Your Strava Year Wrapped is useless data pØrn that won’t make you faster in 2025 – Do This Instead.

Most people set New Year’s resolutions. For me, that fails to work; it just feels vague and unclear. So instead, I audit what worked and what sucked. The goal is to do more of the good stuff and less of the bad stuff (or at least try to).

In this issue, I’m sharing my retrospective on what crushed my running life and what didn’t – all through the 1% better (or worse) framework.

Instead of me blabbering on and on, I’m making this interactive with a few polls throughout. If you want to share something so someone can hold you accountable, hit reply and tell me how you’re going to make 2026 great.

This is my anti-Strava/Spotify Wrapped thing. I’m personally over it and looking forward to when that trend dies a quick death.

Sorry if you loved the wrapped stuff. (Hot take: I don’t like that they give you your wrapped in early December. There’s still 8.5% of the year left to make a huge difference. How are you going to wrap up 11 months? Do people give up at the end of November? Anyway… I digress.)

What Went Right: The 1% I Got Back

​Marathon (2:59 to 3:01 after 7 years)​

• ​While I didn’t go sub-3 hours​ as I planned, it was still fun seeing that I ran a marathon in mostly zone 2 hr.
• I also learned that I need to take my time to go sub-3 hours again.
• While I’m sure I have the fitness, my body needs time to adapt.
• I also want to just run a marathon where I don’t feel like death at the end (I know there will always be discomfort, but I keep cramping/muscle spasming up at the end of most marathons
• I feel like this needs to be addressed in proper training and slowly building to it vs just going after an aggressive best time.

​My annual half-marathon (#8 of 10 every year)​

• This ended up being a win, even though I didn’t get my best time. I was quite close to it, though.
• I learned that I have a weirdo positive split tool that I can actually slow down a tiny bit (10-15 seconds per km/15-25 seconds per mile) and kind of back it down to then wind up and have a final kick at the end.
• This is the ability to ​suffer while “hanging on”.​
• This usually isn’t my strong sui,t as I like to even split or negative split, but it was there, buried deep.
• It’s just a lot of sitting in discomfort
• Every race can’t be a best time, but you can learn something (the more you know… GI Joe)

2 strength days = enough

• This was interesting. I always thought more lifting was good—3-4 days was what I should be aiming for.
• So I did that in the offseason two years ago and injured myself in a bunch of places. I’ll blame it on global inflammation from too much strength work.
• This year, when the off-season hit in September, I knew I’d do more gym work and base training. With the “extra time/energy,” I always start lifting more and doing plyometrics. But I knew that trap all too well.
• Instead, I capped it at 2 days a week. Result? I’m stronger than I’ve ever been, gained muscle, and stayed lean.
• 2.5 days if you count the injury insurance work I do—micro-dosing plyometrics, form drills, hip flexor strength, hip mobility, etc.

What Went Wrong: The 1% I Had to Lose

44 years old, and my 5k speed is slowly fading

• I sat down and realized my fastest 5k was almost 5 years ago—that’s no bueno.
• How long do I have to get faster at the 5k? Another 2 years? Another 7 years? Who knows, but I need to make sure I don’t lose that fitness.
• I set out to run sub-16 minutes and got close at 16:45. I thought I’d get into the low 16s a few months after, but life had other plans.
• I want to change that this year since last year was marathon-focused.
• So I’ll be training slightly differently—3 “speed” sessions and one long run.
• You might see that and go “WHAT… that’s diabolical, Daren.” No, it’s actually way more chill than it looks.
• The speed sessions: one half-marathon/10k threshold workout, one 10k to 5k paced VO2 max workout, and one 3k-1 mile anaerobic workout.
• All at current fitness for each session (not goal pace—going faster than what my body is ready for is how you burn out and get injured).
• Instead of doing 100% of a workout (say, five intervals), I’ll do 80% (4 intervals).
• The long run will be super slow—low HR, high zone 1/low zone 2, capped at 70-80 minutes.
• In between, I’ll be doing easy running on grass, aqua jogging, and elliptical.
• Sounds boring and prescriptive? Yes, that’s the point. To go somewhere I haven’t gone, I need to do new things. 1% better.

Don’t need 120km weeks.

• I think 70-80km might work for a fast 5k instead of 100km of zone 2 work.
• We’ll see—because I know 120km weeks for the marathon burned me out.

What I’m Going To Just Let Vibe: The 1% That’s Actually Doing Nothing

• Full days off won’t kill fitness—and I’m enjoying my sauna/cold plunge days, rucking, or basketball
• Micro-dosing form drills and plyometrics throughout the week
• I’m not built for marathons, but doing one 15-20% slower each year just to finish feeling good might be the way
• Realizing and properly implementing that rest is training—and it’s so good to feel good when you go hard

Closing Out The Year

1% truly compounds everywhere—both up and down. Go look at your work calendar or your Strava, Garmin, or digital training calendar. Spend 15-20 minutes writing down three things you liked and two things you didn’t.

Do more of what you liked and less of what you didn’t. Easier in theory, way harder in practice. But it’s the path to being 1% better every year.