If you have been on 𝕏 (the website formerly known as Twitter) over the past few days, you would know that there has been a bit of a kerfuffle in the expat community regarding proposed changes to permanent residency requirements.

To cut a long story short we probably need to take a look at the old requirements compared with the proposed changes.

But before we continue, there are a lot of heated discussions occurring online now. Note that the root of these discussions is not simply about permanent residency requirements. They are about whether we approach moving abroad as a short-term adventure or a long-term life decision.

Old requirements

• Good conduct

• Financial independence

  • 10 years continuous residence in Japan

• Including 5 years on a qualifying work/residence status

• Payment of taxes, pension, and health insurance

• Contribution to Japan’s national interest

• Appropriate period of stay for current visa status

Some of these are a little vague…but none of them are particularly unreasonable. Live here 10 years, pay the taxes, pension, and health insurance you are legally required to pay, don’t break any laws, and contribute positively to Japanese society.

But what about the proposed changes?

Proposed changes / revised assessment criteria

Same as the old requirements. But…

• Stricter assessment of financial independence

  • Greater scrutiny of income, assets, and ability to support dependents

  • Low income applicants may face more questions

• Stricter assessment of tax and social insurance compliance

  • Late payments of taxes, pension, or health insurance are more likely to negatively affect applications

• Greater focus on long-term stability

  • Immigration may consider employment stability, future livelihood, and overall financial situation more carefully

When it’s laid out like this, again, it doesn’t look unreasonable. However, one thing that has gotten a lot of people in a frenzy is:

Under the revised guidelines, an applicant will additionally be required to have an annual income in excess of the average for a Japanese household, as well as projected pension benefits equivalent to those the applicant would receive after 30 years of enrollment in an employees' pension program at that income level.

- July 26, 2026 (Mainichi Japan)

Let’s delve into this further:

Salary

According to the National Tax Agency, the average annual salary in Japan is 4.78 million yen. I am not a big fan of simply converting the currency because it only provides a snapshot and does not paint the full picture of the economic situations in those countries at the time, but to put this in perspective, ¥4.78 million per year is:

• $29,220 (USD)

• £21,879 (GBP)

For comparison, official statistics report median* full-time earnings of approximately £39,000 in the UK (7.8 million JPY) and approximately $62,600 in the US (9.4 million JPY). These figures are not directly comparable due to differences in methodology, working hours, taxation, and cost of living, but they provide useful context.

*Note: Japan’s figure is an average (mean), while the UK and US figures are median figures. They are not perfectly equivalent.

Pension

Some people are looking at this situation and are thinking that before they apply for permanent residency they need to have contributed into their pension for 30 years. This is not correct. It is not "you must have paid 30 years." It’s projected pension.

If Person A comes to Japan at 20 years old, pays into their pension for 10 years , then applies for permanent residency (PR) (30 at the time of application), they have approximately 35 years of potential future contributions before reaching the current pension eligibility age.

If Person B comes to Japan at 40 years old, pays into their pension for 10 years, then applies for PR (50 at the time of application), they have only 15 years left to contribute to their pension before reaching the current pension eligibility age.

Person A would have 10 years of contributions PLUS 35 years of future contributions. That gives a projected contribution history equivalent to approximately 45 years. Person B would have 10 years of contributions PLUS 15 years of future contributions. That gives a projected contribution history equivalent to approximately 25 years.

A realistic view of PR requirements

If I were to rewrite these in layman’s terms:

• Good conduct (don’t break any laws)

• Financial independence

  • Earn above the required income threshold (present financial independence)

  • Contribute enough to the pension system to cover your retirement (future financial independence)

• Payment of taxes, pension, and health insurance

• Contribution to Japan’s national interest

• Appropriate period of stay for current visa status

And to put this in perspective, for the Japanese government to provide permanent residency to a foreigner who wants to live in their country, making sure they can take care of themselves now and also won’t create an avoidable risk of financial dependence on social systems in the future is a reasonable approach.

In response to this, I’m going to give a bit of practical advice:

Find out where you stand

Whenever there is an announcement like this some people have a knee-jerk reaction to start freaking out and acting like the world is coming to an end. They seem to post on social media first, then think about the situation later.

Very quickly after the new suggested requirements were announced, a calculator was put together to estimate someone’s eligibility for PR based on their salary, pension contributions, and age.

Before anyone freaks out about their eligibility, consider checking out this calculator. The 𝕏 post is below:

Once you have found out where you stand you have a roadmap of exactly what you need to do to qualify for PR. Many of the reactions I have seen online are hyper-focused on the “30-year pension contribution” and pay less attention to the income requirement.

Note that according to the calculator, a 40-year-old who has paid into their pension for 20 years while earning literally half of the median income in Japan still meets the pension requirement.

But what I am about to say next might annoy some people.

The reality of moving abroad

When I first moved to Japan I came across two different kinds of people:

• Those who were on “working holidays”

• Those who were serious about moving to Japan

If you are on a “working holiday” I can understand following your passions and just earning a bit of money while you have fun. But that is generally not a reliable way to build a long-term career.

Over the past few days on 𝕏, I have observed people who came to Japan, found a job that sounded fun for a year or two, and then looked around TWENTY YEARS LATER realizing they were earning far less than the median salary. They delayed their PR application for 10 years and are now panicking that PR is “unattainable.” Of course, life circumstances vary. Some people prioritize lifestyle, family, location, or personal fulfillment over income. There is nothing wrong with that. However, those choices have consequences when applying for immigration statuses that assess financial stability.

On the other hand, people who are serious about moving to Japan focus on what life is going to be like further down the road. Speaking from personal experience, I knew what my maximum earning potential was in that job and I knew when my contract would end. So I did what I could to skill up, applied for a higher-paying job, then immediately switched over when my contract was up. When I found that that job wasn’t good for me, I applied for another job (with a salary increase included) and moved on.

Work while skilling up and apply for a better job enough and you will eventually find that you are no longer on an entry-level salary.

Now, I understand that everyone has different situations. But it’s a fact that some people come to Japan with a “working holiday” mindset and then spend decades earning an entry-level salary. And not only that, but they also sometimes appear unwilling to take the steps necessary to improve their situation. Someone who has been in Japan for 20 years and met the existing requirements could potentially have been eligible for PR for around 10 years (if they did everything they are supposed to do right in terms of tax, pension, and health insurance contributions). So why are they saying, “I’ve been here for 20 years and thanks to the new administration I’ll never get PR.” If it wasn’t important 10 years ago, why is it important now?

Final thoughts and Take Home Messages

For people who are thinking about moving to Japan (or anywhere else), this is my advice to you:

1. Think carefully about your future goals. If you want a working holiday, have fun, but if you want a career, think about how to make it happen.

2. Constantly think about how to improve your position. People who are entry-level get paid entry-level salaries. Work towards moving beyond entry-level positions.

3. Realize that obligations are obligatory. If it costs 200,000 yen to apply for something you need to save up 200,000 yen. Complaining about it isn’t going to make it cheaper.

4. Understand that as an expat, the country you are residing in doesn’t owe you anything. If you are struggling in your home country, you may have access to support systems because you are a citizen. When you move to another country, however, you cannot assume that country has the same obligations toward you.

Please consider these things BEFORE moving abroad. Uprooting your entire life and moving to a different country is hard work. Don’t mess it up.

Ultimately, this debate is not only about permanent residency. It is about a broader question: when we choose to move to another country, are we thinking about the next year, or the next thirty years?

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Thank you very much for reading. If you enjoy my work please share it with someone you think would also enjoy it.

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When I was in primary school I got involved with music. I remember enjoying it to a level, but one of the things that totally ruined my enjoyment of it was the fact that I hated my music teacher. I don’t recall her name (nor do I want to) but I do remember a feeling of not wanting to make mistakes while playing whatever musical instrument I was obliged to play at that time, because getting it wrong would lead to a negative interaction (I didn’t like being yelled at over an extracurricular activity). I played music during my primary school years (initially because I wanted to, but eventually because I felt obliged to), and as soon as I reached secondary school I dropped it. No point carrying on something I had no love for.

