An entire month of 2024 has flown by already, can you believe it?!?! The beginning of February is the perfect time to look back at your year so far. Did you set yourself a couple of monthly or yearly goals? Have you been making progress towards those? How are you tracking?

After mulling over my own targets for 2024 with input from some of you (thanks John at sixtyplustimetrialling and others) I decided to target 100,000m of elevation gain for the year, or for the imperial folk that’s a shade over 328,000 feet.

That works out to “only” around 2000m per week. It might not seem much to some, but it’s a decent target for me with a life outside of cycling, a full-time job and a farm to take care of.

Having an elevation target rather than a distance target stops me from leaning towards flatter, faster rides (I’ve been an “average speed junkie” in the past, I admit). I have a weekly hours goal as well, but that figure will vary depending on where I am in any particular training cycle.

Thanks to a bunch of 1000m+ days in a row at the Tour Down Under in Adelaide, my progress towards the hundred thousand metre climbing goal is on track. Those five days netted me almost 6000 metres of elevation gain! My climbing total for January was: 13,900 metres (45,600ft)

There’s a couple of events I am eyeing off also. The UCI announced the dates for the next Gravel World Series, with Gravelista in Beechworth once again being included. I haven’t decided if I’m going to target that again. I’m still recovering from the brutal shock it gave me last year, haha! We shall see…

I hope you’re all making steady progress towards your own goals, whether those be cycling related or otherwise. Let me know in the comments below!