It’s been a year. Enough of a year that I didn’t really fancy going back over it during the Christmas break. But I’m a stickler for tradition and, since I’ve done one of these every year since 2017, I couldn’t very well break the chain.

Here are all of my year in reviews for each year since I started this blog: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017.

January

The start of the year was a real low point for me. I was getting up at 5am to get to work for a 7am start on a 7 or 8 hour shift. That did mean I had the full afternoon to do what I wanted (or what I needed) but it felt like living 2 days per day. There were also a lot of other things going on that left me feeling like the only reason I was standing upright was because I was being punched from different directions. Still, one thing is constant: Dartmoor.

At the time I had also got confirmation of a press place on the BTU Mountain Ultra in Kyrgyzstan, which was an absolute dream come true. It’s a country I’ve wanted to go to since I started working in adventure travel and what better way to do a multi-day hiking route than supported by an event crew with medals at the end! All that to say, I had started training for that and was doing lots of long walks and running the downhills.

February – Lakes

This photo is from the top of Jack’s Rake and was shamelessly staged. I’d forgotten how good this scramble is, perhaps because the last time I did it was in the rain in November. It was nice to spend a week in the Lakes. The weather wasn’t great again (where is all the snow nowadays?) but we did have some fun walks. A particular highlight of mine was trying to do the Tea Round from Braithwaite – although I only got as far as Buttermere because I didn’t want my friends to panic at how late I was getting back. In the end, I probably should have just kept on with it, but hey, another time. It was really fun to push myself.

On the flip side, I do remember this week being marred by work. I caught up with an industry friend for coffee (lovely). But due to some shifting print deadlines, my week off was no longer that. I spent every evening working on bunkhouse wifi which, when you’re trying to proof a pdf, is not the most helpful.

Also, back in Devon, I built my first drystone wall 🙂

March – Exmoor

March involved a super-secret surprise birthday trip to Exmoor, which was great fun to be a part of. I’ve barely been to Exmoor before, other than on the Two Moors Way (turns out I never posted about that trip, but I’ll link if I ever do). And given the weather for the Exmoor section, I feel like I’ve hardly seen it. Going at a time when the heather was out was a great decision.

April

April was warm – this whole year the weather was 2 weeks early, so I spent a lot of time lying in the sun on the moor (aka remote supervision). The teams didn’t quite allow for the “long nap” we felt we had earnt this season, but that’s ok. My camera roll is lots of pictures of earth and garden and feet turned brown from dry soil.

Also, it looks like I started properly working on my JMT book in April. This is me splitting it out into chapters to start diving in on the first draft. I think somewhere in here my Toubkal Guidebook got published too.

May – Ten Tors

What to say every year about Ten Tors? It comes around like clockwork but, if I’m honest, I didn’t really enjoy it much this year. I think next year I’m going to try to stay at Okehampton Camp the whole weekend, so I can finally see some of the teams in. Plodders had great results for all 3 teams. Weather-wise it was nowhere near as hot as last year, but still largely dry, with a downpour at about 10 or 11am on Sunday. This caught a lot of teams out (I was stationed on Hare Tor and saw a lot of suddenly soaked and quickly cold participants). It was sad to see the routes being condensed even further still, now no one even crossing the road below GMT.

June – Sun

This year quickly developed into a golden summer – long grass and lying under bright green canopies, rustling in a bright blue sky. Eating breakfast out of the bathtub each morning – which makes more sense when you know I was growing plants in it outside. This photo doesn’t remotely capture the moment but I will remember it for a long long time.

And, purely for entertainment value, I’ll include that I got scammed on Vinted for the first time. Someone bought a pair of my B2s, said they weren’t as described and returned to me a pair of kid’s pyjamas. Which could have been an honest mistake of mislabelling on their part, but instead aggressively accused me of lying. Seller beware (in the end they got to keep the boots and the money).

July – Not Kyrgyzstan

The entire month spent sleeping in the garden. More walks on the moor. A close friend started organising evening ganders, which was nice. I rarely spend that much time on the moor in summer – it looks weird when it’s green. But it took me a very long time to get my first tick this year – to the extent that I was wondering if they knew something I didn’t!!

And, to address the title: it turns out if something sounds too good to be true, even it it’s been explicitly confirmed 6 months ahead, it is too good to be true. I hadn’t heard anything official about the race still 1 month out. When I got on the phone to them they said “Who?” So, sadly, there was no Kyrgyzstan for me yet. One day. Also I stopped going for runs out of spite. It sucks to train for something then have the event taken away.

Also also, I started growing an inordinate amount of marrows. I wanted courgettes but I simply couldn’t pick them fast enough.

August – UTMB, Chamonix

Chamonix! That mythical place of mountaineering lore that I’d never quite made it to. The place the guys at uni spent camping all summer. The place I should have started the Walker’s Haute Route from, if the trains hadn’t failed me. (Again, I wrote a load about this trip but it looks like it hasn’t actually made it to the blog). And now, finally, I was there.

Like the Wind Magazine has been a client of mine for over a year now. We had a team meet up in Chamonix, timed with the UTMB. My colleague Alex, who’s in charge of all things design, was running the full UTMB and I had the pleasure of crewing for him for some of it. I really enjoyed it, actually. It was weirdly similar to what we do for Ten Tors. And I also found myself lying at a lake-side that I had walked past/through on the Walker’s Haute Route. A place where I’d managed to have a conversation in French with a shop keeper. (GCSE French eat your heart out!) And, felt like I had a purpose as I lent Alex my emergency ice cream spoon so he could eat dinner.

While Alex was off suffering – I really should just type up what I’ve written about this whole trip, shouldn’t I, I have a lot to say! – I had a fantastic time getting to know the rest of the team. And seeing what this running scene is all about. It seems like I’ve come a long way since I was tricking myself into going for runs. Heck, I work for a running magazine. And I blame that entirely on my friend for inviting me to the (pr)OMM in 2022. (Dude… another post that never made it out of the drafts!!) Sometimes all it takes is one person to believe in you and you’re away.

Also downhill is just amazing in Switzerland. There is so much of it.

September – Segwhat

Unexpectedly, I went on a segway for the first time. It was in a local woodland with a group of friends and the worst weather you could possibly have booked (ideal for our planned picnic afterwards). They truly are weird machines. It feels a bit awkward being shown the ropes, but then the less you think about it the easier it is after that! We were off-roading and everything.

The photo of the month has to be climbing Yes Tor with Dad. Especially since last year there was a very particular reason we couldn’t make it up there.

 October – Weather

As the summer turned, it got really wet. Really, really wet. My roof leaking, amongst other fun diy surprises… But I did manage to afford some new boots – long awaited really, since at this stage they were mostly hole. And I was back out in the bogs.

Also, this month I was ploughing on with the JMT book doing something I’ve called 75 Write (basically just 75 Hard except instead of reading x pages of a book, you write x amount of your book).

Here is a completely unstaged example of what that looked like. Writing whilst cooking dinner in a deconstructed building site of a kitchen – bit oh look, even more marrows left of frame! (Reader, my freezer is full of marrow and I have 20 jars of marrow pickle. I will not be growing courgettes next year.)

November – Winter Res

More Ten Tors, more Dartmoor. Highlight being going back to Whiteworks for the first time in at least 15 years. It was weird and lovely to find it basically how I remembered it as a child. Taught first aid, took a night nav session and two pre-breakfast runs.

December – Hedging

December always runs away from me, so here is the only memorable thing that has a photograph: planting 15 meters of native hedging. Another thing I’ve never done before but feel very glad I have now.