When I was in secondary school I was very focused on working on science. I saw very little value in art class, and as such I put almost no effort into it. I enjoyed doing technical drawing (and took graphic design as one of my subjects), but I didn’t like free hand drawing things because I didn’t see a future in it.

I also didn’t care much for the, “modern foreign languages,” I was obliged to study at school. I was obliged to learn French and German, but again, back when I was in secondary school, I just wanted to work on my science projects and not get involved with French and German. (I wasn’t planning on moving to France or Germany in the future and to this day I have still not set foot in Germany).

As with everyone, as I got older, I ended up getting more and more specialized. Now that I am old enough and have decades of experience in multiple fields, I have figured out what I’m good at an what I’m kind of terrible at:

• Good at science

• Good at Japanese

• Good at martial arts

• Terrible at drawing

• Terrible at music

I have discovered as I’ve gained more experience that although I’m not so good at foreign languages that aren’t Japanese, I can learn if I put my mind to it. I did ok in France last year after taking a French course, so I could probably be decent at drawing and music IF I put a lot of effort into it (which I don’t really have time to do).

But recently there has been a bit of a fuss on social media over the use of AI art. There are several people (usually people who think they are talented artists but who only seem to have about 100 or so followers online) that are cursing anyone who dares to use “AI slop” instead of paying someone talented (them I assume) to do the art for them.

Let’s take a look at this.

The modern technology we surround ourselves with

It could be said that people in current year are not as good at penmanship as the previous generation. These days, I do far more typing than I do writing by hand.

Being an iaidō practitioner, I have a lot of friends who are in the older generation (in their 70’s and beyond). In recent years some of those people have started to get involved with instant messaging apps, but in the past I have had instructors pass me notices in the form of hand written letters with beautiful penmanship and no mistakes.

I know that whenever I type I see red lines appear under the text that I write to let me know that my spelling is incorrect. I am constantly typing, deleting, checking, and retyping whenever I put together an article. There’s a lot of automation involved with using a word processor even in my native language.

Many Japanese people also do the same thing in Japanese. It is not uncommon to come across people who can read words like 薔薇 (bara: rose) or 麒麟 (kirin: giraffe/Chinese unicorn), but can’t actually write the characters by hand.

And while I wouldn’t call a word processor an AI, I would say that it’s a modern tool we all use on a regular basis to make writing/typing easier (while also making up for our shortcomings of not knowing how to spell every word and write every kanji).

Additionally, AI translation is becoming more and more widespread. It’s also becoming much more sophisticated the more it is trained. A few years ago, if you wanted a translation doing right you needed to involve a qualified translator who could understand the nuances of both languages in order to get the point across, which was often and expensive and time consuming process. Now we can get the gist of what is being said at the touch of a button with an AI translator.

Going a step further, just last week I was in a rush to get something done for a seminar I was involved in, but I was very short on time. With a couple of prompts, I managed to get the AI to come up with a curated list of backup questions for the seminar (just in case there was time at the end) and also come up with an Excel based sign-in sheet for people attending the seminar. Stuff I could have made myself if I had an hour or two to spare, but stuff I was able to get done instantaneously thanks to AI.

We are now living in a world where this kind of technology exists. Not accepting it means we are falling behind.

Also, as previously stated, I am not good at drawing…but I can use an AI tool to “illustrate” how bad at drawing I am.

The double standards

As I mentioned earlier, I’m seeing a lot of people online who are whining about “AI slop,” when it comes to art. But these people are all posting on social media and are existing in the same environment as everyone else.

So the “artists” who get angry at people for using AI are probably using at least some, if not most of the following things without thinking (this list was partly made using Grok):

• Spell checkers & grammar tools (Word processors)

• Autocorrect & predictive text (phone keyboards)

• Autocomplete / smart compose (Gmail, messaging)

• AI translation (Google Translate, DeepL)

• Google/Apple Maps (routes, traffic prediction)

• Auto-generated video captions & subtitles

• Fitness tracker activity recognition

You might think I’m being ridiculous, but if someone is taking a hard line stance on AI by saying, “AI is taking our jobs away, so you shouldn’t use it,” then why aren’t they doing exactly the same when it comes to these things?

Why are you using word processing tools instead of hand writing it and giving it to a typist to proof read and type up? You are taking a typist’s job away.

Why are you using a map application instead of hiring a guide? You are taking a guide’s job away.

Why are you using a fitness tracker instead of hiring a personal trainer? You are taking a personal trainer’s job away.

Why does this only apply to drawing?

Modern Luddites

Back when I was in school I remember learning about Luddites. For the purpose of this article, I did not go to a library, pick up a book on 19th century British history and then write my findings here. I simply looked it up online using modern technology.

Luddites were a group of 19th-century English textile workers who protested against automated machinery and the industrialization of their craft. Today, the term broadly describes anyone who opposes, mistrusts, or avoids new technological changes.

During the industrial revolution, machines like looms and knitting frames were introduced in order to speed up the process of textile manufacturing. Some of the people who originally did this by hand felt like their livelihood was being threatened by this new technology started sending aggressive messages to people who adopted it to get them to stop (sound familiar?) or even started actively destroying the machines that were, “taking their jerbs.”

Things eventually didn’t end well for the Luddites after their activities were criminalized (leading to multiple hangings), and as you might notice technology has moved far beyond weaving machines now.

The people who are anti-AI to the point they are being unpleasant and threatening to anyone who has any level of appreciation for AI art (specifically) are clearly acting like Luddites, only without realizing how much of their lives have already been handed over to modern tools anyway. So far I haven’t received any aggressive hand written letters. It is always in the form of word processed comments online.

Augmented Intelligence

I am not a big fan of the term, “Artificial intelligence.” I much prefer the term, “Augmented intelligence.” I use tools in order to enhance what I can do. I don’t just throw anything and everything to AI and have total reliance on it.

I might use tools to improve my typing (like we all do), but unless I proof read it first I might just end up writing a bunch of nonsense. I might use a translation tool to get the rough gist of something, but if I want a proper translation, I will go to a bilingual human to make sure it’s correct (or check it myself if it’s in a language I understand). I might use a map app in order to find my way around, but if I use the map app as a tool I might still get lost and might actually increase my chances of being hit by a car. And I might ask an AI to draw something for me due to my lack of individual artistic ability, but if I am not happy with what has been produced I’ll either remake it until I’m happy with it or speak to an actual artist who can do it well for me.

I use my own ability plus AI augmentation in order to get things done. That is how it should be done. Having this singular exception for “art” doesn’t make sense to me.

Final thoughts and take home messages

We all have stuff we are good at and we all have stuff that we are not so good at. I spent a lot of my life working on things I wanted to be good at, and as a result I didn’t have time to also master things like musical instruments and fine art.

We live in a world where we are surrounded by modern technology that makes everything easier. Even word processors are an example of this. But to some people the only thing that matters is whether you can draw or not.

If you are against people using AI to create drawings or pictures and demand that they stop on the grounds that it threatens jobs, are you going to stop using AI tools that are taking jobs away from others? Professional translators would probably appreciate it if you stopped using AI translation tools give the work to them instead.

I won’t be stopping using AI to augment what I do any time soon. I’m not a Luddite. Embrace technology or be left behind.

And just as a last thought, technology is cool. That doesn’t mean it is going to literally replace everything. I can appreciate the fact that Yaskawa trained an industrial robot to use a sword while still appreciating traditional swordsmanship. It doesn’t replace traditional swordsmanship in the same way that AI art doesn’t replace art. People can appreciate the modern and the traditional at the same time.

Thank you very much for reading. If you enjoy my work please share it with someone you think would also enjoy it.

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I eat well, sleep enough, exercise a lot, work hard, write, and have a decent work life balance going on top of this. Recently, demands from my job have also had me traveling quite a lot. In the past 3 months I’ve spent about two weeks in the US, and a week in Thailand, and I’ve still been been managing to keep up with things…MOSTLY.

The “man cave” problem

I am very lucky in that I have quite a lot of opportunities to work from home. I do spend some time in the office and I go on quite a lot of business trips, but I do spend the majority of my time working in my home office.

My home office has a desk, a couple of bookshelves, and an area of three standard sized tatami mats that I can use to train in. It’s not a huge space, but it’s enough to swing a kettlebell in, do full home workouts, and stretch when I feel motivated to stretch.

