be able to spit out the odd word) for 30 seconds. Mark where you get to with a stick or stone.
– Jog back down the hill allowing your heart rate to drop back down and your breathing to slow to normal.
– Repeat this twice more. Each run up the hill is called a rep (repetition). The following week, add another rep, and so on until you reach 8-10 reps. Jog for 10 minutes and cool down as you normally would.
– To progress, extend the rep time, increasing it to 45, 60, 90 seconds. Play around with the length of your reps, depending on your trail running goal. For example, if you've signed up for a race with fierce hills, try longer reps.
For more on this, check out our full guide on How to Run Uphill Stronger
2. Get tough
“If you only do one thing to prevent injury this season, make it a hip flexor stretch,” says Paul Hoborough, physio to Olympians Paula Radcliffe and Steve Cram, and author of Running Free of Injuries. “We do a great deal of sitting these days, in cars and at computers, which shortens the hip flexors. When we suddenly jump up from the desk for a run, the strain of their sudden extension during the running action can be too much.”
The best stretch for your hip flexor: Move into a forward lunge position with the knee on the floor, keeping the torso upright and tucking your glutes (bum) under your pelvis. Slowly bend the leading knee to feel a stretch at the front of your hip and hold. Hold a comfortable stretch for 45 seconds then swap the legs.
3. Feed your imagination
Following inspirational trail running athletes on social media can do wonders for firing your mind and getting you out of the door on the wettest of days. Get motivated by following runners like Elsey Davis who balances her ultra running career with working on NHS wards as a doctor, or Alecsa Stuart whose guide to skyrunning hit our front page a couple weeks ago.
Stuart is a champion of trail runners who like to take it slow and explore nature, yet in a stroke of luck she's also headed to UTMB 2024. This is one woman's journey that is sure to make you restless and craving a run.
4. Nail your fuelling, recover quicker
“A good diet gives you the energy and nutrients to train harder, perform better, recover quicker and stay free of injury and illness,” says sports nutritionist Anita Bean, author of The Runner’s Cookbook. “Try my post-run green recovery drink packed full of vitamin C, iron, folate and Omega-3s.”
To make it: Blitz all these ingredients until smooth: 250ml almond milk or coconut water, 2.5cm peeled fresh ginger, 2 handfuls of spinach, a kiwi fruit, a banana, 1 tbsp ground flaxseed, a few ice cubes.
As well as ensuring you replenish your salts and vitamins in post-run recovery, don't forget to fuel up on the trail! Many runners - especially in trail running - don't learn the benefits of energy gels until late in their careers. There's no need to wait; hydration tabs, gels, and energy bars are beneficial to every level of runner, especially if you're looking to increase your distance.
5. Supercharge your confidence
“The best way to believe in yourself is to do things that are difficult and scary!” says Sophie Roberts, adventurer, speaker and long-time friend of LFTO. “Challenge yourself, change your mindset, change your life.”
So, how best to go about this? For us, it's always to pick a truly inspirational race or set yourself a lofty personal trail running ambition like completing our #Run1000Miles annual challenge. Every year, we see runners push their boundaries and boost their confidence by unlocking endurance they never knew they had.
6. Get brutal with kit
You're very likely to be in one of two camps:
A) You have a couple of decent pieces, but you're yet to fall down the rabbit hole of technical specs and optimised gear.
or
B) You have way too much kit and a lot of it isn't seeing the light of day.
If you're in team A, we have some bittersweet news – running gear is a rabbit hole worth falling down. Unlike most other areas of the outdoors, trail running is a very minimalist activity.
Here's your bare bones kit list:
Trail running shoes | socks | shorts | t-shirt | running pack.
That's it. Well, maybe add a beanie this winter. This minimalist approach means that choosing the very best of each category is well worth the research.
Meanwhile, if you're living in camp B, it's time to refine your running wardrobe. Select your most faithful items and lose the rest. See if friends need your superfluous gear or donate it to Runnersneed, an excellent org who upcycle old kit. Cutting down to your essential gear will reinforce your routine – each weekly wash will give you a new 7-day goal: get all this kit dirty again!
7. Set a scary goal
We are all at different places in our trail running journeys. This is a good thing – it makes it easy to eschew unhelpful comparisons and focus on your personal development. Which is, after all, the only journey that actually matters.
Obviously, our favourite big goal is running 1000 miles every year, but this lacks a crucial ingredient: an imminent deadline! There is no better boost to your running motivation than signing up for a half marathon, full marathon, or even your first ultra marathon in a short-ish and tangible timeframe. If you really want to supercharge your running this year, ask yourself how far you could possibly run, then sign up for a race that's a bit longer than that.
8. Sharpen your skills
Are you worried about getting lost? Not sure of your abilities to run safely in the mountains? Make this the year where you hone skills like navigation and mountain craft, either with a more experienced friend or on an organised trail running skills course.
If you're a beginner, check out our guide to navigating with a map and compass to get the basics on outdoor nav skills.
9. Read a book or two
Become immersed in the world of trail running by losing yourself in a book. We have a whole roundup of the best trail running books you should check out, but if you're looking for quick recommendations, there's no beating Christopher McDougall's Born to Run. It succeeds, as the best running books should, in making you believe that the limits of human ability only exist to be exceeded.
Another recent banger is the infamous Anna McNuff's Barefoot Britain – the wild and somewhat barmy story of one woman's goal of running the length of the UK barefoot. McNuff's efforts were picked up by the media partway through her journey, and she tells the sweet story of how the nation came together to support her shoeless quest.
10. Go wild at a festival
What better way to put some fire under your running than the buzz off being surrounded by thousands of likeminded trail treading fanatics? The running festival scene is as vibrant and friendly as they come, and putting one of the UK’s biggest get-togethers in your diary now is a sure-fire way to get you excited about the coming months. You’ll make new running buddies, kick back and relax, enter organised races, go crazy in front of A-list bands on stage… and do it all in the sunshine! Maybe! Hopefully! It's still the UK.
Our favourite running festival will always be Love Trails. It's the first fest to really embrace the twin activities of running all day through scenic hills and valleys, then raving into the early hours with multiple dance tents flanking the impressive and ever-expanding main stage. If you've never been, this is your sign to make a change. We'll see you there.