My current never miss podcast is the Boulder Boys show.

Last week, inspired by Adam Merry’s corporate job, they decided to do a first quarter review of each of their performances both in the running space and in their podcast side hustle.

The performance review required each member of the team to rate their performance on a scale of 1-5.

• 5. Outstanding: Consistently exceeds expectations. 
• 4. Exceeds Expectations: Regularly surpasses expectations. 
• 3. Meets Expectations: Consistently performs as expected. 
• 2. Needs Improvement: Performance falls below expectations. 
• 1. Unsatisfactory: Performance is consistently below expectations. 

The first quarter, Q1, is from January 1 to March 31 of each calendar year.

I was going to keep everything to running, but to deny that everything is all intertwined with each other doesn’t really give for an honest review.

That being said, let’s start with running.

In Q1, I ran two races, the Tarawera 100 mile in mid February and the Warby Trail Fest 27k in early March.

Whilst I feel like I did ok in both races, running a PR for both, I feel like both of them are a 2, needs improvement.

Tarawera is a hard one for me, I want to be stoked with such a large improvement on last year (almost 4 hours) but I still feel like it’s way below what I feel like I’m capable of at that race. There were lots of little 3’s and 4’s but they all add up to a 2.

I wasn’t sure I would make it to the start line at Warby and signed up the night before. The timing of this race has always been an issue if I’m running at Tarawera but I hate missing out.

It feels weird giving it a rating when I went out there without any real goals or expectations. Can you say you were below expectations when you didn’t have any or is the fact that number 2 says “needs improvement” a default state for people perpetually in a learners mindset or with chronic low self esteem? Asking for a friend.

Outside of races, it was clear from the Tarawera result, that I needed to make some changes to my training. I needed to incorporate the “little things” like strides, strength training and plyometrics which are actually really big things when it comes to speed and performance.

But I’m really time poor, I just don’t have the mental and physical time to get it to work so I decided I would “sprinkle” it in during March and try to build some consistency, the idea being that after every run I would do something for 10-15 minutes afterwards.

I didn’t do terribly, but I could have done better, definitely a 2.

As for the rest of my life, solid 1.5-1.9. Feelings have been ignored or eaten.

But I have made some plans for the rest of the year, namely Q2 and Q3.

I’ve entered a whole bunch of races which speed being the ultimate goal.

Since publicly shooting your shot is the in thing at the moment and I love to hate a trend, as if I’m not going to share my next big goal.

I want the big stein at Surf Coast Century.

What does that mean?

Well since they introduced gender equity in the finishers token in 2024, the big stein or the Bells as they call it, is awarded to female finishers who finish under 13 hours and 30 minutes.

This would require an almost 1 hour PB on this course for me.

I’ve sprinkled in some road races this year so see if aiming for road PR’s can add some spice and speed to the training.

See how we go I guess.