The problem is that my “man cave” needs upkeep, and I have recently been having trouble keeping up with it.

“I’ll do it later”

Over the course of a few months junk started accumulating in my “man cave.” Some of this came in the form of paper (pamphlets, unimportant letters etc), random knick-knacks (stuff picked up at conferences), out of season clothing (stuff I put in a corner last season and never put back in its right place), assorted race items (race information, race numbers, safety pins, etc) and lots of other random crap that have been accumulating over quite a while.

One of the big problems that I had was that I was neglecting this accumulation of stuff because I was being active and motivated in different areas. Going for a run somehow felt like better use of time than clearing up some papers. Planning my next trip felt more important than returning a scarf to a draw. Writing a report felt like it needed to take priority over putting a race number on my race number shelf. There was always an excuse not to address the elephant in the man cave, and “I’ll do it later,” became a regular mantra.

But later will never arrive if you don’t set out when later is.

Choosing your later

Before I set off for my most recent business trip I made an ultimatum with myself. I resolved to start addressing the issue as soon as I arrived back in to Japan and stick to it.

I’d say it’s going well, but still a work in progress. But what exactly did I do.

Do ONE thing

When I got back to Japan I set myself a rule that I would do ONE thing to make my office tidier every time I left the room. Even if it was picking up one piece of paper and either filing it or throwing it away, the act of doing one task would eventually restore order. I go in and out of my office quite a lot in a day and so one act of cleaning up every time I moved meant that after one day of doing a bit of passive work my tatami space became usable again, clothes that weren’t in the right place were washed and put into storage, and I was throwing away large bags of paper for recycling (or shredded documents for proper disposal).

I think we all have a tendency to not want to throw certain things away, but realistically, do we need tax documents from 2020, credit card statements from 2018, and even documentation from student loans that we have already fully paid off?

This “do ONE thing” strategy has been working quite well for me over the past couple of weeks. I’ve found things I thought I’d lost, thrown away things I thought I needed (but really didn’t), and shifted my way of thinking to other rooms in my place as well. Everything is getting cleaned up quicker.

Habit triggers

I am a fan of James Clear’s Atomic Habits. There are a lot of things from this book I actually practice in my daily life, including linking habits together such as running and listening to audiobooks. (I only listen to Audiobooks when I run, so if I want to advance the audiobook I need to run. This re-enforces both habits).

In the book, environments and locations are described as powerful habit triggers. If you set up your environment in certain ways, and have it so whenever you are in that environment it triggers a habit, you can get a lot of things done. Right now I have it set up where my office door is a trigger for me to clear something up. But in the past I have done things like set up a kettlebell on the way out of the room, so whenever I pass by it, I do some exercise with the kettlebell (some swings, some squats, etc). Once the habit trigger I am using has totally cleared the room, I could perhaps use the same habit trigger to do some additional exercise again.

This whole situation could be a great way to get things on track again.

Final thoughts and take home messages

Generally people who practice martial arts and ultra running are very motivated people. They are at least very motivated to engage with the kind of physical activity they are interested in. But being motivated to be an athlete doesn’t necessarily transfer to every other aspect of your life. This is my excuse of my (up until recently) messy man cave and I’m sticking to it.

This happens with other people as well. I have met some very very smart people who have huge motivation to be involved with academics and solve incredibly difficult problems, but their office space looks like a bomb has hit it.

Sometimes if we want to solve issues like this, we need to start setting up new habits to get it done. I chose coming back from my most recent business trip as a trigger to start cleaning things up.

I am now in a habit of doing ONE thing to make my room better whenever I leave the room. As a result my room is getting better little by little and my thoughts are clearer.

Even with the best intentions in the world, we can all end up a bit lazy when life gets in the way. The good news is, we don’t need to stay like this forever. Choose a point to make the change, then start making gradual changes.

(Also, if you haven’t done so, read Atomic Habits by James Clear. It’s a great book).

Thank you very much for reading. If you enjoy my work please share it with someone you think would also enjoy it.

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I started my Substack in August 2023. Where possible I am still going to try to upload weekly in 2025 on Wednesdays at 17:00 JST. These milestone posts serve as update posts to keep myself accountable with my training and to also give an update to those who are following me.

Milestones will stay up but for the rest of my articles they will generally be archived after one month. After they are archived, they will be accessible to my paid subscribers. Free subscribers can read everything I post for free as it comes out.

This month…

In this Monthly Milestone I’m going to be covering the following:

• Substack Stats

• Monthly Training Stats

• March Race/Event Results

• Reading List (what I’m currently reading (including audiobooks))

• Final Thoughts and Hopes for July

Substack Stats

I ended May with 736 subscribers and I am ending June with…732! That’s a little disappointing. I admit that I haven’t been posting as much on notes recently and that may be reducing my reach. But thank you to everyone who has chosen to stick around.

Monthly Training Stats

Here are my training stats for June alongside the May stats for comparison:

June run total: 299.49 km (May: 241.3 km)
June walk total: 40.1 km (May: 53.0 km)
June run/walk total: 339.5 km (May: 294.3 km)
June elevation total: 2,521 m (May: 1,735 m)

June was a much more active month than may. I wasn’t thinking too much about my run stats for this month because I did a big race and ran intuitively for the rest of the time. If I had been paying attention I would have run another 0.51 km to make it a round 300 km. How frustrating. lol

Regardless, I June was clearly a good month.

Race/Event results

I entered 1 parkrun (5 km races) during June:

• June 20th: 21:38. 8th overall (2nd in age group) (Instagram pics here)

June was a pretty disrupted month. There was a cancellation on the first week of the month due to an event, I was busy the second week, the third week I ran, and the fourth week was canceled due to a typhoon. All in all, not a great month for parkrun attendance, and the one I did attend wasn’t very quick. There was however a reason why I wasn’t very quick.

On May 14th I ran the Hida Takayama Ultramarathon in Gifu. This was part of an ultramarathon series I am trying to complete over the span of a few years. I linked the race report below, so please feel free to check it out in case you missed it.

Beach running was largely business as usual. I attended every week apart from the week I wasn’t around or the ultra. We don’t stop for typhoons.

My karate attendance was pathetic in June. This was largely due to schedule clashes and cancellations. I attended my iaidō classes when I could but still not at the frequency I would have liked. I should be starting to get to normality in July.

Reading list

I finished two audiobooks in June:

• Echoes of Eternity by Aaron Dembski-Bowden

This was probably one of the most action heavy books in the series so far. There was a huge focus on Sanguinius and his brawls with multiple antagonists. Easily one of my favorites in the whole Horus Heresy so far.

I had one ongoing audiobook in June:

• The End and the Death: Volume I by Jonathan Keeble

I’ve been listening to this series for about 8 years now. The End and the Death is the final part of the series but it’s split into 3 books. Things are getting real. I’m not far into this one yet so I’ll wait and see what happens.

Final Thoughts and Hopes for July

My current race season is officially over. The Hida Takayama Ultramarathon pretty much closed everything out, so now I am looking forward to a horrendous training season in the soon to be ridiculous heat.

I do still have races in my calendar. My next one will be the 青鳩トレイルラン (Aobato Trail Run) in September 26th. This is a 30 km run up a mountain range (sea to summit) that I ran a few years ago during a typhoon. Before that point I want to purchase some new trail running shoes with good grip that I might be able to use in future trail ultras. Watch this space for more information. In addition to this I will be running the Shonan International Marathon in December for the 4th time.

Future races are still undecided. Right now I’m planning some future races but I’m still not sure of the actual goal. More 100 km road runs? Longer trail ultras? Just going for a sub-3 marathon? Not sure. I need to survive the summer first.

My karate training has been a bit lackluster recently and I’m hoping my schedule will allow me to go back to the dōjō on a more regular basis. My iaidō training however has been pretty steady. I feel like I am improving gradually with it. In fact, although I don’t hae any races coming up, my next event will be an iaidō tournament in August. Again, watch this space for more details.

Summer in Japan is always brutal. It never gets easier. I do try to take the opportunity to improve under harsh conditions. A lot of people sensibly slow down during summer. I intend to try to keep the pace going. Let’s do this!

Thank you to all my readers

I hope you had a fantastic June and are ready to get after it during July.

Osu!

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Of course, people are allowed to enjoy any sport they want. I…

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Before running this ultramarathon I wrote an article called Exploring the Hida Takayama Ultramarathon Course. A breakdown of the course is in that article so if you want more granular details please check that article (people who want to run the Hida Takayama Ultramarathon in the future may find both these articles useful). This race report will focus on my experience with the race.

This race is part of a series of five races. I ran the Challenge Fuji 5 Lakes Ultramarathon two years ago and wrote a report about the experience. Last year I ran the Nobeyama Ultra marathon and wrote a report about that one as well. Continuing this theme, this is a report about the Hida Takayama Ultramarathon. As such, it will follow a similar structure to the previous ones.

Booking logistics

Last year in November I was convinced that I’d missed the boat on the entry for this ultramarathon. I’m not sure if it opened, closed, then opened for a second round, but to cut a long story short, the ultramarathon opened on December 24th at around 18:00.

I wanted to make sure I had somewhere to stay so as soon as the hotels opened for the race I booked one. (My reservation number was 000002. Guess that means I was the second person to reserve a hotel). When I took part in Challenge Fuji 5, and Nobeyama, I had a shared room, but this time I managed to secure a single room.

I knew the race booking would be around for longer than the hotel booking so I booked the race right after booking the hotel. I also managed to secure a T-Shirt for being within the first 2,500 applicants.

The following day I received an email saying that T-shirts were no longer available, so the race really filled up fast this year. If you want a race T-shirt booking right away is key for this one.

The day before the race

Skipping ahead to June 2026, I had two options to get to the race. I could have gone by train myself, or catch a ride with a friend of mine. I ended up doing the latter so I took an early train to Tokyo then went by car to the Takayama area. The drive from Tokyo took about 5 hours. This was much further way than the previous ultras I had done before.

My hotel wasn’t actually close to the start area and was kind of out of town. I booked a taxi via the Uber App in advance but when I got to the hotel I found that there was a shuttle bus to take us to “Big Arena,” so I canceled the taxi and secured a place on the shuttle.

For the rest of that day, I took a bus into Takayama, did a bit of sightseeing in the area, bought some food for the evening, took a bath in the hotel 温泉 (onsen: hot spring) then went to bed at around 7am.

There were no meals in the hotel package that I booked, but this meant I could deal with things at my own pace. I missed a bit of the “travel” experience in this race, but thanks to having a single room and being able to determine my own schedule, I actually slept very well and was ready to go on the morning of the race.

Race day breakdown

Like with my Nobeyama race breakdown, I’m separating this report by 関門 (kanmon: checkpoints). The checkpoints in these races are very strict. If you don’t make them in time you get a DNF (did not finish) status.

As with the previous report, I’m putting this report together using posts from 𝕏, photo metadata, and memory.

Start to Checkpoint 1 (0 – 25.9 km)
道の駅ひだ朝日村 : Michi-no-Eki Hida Asahi Village

I got the shuttle bus from my hotel at 03:30 and arrived at Hida Takayama Big Arena at about 03:45. My wave started at 04:30 so I had plenty of time to use the restroom and take in the atmosphere. I probably wouldn’t have had time to use the restroom if I hadn’t gone right away because there was a MASSIVE line right before we got started. Still, race nerves started taking over (as they tend to do) so I thought I’d use one of the early ones on the course once we got started.

We gathered at the start area about 15 minutes before everything kicked off and then, after a few speeches, set off into the foggy morning.

The beginning of the race started with an easy uphill segment then had us running down a steady descent into the Takayama city area. It felt very much like any other road marathon at this point. I was running with a friend of mine at this point and we both noted that maybe we were going out a bit quick, but the pace felt right as the adrenaline was flowing at the beginning of the race.

I stopped at a Temple restroom (from the pagoda I visited the day before) on the course just before we headed into the old streets of Takayama. This was actually quite a good way to get me to slow down a little bit as we set off.

The atmosphere from the old town onwards was fantastic. What was a street full of tourists the previous day turned into a street full of runners. The shopkeepers and other locals came out to cheer everyone on, even at that very early time of the day. It was stunning to run towards the foggy mountains through the old town, and although it was a bit jarring, it was also amazing to pass a guy with a speaker set playing “Eye of the Tiger” at full blast before it was even 5 am. (I’m sure the locals could forgive this one day a year).

As we set off into the mountains the streets were still lined with locals cheering us on. There were even elderly people that had shuffled out to sit on their roofs to cheer us on. There was a real festival atmosphere the entire way.

We got to the fist aid station at 5.9 km (高山信用金庫 三福寺支店 (Takayama Shinkin Bank, Sanfukuji Branch)), but only stopped very briefly to rehydrate. There were a lot of trafic signals in the first part of the race. That story was repeated at the aid station at 10.7 km (塩屋公民館 (Shioya Community Center)), but after that point there was quite a large hill to climb.

The hilly section started steadily enough, and we were treated to the view of the sunrise as we climbed.

I try to pace myself on climbing hills during these ultras because I know that there is a long path ahead. I am however, quite quick on the downhill segments. Once we reached the top of the hill I charged down to the 16.7 km (美女高原 (Bijo Highlands)) aid station, where I had again, I quickly rehydrated, and then set off at a steady run to the next aid station.

Leading up to the next aid station was a beautiful farm area, where it looked like we were running into clouds. We weren’t that high up, so it was difficult to tell if it was fog or clouds, but the effect was stunning.

The 19.6 km aid station( 飛騨高山ワインアポセカリー（旧ひまわり農園前） (Hida Takayama Wine Apothecary, former Himawari Farm site)) went by without much notice (mostly just rehydrating) and I then just charged on towards the first checkpoint, still running with my friend.

At this point in the race I was starting to think that maybe I had gone out a bit too fast and that I wasn’t eating enough. I was relying almost totally on drinking coke, sports drink, and that citric acid drink, without actually taking in many calories on the way. But when we got to the first checkpoint we were able to take a bit of a break.

We were 2 hours 25 minutes ahead of the closing time of this checkpoint.

Checkpoint 1 to Checkpoint 2 (25.9 – 44.8 km)
岩滝公民館 : Iwataki Community Center

At the first checkpoint I took a bit of time to try to force some food down. The aid station was giving out よもぎうどん (yomogi udon), which is a kind of green noodle dish made out of mugwort. It was cool, refreshing, and went down pretty easily. Beyond that I was just refueling on pretty much a liquid diet. I was still functioning without any issues (which is good because I was only a quarter of the way into the ultra), so that was a bonus.

I gave a high five to someone dressed as a giant corn cob and then continued on my way.

The next section of the course was significantly hillier than the previous one. I paced myself as much as possible on the hills but I still wanted to keep a good pace going, so my run walk strategy was used quite a lot.

Going up the hills I came across a few people dressed as dinosaurs which was very much a pick me up.

At around 35.1 km I came to an aid station called 走り乃神社 (Hashiri-no Shrine). There were arches at this aid station made of straw which added to the mysterious appeal of this point. It was also a bonus that they were giving out Shonan Gold Energy (a kind of Japanese version of Red Bull but made out of Shonan Gold oranges), so that was a very welcome pick me up.

There was quite an extensive climb after this up to roughly the 40 km point. It was there that I saw a sign for the highest point of the course. This point was much lower than the one in Nobeyama but it came at the half way point of the course instead of nearer the start like Nobeyama. The approach felt a bit different.

When I ran down that slope after the highest point I saw a cone that pointed out 42.195 km and yelled MARATHON as I passed it. That seemed to turn a few heads, but I didn’t care. Once you cross a marathon you are officially in ultra territory.

The next aid station came shortly after this at 44.8 km.

I arrived at this aid station right before 9am, meaning I was 2 hours ahead of the closing time of this checkpoint.

Checkpoint 2 to Checkpoint 3 (44.8 – 56.7 km)
丹生川支所 : Nyūkawa Branch Office

At the second checkpoint I again, refueled mostly with liquid calories. It was also getting pretty hot despite it being quite early in the morning. Thankfully at the aid stations there were plenty of buckets filled with cold water that we were able to dump over ourselves to cool off. Right before I set off I asked a volunteer to pour water on the back of my neck to try to regulate my temperature. This helped a bit but it needed to be a regular occurrence at every aid station moving forward.

The next section of the course had us passing through more gradual inclines and descents. Once again, I did my best to run-walk the climbs and simply let gravity take over during the descents.

During this section of the course I was going up a steady hill and saw a banner the locals had put up:

This was a really big boost to my morale as I climbed that particular slope.

After that section there was a long descent down to checkpoint 3 at 丹生川支所 (Nyūkawa Branch Office). There was a real party atmosphere going in this particular area that you could hear from across the street.

I could see and hear the checkpoint but I needed to go underground to cross the road before resurfacing at the other side and crossing into the checkpoint area.

This checkpoint was great. I ate some トマトそうめん (Tomato sōmen) and some other food at this aid station, but I unfortunately missed the Hida beef. (I just didn’t see it. Thankfully I’d eaten some the previous day so didn’t totally miss out on the experience).

There was a statue of 両面宿儺 (Ryomen Sukuna) in front of the hall. Ryomen Sukuna is a legendary, multi-limbed figure who existed in two entirely contrasting forms: a monstrous outlaw and a regional folk hero. He is famously mentioned in the 日本書紀(Nihon Shoki: Chronicle of Japan). This character is more popularly recognized in the anime series 呪術廻戦 (Jujutsu Kaisen).

I arrived at this checkpoint at 10:17, meaning I was just over 2 hours 10 mins ahead of the closing time of this checkpoint.

Checkpoint 3 to Checkpoint 4 (56.7 – 73.8 km)
国府B&G海洋センター : Kokufu B&G Marine Center

The next part of the course was quite special to me. It started off with a sligth downhill section followed by an intense climb.

I am generally quite good at intense climbs because I’m quite a good power hiker. Almost everyone walked in this section but my walking stride meant I wasn’t hindered much by the incline.

I ended up talking to another runner on the way up the hill. It was his first 100K and he was doing very well. As we were climbing and chatting we commented that being able to keep going while talking is actually quite good for breathing regulation.

When we got near the top of the hill we started hearing music. Once 千光寺 (Senkōji Temple) was in sight we could see where it was coming from.

There was a group of people playing 三味線 (Shamisen) in the arch leading up to the main temple. I took a video of this because the sight and sound was something that I wanted to capture and keep.

As I passed through the arch I started running up the stairs to get to the main temple. A race photographer told me to take it easy here and to enjoy this moment in the course, so I did.

I walked up the remaining stairs, was greeted by a monk before the temple, and took some time to pray at Senkōji before moving on to the aid station, where again, I don’t recall actually eating anything. Only electrolyte drinks and cola.

I felt a lot of energy from this temple section and was very happy to come across a long descent leaving that area. I charged all the way down the main descents and later found myself jogging through rice fields up until I got to the next checkpoint at 国府B&G海洋センター (Kokufu B&G Marine Center)

I arrived at this checkpoint at 12:36, meaning I was about 2 hours 15 mins ahead of the closing time of this checkpoint. Making good time.

Checkpoint 4 to Checkpoint 5 (73.8 – 93.0 km)
公文書館 : Archives Building

This section was starting to get kind of rough for me. I remember standing for a few minutes in a cold spray fan trying to cool off, but the fact that I hadn’t been eating properly and was only rehydrating and getting my energy from cola was clearly starting to catch up on me.

I spent a bit of time recovering here, eating and drinking whatever I could keep down. One of the local boys offered me some apple juice made from local produce, telling me in English that it is, “VERY DELICIOUS!” The whole interaction put a smile on my face and gave me the energy to carry on.

But the section was tough. I was needing to do my run/walk strategy even on the flats. I would pick landmarks like electric poles, road signs, walls, etc and force myself to run between them before setting up another rest point in my head as I was running along. The whole thing was pretty mentally taxing but it kept me moving forwards.

I tried to keep my spirits up by talking to the volunteers at aid stations but that boost only lasted me for a few minutes every time I left an aid station.

The whole section was a steady incline up to the point when that incline became the “final boss” hill that I’d need to deal with before finishing the run.

There was an aid station at the foot of that hill that for some reason had an ANA theme. Some of the volunteers were dressed like cabin crew and were giving out the soup they serve on those flights. I couldn’t face it at this point and just stood in front of one of those spray fans until I went from overheated to pretty much shivering before I set off again.

I trudged up that brutal incline and then managed to get some speed going again on the way to the last checkpoint.

On the way to that checkpoint I passed the 90 km point, and on the approach to the checkpoint I saw some locals cheering and shouting “Only 10 km to go!” My watch was showing 98 km so I was pretty infuriated by this, but I just smiled and kept my frustration to myself.

I arrived at this checkpoint at 15:27, meaning I was about 2 hours ahead of the closing time of this checkpoint. The pressure was on.

Checkpoint 6 to GOAL (93.0 – 100 km)
飛騨高山ビッグアリーナ: Hida Takayama Big Arena

I only had 7 km to go and didn’t want to change my strategy at that point. Cola, electrolytes, get moving.

This section was VERY difficult for me on a psychological level. I knew I had plenty of time to finish the race. I could walk the rest of the way at a slow pace and could still finish it comfortably. But since I had come so far with this time, I had a new personal best in my sights. I finished my last 100 km race (Nobeyama) in 12 hours 25 minutes. I wanted to not only beat that, but also finish this race in under 12 hours. To this end, I was quite unkind to myself.

Even the downhill sections of this part had me needing to take the occasional walk break. I don’t like wasting downhill sections, but I wasn’t exactly in a condition to keep hard charging. I would use the electric pole strategy again, but I was constantly looking at the ETA on my watch and cursing at myself every time I slowed down. It was showing that I would make it with my desired time, but every time I slowed I would get angry with myself.

During one walk break I tried to calm down and just keep pushing forward. Things started getting real when I started seeing signs counting down the final kilometers.

When I saw a 2 km left sign, I was pretty confident I’d make the cutoff. That gave me a bit more confidence and energy, so I kept the run/walk strategy going (with longer runs and shorter walks), until I hit the 1 km left sign, at which point I got more intense.

There was a small hill leading up to Hida Takayama Big Arena, and there were also a lot of people cheering, and other runners heading towards the finish line. This gave me motivation to keep going.

With the arena in sight I broke into a run. Not a jog. A run. I ran past people who were hobbling towards the finish line, past the people finishing the 70 km race, and up to the finish line.

The volunteers set up the finishing tape and I ran through it, knowing I had come in WAY before the time I set for myself and and stressed over for the past few hours.

What a glorious feeling.

After the race

After running through the tape I stopped my watch and a volunteer put a medal around my neck. I then walked over to the finisher tent to get my tracking chips removed.

While I was sat down I heard a lot of commotion and a countdown. I had finished literally two minutes before the final cutoff time for the 70 km division. While sitting there I watched some people pass under the arch, and right after the countdown hit zero a guy crossed the finish of the 70 km race. I am not sure if he made it or not but if he missed it he literally missed it by a few seconds. I really hope he made it.

After getting the chip removed I went to get my picture taken near the finish line (as you can see in the photo above). I then tried to refuel a bit (though keeping food down was still a struggle).

By this point my right Achilles tendon had started seizing up and my walking gait was looking a little odd. I hobbled over to the shuttle bus area to be taken back to Takayama Station. When I noticed that all of the seats had been covered with plastic. The bus company obviously knew that there would be hordes of disgusting, sweaty ultrarunners that would be fouling their buses and prepared in advance.

I got taken back to Takayama station, went to a convenience store to get some supplies, then took a regular shuttle bus (not covered in plastic) back to my hotel (sorry). I was finally able to get some sandwiches into my system and went for a hot spring before settling down for the evening.

I stayed in Takayama that evening then took a steady journey back home the following day. I’m glad I stayed over rather than rushing back so I could enjoy another trip to the hot spring in the morning then have a low key day the next day.

Race Results

The final race results have not been announced yet. I will update this article when I have the data.

My watch time and the official race time were about the same. It took me just over 11 hours 48 minutes to finish the 100 km race.

This was my PB for a 100 km race, but looking back on my race data, it looks like it wasn’t an overall PB. I hit the 100 km point of the Challenge Fuji 5 Lakes Ultramarathon in 11 hours 42 minutes, meaning I missed it by a few minutes. But it should be noted that the terrain was very different at Fuji and the combined elevation was much lower. (My overall average pace was much better in this race).

Final Thoughts

This was my third race in this series.

• Challenge Fuji 5 Lakes Ultramarathon (118 km, 973 m) : 14:37:54

• Yasugatake Nobeyama Highland Ultramarathon (100 km, 2,300 m) : 12:25:30

• Hida Takayama Ultramarathon (100 km, 1,643 m) : 11:48:11

Looking at the results, I gave my best performance at the Hida Takayama Ultramarathon. It was not an elite performance, but it was my best one so far.

In terms of elevation, the Challenge Fuji 5 Lakes is probably the most gentle in this series. It’s the longest, but it is definitely the one with the least punishing climbs.

Nobeyama had the most climbing in the ones I have done so far. What made Nobeyama difficult was the pacing. You needed to really put a lot of effort into the first climbs to be able to make the checkpoints. Then once you have spent a lot of energy you need to deal with an even bigger one later. The pacing was pretty rough.

Hida Takayama had less elevation than Nobeyama and was shorter than Fuji. This was probably why I got a better time. Upon reflection, I was probably the least prepared for this ultramarathon than I was with the others. I was unable to train as much as I would have liked to (hectic schedule leading up to the events), I went out a bit too fast during the start, and I probably didn’t eat enough over the runs.

So although it was my best result, I feel like I could have done better and as such, I will strive to be better in the future. Leaving an ultramarathon and thinking there is more to be done is a great way to keep the motivation going for the next one.

I am not sure when I’ll be able to attempt these but there are two more races in this series.

• Nara Ultramarathon (100 km, 2,134 m)

• Sanin Kaigan UNESCO Global Geopark Tango Ultramarathon (100 km, 2,300 m)

Nara is a new one and is VERY popular. It might be difficult to enter.

Tango is the one that looks like the most difficult of the bunch. It is set in September (it will be hot) and it is the one that is the furthest way from my place. This will make it probably the most challenging and probably one I should set as the “final boss” of the series.

Of course I’ll be setting myself other ultra challenges along the way. I really enjoyed the Fuji 100 Kai I ran earlier this year and will probably end up doing more trail ultras in the future. But I am 3/5 for this race series and would like to one day achieve this “grans slam” of getting all 5 under my belt.

Thank you

Thank you very much for reading. This was a long one. I hope that my experience with this race will be useful for people who want to take on the Hida Takayama Ultramarathon in the future.

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When it’s use it or lose it

When we are young we get exposed to a lot of different subjects that we are obliged to le…

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On June 14th 2026 the Hida Takayama Ultramarathon will be held in Hida region of Gifu Prefecture. This ultramarathon is part of a series of (now) five races through UNESCO Global Geoparks, which include the Nobeyama Ultramarathon (which I ran last year), the Challenge Fuji 5 Lakes Ultramarathon (which I ran in 2024), the Hida Takayama Ultramarathon (this run), the Tango Ultramarathon and from 2026, the Nara Ultramarathon.

I love running events like this, but attending these events is quite a major undertaking. This is my third in the series and over the next few years I hope to be able to complete all of them.

With all of the information for these races being in Japanese, I take it upon myself to carefully study the race information beforehand so I don’t get surprised with anything too wild on the day.

大会の特徴 (Event features)

The race starts at 飛騨高山ビッグアリーナ (Hida Takayama Big Arena) , and has you running through a historic district and natural beauty of the 美女高原 (Bijo kōgen: Beautiful woman plateu). The course itself has a combined elevation of 1,599 meters.

I confirmed with a friend of mine who rant this last year and it looks like it is all roads.

One of the main draws for this race is the food at the aid stations. The Hida region is famous for 飛騨牛 (Hida Gyū : Hida beef) so I am vey much looking forward to the aid stations.

There are no hot springs on this course, but there are a number of historic areas that we run through. The 3.5 km point travels through 古い町並 (the old townscape) where runners can enjoy views of an old style Japanese town. Checkpoint at 道の駅ひだ朝日村 (Roadside Station Hida Asahi Village) looks like an old style roadside station (not visible on the map but looks nice when I look it up). The next section of the course will be a scenic run through the 美女高原 (Bijo plateau), followed by a visit to 千光寺 (Senkōji: Sengō Temple) at 61.3 km. After that it looks like it will be largely downhill and flat until about 80 km, followed by the final boss of a hill then a downhill trot to the finish line at Hida Takayama Big Arena.

Course points

The homepage of the course talks about the aid stations having local specialties available like amanatto, soba noodles, and fruit. I remember from the Fuji 5 Lakes Ultramarathon that the food/drink from the aid stations were very good and the staff were very friendly. I will be heavily relying on these during the race and keeping my equipment to a minumum.

Below are the course points on this run:

0. 0.0 km. 飛騨高山ビッグアリーナ (Hida Takayama Big Arena) - Start at 04:30

1. 5.9 km. 高山信用金庫 三福寺支店 (Takayama Shinkin Bank, Sanfukuji Branch)

2. 10.7 km. 塩屋公民館 (Shioya Community Center)

3. 16.7 km. 美女高原 (Bijo Highlands)

4. 19.6 km. 飛騨高山ワインアポセカリー（旧ひまわり農園前） (Hida Takayama Wine Apothecary, former Himawari Farm site)

5. 25.9 km. 道の駅ひだ朝日村 (Michi-no-Eki Hida Asahi Village) - First Checkpoint (08:20 cutoff)

6. 30.0 km. 桑野ふれあい公園横 (Beside Kuwano Fureai Park)

7. 35.1 km. 走り乃神社 (Hashiri-no Shrine)

8. 40.4 km. 飛騨農園街道空き地 (Vacant lot on Hida Farm Road)

9. 44.8 km. 岩滝公民館 (Iwataki Community Center)- Second Checkpoint (11:00 cutoff)

10. 52.6 km. 農道途中空き地（大羅野団地） (Vacant lot on farm road, Dairano Housing Area)

11. 56.7 km. 丹生川支所 (Nyūkawa Branch Office) - Third Checkpoint (12:30 cutoff)

12. Distance not shown in extracted text. 新張公民館 (Shinbari Community Center)

13. 61.3 km. 千光寺 (Senkōji Temple)

14. 65.1 km. 下柏林道終点 (End of Shimokashi Forest Road)

15. 68.8 km. 宮地公民館 (Miyaji Community Center)

16. 73.8 km. 国府B&G海洋センター (Kokufu B&G Marine Center)- Fourth Checkpoint (14:50 cutoff)

17. 78.2 km. 村山公民館 (Murayama Community Center)

18. Distance not shown in extracted text. 下切公民館 (Shimogiri Community Center)

19. 82.4 km. スズキ薬局高山インター店前 (In front of Suzuki Pharmacy Takayama Inter Store)

20. 87.0 km. 八日町酪農支部（旧八日町新鮮野菜販売所） (Yōkamachi Dairy Branch, former Yōkamachi Fresh Vegetable Market)

21. 90.8 km. メカトロニクス空き地 (Mechatronics Vacant Lot)

22. 93.0 km. 公文書館 (Archives Building) - Fifth Checkpoint (17:30 cutoff)

23. 95.8 km. 八日町空き地 (Yōkamachi Vacant Lot)

FINISH. 100.0 km. 飛騨高山ビッグアリーナ (Hida Takayama Big Arena) - (18:30 cutoff)

Final prep

I received my race number and t-shirt in the mail a while ago. I am in wave A starting at 4:30 am. I’m traveling up to Hida the day before with a friend of mine but I have a hotel room for one. No sharing rooms this time so I have a bit more flexibility.

I have already run two races in this series so I will hopefully be prepared for this one. Looking at the terrain and the elevation it looks like it won’t be as punishing as Nobeyama…but 100 km ultra marathons are always punishing. It’s like saying I think there will be fewer nails in the bat I’m about to hit with than last time.

I plan to run this race with a friend of mine. It would be nice to get a good time on this one, but the main thing to me is always to just run and have fun.

Recently my running volume hasn’t been as high as I would like it to be due to traveling. Considering I recently ran the Fuji 100 Kai, I am probably still in good condition for this run. We’ll find out on the day.

頑張ります (Ganbarimasu)

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Osu!

I started my Substack in August 2023. Where possible I am still going to try to upload weekly in 2025 on Wednesdays at 17:00 JST. These milestone posts serve as update posts to keep myself accountable with my training and to also give an update to those who are following me.

Milestones will stay up but for the rest of my articles they will generally be archived after one month. After they are archived, they will be accessible to my paid subscribers. Free subscribers can read everything I post for free as it comes out.

This month…

In this Monthly Milestone I’m going to be covering the following:

• Substack Stats

• Monthly Training Stats

• March Race/Event Results

• Reading List (what I’m currently reading (including audiobooks))

• Final Thoughts and Hopes for June

Substack Stats

I ended April with 743 subscribers and I am ending May with…736! Weirdly enough this was the number of people I started April with. I’m hoping the ones who are here are the ones who are enthusiastic about my posts.

Monthly Training Stats

Here are my training stats for May alongside the April stats for comparison:

May run total: 241.3 km (April: 272.4 km)
May walk total: 53.0 km (April: 23.6 km )
May run/walk total: 294.3 km (April: 296.0 km)
May elevation total: 1,735 m (April: 4,750 m)

May was a bit of an unusual month for me. I started the month still kind of in recovery mode from the ultra I did at the end of April, and for half of May I was out of the country. I got a decent amount of running done (for what it was), but it was still a bit behind where I would have liked to have been. The increased walking bit a bit of work here though, so my overall monthly total wasn’t too bad.

Race/Event results

I entered 5 parkruns (5 km races) during May:

• May 2nd: 20:36. 10th overall (3rd in age group) (Instagram pics here)

• May 4th: 20:36. 2nd overall (2nd in age group) (Instagram pics here)

• May 9th: 20:19. 9th overall (3rd in age group) (Instagram pics here)

• May 16th: 20:20. 19th overall (5th in age group) (Instagram pics here)

• May 23rd: 20:09. 9th overall (1st in age group) (Instagram pics here)

May was an active parkrun month. There was the みどりの日 (Midori no hi: Greenery Day) National Holiday on May 4th, meaning I was able to get an extra parkrun in. That parkrun was held at Oiso Undo Koen, meaning I got to experience a bit of different scenery. I also took part in the Sunnyvale Bay Trail parkun on the 23rd. This was my first experience of doing a parkrun in the USA. The course was a little bit longer than 5K, so although my 5K time was under 20 minutes, my official parkrun time was just over 20. Still, it was my best time of the month, so I’ll take that.

For more details of my US trip, I wrote a travel blog about it. For those who missed it, it can be found below:

I was able to take part in my usual beach sprinting events three times three times. Those are always a good session.

My karate and iaidō training has been a bit behind recently due to my travel schedule. I trained where I could but many of the lessons overlapped other commitments. I plan to be back in full swing by mid-June.

Reading list

I finished two audiobooks in April:

• Warhawk by Chris Wraight

This book was great but it didn’t go down in the way the memes claimed it did. The whole book was focusing very much on a confrontation between the White Scars and the Death Guard at the Siege of Terra (Book 6 btw). Very cool story…but the end is nigh.

• A Runner’s High by Dean Karnazes

I took a break from 40K to listen to a running book I had in my library. Dean Karnazes is a really inspirational writer. In this book he wrote about ultrarunning as an “Older, Wiser, Slower, Stronger” runner. His family is more grown up and he had new, unexpected challenges associated with that. Everything works out very well in the end and it was an absolute pleasure to experience.

I had one ongoing audiobook in April:

• Echoes of Eternity by Aaron Dembski-Bowden

The siege is getting further and further into the palace. All hope is seeming to be lost. There’s a big focus on the Blood Angels so far but I still have a long way to go.

Final Thoughts and Hopes for June

My trip to the US thew a bit of a spanner into the works. Traveling knocked a few days off my schedule and jet lag and my schedule made it a bit difficult to run (not to mention the lack of runnable roads in the area). I tried to get in at least 5K on most days but this was obviously not idea. (Slight weight gain but I should get over this quick).

My next race is the Hida Takayama Ultramarathon (100 km) on the second week of June. The total elevation for this run is 1,530 meters. It is also all on roads and has a time limit of 14 hours. I’m running this ultra with a friend so as long as I get my conditioning back on point it shouldn’t be to bad a run. Nobeyama appears to be a much more challenging course.

Next week I will write a breakdown of the course to prepare myself for it, so stay tuned for that one.

Other than that race I have nothing else on my calendar until December. I will be looking around for other events to enter (possibly more trail runs), but I will see how it goes. I’m kind of looking forward to just leaving things open for a while and doing my own training.

But for now, I’ll focus on my running conditioning, completing Hida, and then getting back into the full swing of martial arts training.

Thank you to all my readers

I hope you had a fantastic May and are ready to get after it during June.

Osu!

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People who follow my blog will know that I mostly write about running, martial arts, and my thoughts and ‘philosophical thinking’ surrounding those things. I normally take inspiration from what has happened recently and then write a bit of an essay about what happened.

This week is a bit different. I have not been doing anything particul…

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This week I am on the road and out of the country. That means I have a less than reliable internet connection and my time for writing I limited. I wrote a good chunk of this article on the train using my phone, but unfortunately the app failed and deleted it all when I tried adding a photo. Even though the universe seems to be against me writ…

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Probably the most famous trail race in Japan is the Fuji 100. This is basically the Japan equivalent of the Ultra Trail Mont Blanc (UTMB).

Getting into these races requires you to qualify by completing races associated with the International Trail Running Association (ITRA). When I ran the Izu Trail Journey in 2024 I gained enough points to be eligible to enter the Fuji 100 Kai 70K. So I put in an entry Autumn of 2025, got selected in the lottery and was given a place for the 2026 event. This report is about that race.

The course

Over the course of this report I’m going to be directly quoting from the Course concept. That will appear as quotes.

Below is a map of the regular route of the Kai 70K.

And here is the elevation plot.

The Kai starts at 14:00. That means I’ll have roughly 4 hours of daylight before I’ll be running in the dark.

The race has a generous cut off time (21 hours), which means you need to keep a pace of 18 mins 22 seconds per kilometer. I usually walk much quicker than that so I thought it wouldn't be a problem to (at the very least) finish, but such generous timing takes into account the rugged terrain and climbing sections.

Race day

I arrived in the 山中湖 (Yamanakako) area a day before the race started. Arriving early for a race that starts in the afternoon is a bit of a double edged sword. I spent the morning kind of anxious and ready to go, and was eventually dropped off about three hours before the race started.

I walked through the expo, picked up my race number, dropped off my bag, then ran into some friends of mine. They had already been supporting some of the other racers in the 100 mile division but one of them was also running the Kai.

We watched the start of the new Asumi 40K race, got some food, and then went to the starting area for some final preparations. At this point I asked a staff member if there was a place I could fill my water bottles and he directed me to a tap and also advised me there was a vending machine in the next building too. I was kind of expecting an aid station style fueling point at the beginning for the runners, but that was fine.

The starting area ended up filling up quickly with runners and supporters holding a bunch of flags representing the international participants. People kept jumping in front of the starting gate to take pictures (myself included) and then we just needed to wait until the race started.

Just before things kicked off the race director got on stage, did a guitar solo, and then did a speech in both Japanese and English explaining the course concept. There was a real emphasis on, “this is going to be easy until after the second aid station.”

The video below shows the beginning of the Kai 70K. (For this Substack article I have downloaded videos from the Mt.Fuji100 official page on 𝕏).

富士山GXスタジアム (Fuji GX Stadium) to 忍野 (Oshino) (15.7 km)

The very beginning of the race was an uphill charge with all of the runners. Everyone was going through the entrance funnel and although it was a little tight it didn’t feel like a fight. Everyone just surged forward and moved at a good pace.

I had been dropped off before the race and we had driven up a VERY large hill on the way to the start. I mentioned that it was going to be a fun way to start the run and I was correct in my assessment.

I am quite good at running downhill on roads (more so than trails), so I spent the first few kilometers of the race hard charging down the big hills. While the majority of marathon runners tend to share similar thin, streamlined running builds, trail runners come in a lot of different shapes and sizes and some of the bigger runners were flying down this hill, letting gravity do most of the work.

There were a few uphill sections on the way to the very first trail, but I kept running along at a pretty decent clip with the whole pack until I hit the first real trail section. This is where I came across my first “traffic jam.” It was actually not much of a jam because I got directly onto the trail and everyone was moving at a comfortable pace. The trail itself slowed everyone down.

Note: I saw a friend of mine’s pictures after the race and it looked like if you didn’t hit that first trail you would end up in a REAL traffic jam, with people pretty much stood in a line on the road waiting to enter the trail. Glad I got there at a decent clip.

The first set of trails were very runnable. The forest was nice and was broken up with a bit of road running. The downhill section finished at about 9 km and then a bit of a slog up a mountain started.

At about the 11.5 km I entered an area that appeared to be a place where fruit trees were being cultivated on the side of a steep hill. The trees were all covered in nets. It was a bit of a bizarre site to see at first because I went from a deep forested area into a place where trees were spaced out and wearing hair nets. But as I progressed a little further and looked to the left I saw a fantastic view of Mt Fuji viewed from above Oshino. I stopped to take a few pictures on the way and then continued to climb a very steep slope for another kilometer before the next big descent.

There was a big descent for the next 3 km, but again, at this point it felt very runnable. I comfortably breezed into the Oshino aid station at about 15:40, meaning I’d taken 1 hour and 40 minutes to cover the first 15.7 km. This gave me a lot of time to get to the next aid station.

At this aid station I filled one of my water bottles with one of those Medalist sports drinks, ate a bunch of chocolate bread and bananas, drank a can of coke and then started towards the next aid station. My plan was to get to the next one before it got dark.

忍野 (Oshino) to 山中湖きらら (Yamanakako Kirara) (25.3 km)

The next section of the course started off pretty flat. After the decent I’d just done, a flat course felt a bit more challenging than it would have done under normal circumstances.

I knew I had a decent amount of time to get to the next aid station and thought it wouldn’t be in my best interest to hard charge this section, so I jogged along at my own pace for a while, walked if my heart rate started creeping up too high, then started jogging again.

I was jogging along a river and then through some farm areas until I eventually came to the next trail head. This section of the course led us up to 平尾山 (Mt. Hirao).

This part of the course started getting a bit more “wild” than I expected it to get.

There was a 200ish meter climb and we needed to go through some fenced off areas to keep the wildlife out. I might be misremembering the exact location of this (it might have been in the next section) but I was running along I saw the top half of a boar’s head just lying on the trail. I’m not sure how fresh it was and although I wish (in hindsight) that I’d stopped to take a picture of the grisly sight, my lizard brain told me to keep moving and I just sort of jumped out of the way making a disgusted sound while running into the woods. Another runner from Hong Kong asked me what the matter was. After telling him his reaction was to yell, “OH MY GOSH," and pick up the pace to get out of the area.

This section ended in a particularly long staircase like area with fewer and fewer trees until we got to the peak of the mountain.

We then descended into the Yamanakako town area, through some residential areas and then along the edge of Lake Yamanakako until we reached the next aid station. This aid station was VERY welcome. Pork soup was the main thing on the menu at this aid station, but in addition to that I drank two cans of Red Bull, some more chocolate bread and some other snacks.

山中湖きらら (Yamanakako Kirara) to 二十曲峠 (Nijumagari) (38.1 km)

The course concept delivered exactly what it promised.

I left the aid station and pretty much immediately started going uphill. I was being led into an area of Yamanakano that I stayed at about a year ago. When I went by previously there was a viewing deck being constructed, but at the time of the race it had been finished. There was a cherry blossom tree blooming in the middle of the deck and I felt like it would be rude not to take a picture.

The next section was apparently called 鉄砲木の頭 (Teppōki no atama). It was a barren, hilly section on the way up to the peak of 明神山 (Mt Myōjin). I saw some volunteers flying a drone around the area and later found some of the drone footage online. The following video is from that section.

This climb was very hard going but I was very much in the groove of power hiking up these hills. I tend to do well walking quickly up hills of any kind so I made quite a lot of ground in this section. I got to the summit of the mountain and managed to get a picture of the sunset over Yamanakako. This was pretty good considering I was about almost 29 km into the course and was still operating in daylight.

The downhill section wasn’t too bad (very runnable), and once the descent was done I found myself on a flat section of the course. It was just gravel roads at this point followed by a bit more paved road running. On one of those gravel roads I managed to meet up with a friend of mine who was running in the 100 mile division. This was very much one of the highlights of the race for me because I wasn’t sure if we would bump into each other. He seemed to be in good spirits and good physical condition, but of course we were running totally different races so we said our goodbyes and I powered on.

Once I cleared the next village area it was back onto the trails and into what was now literally a deep dark wood. This section had us climbing for about 400 meters before coming to a place called 石割り神社 (Ishiwari Shirine). This part of the course was essentially part of a slight detour due to a trail collapse before the race. The resultant detour ended up cutting 1.6 km and 152 meters of elevation from the race distance. According to the race page, this was expected to cut off about an hour from the top runners time. I found out why as we entered the next section.

After a descent of about 200 meters (where I lost my footing a few times) I found my way to the next aid station at 二十曲峠 (Nijumagari) (38.1 km).

At this aid station I made sure to refuel a lot (I drank two cups of miso soup, two cans of coke, ate a lot of bread, chocolate, and fruit, and made sure to refill my water bottles with Medalist drink).

There was a saxophone player at this aid station. Every person who left the aid station was treated to a few bars of “Gonna Fly Now” from the Rocky soundtrack as they charged off into the darkness. The next section was probably the hardest part of the race.

二十曲峠 (Nijumagari) to 富士吉田 (Fujiyoshida) (49.8 km)

杓子山 (Mt. Shakushi) was punishing. There was 1 km section in this part of the course where you gained 400 meters of elevation. This changed from a trail RUN (which I signed up for) to a mountain climbing section (which I didn’t know I signed up for).

I was wearing a headlight and a wrist light at this point. The wrist light kind of got in my way at some points of the climb, but I didn’t think too much about that. I was mostly focusing on trying not to fall onto any other runners/climbers below me as I was trying to find both my footing and handholds in the middle of the night.

I eventually got to the top of this section (being very thankful that I’d been working on not just my running but also my upper body conditioning as well before this race), and then I ended up in a descending section.

Descents on roads are something I’m very good at. Descents on trails are something I lack confidence in. Especially when I am wearing shoes that (in hindsight) didn’t have enough grip.

I fell over multiple times on these incredibly steep descents and my confidence was being damaged more than my body was at this point. I ended up tensing up a lot, which made movement more exhausting. I was still able to jog smoother sections but the steep descents were a big problem. In addition to all of this my wrist light stopped working and my headlight was also starting to fade. I could still see and had a spare one with me but it was definitely adding to my stress levels.

When things started leveling out a little bit I came to a very small road section where some volunteers were stationed to warn us of some stairs that were coming up. I had just fallen a few times on a ridiculously steep descent so I wasn’t worried about the stairs. At the very top of the staircase I pretty much rolled my ankle and fell heavily backwards landing on my backpack.

Volunteer: 「大丈夫ですか？」(Daijobu desu ka? : Are you ok?)
Me: 「…多分」(…Tabun: …Maybe)
Volunteer: 「多分？！」(Tabun?！ : Maybe?!)

At this point I had not actually put any other layers on. I had my raincoat, an under layer, a light jacket, and rain trousers in my backpack, so there was enough padding to cover my spine as I landed on the steps. I stood up to see if my ankle would hold up and it appeared to be mostly uninjured. It wasn’t far to the next aid station so I thought I would just get there first and see how things went.

As I finished the descent (taking care on the stairs and the rest of the downhill parts) I saw lights ahead and heard a lot of croaking. The next aid station was next to a large pond (or small lake) that apparently have a lot of frogs in it.

The aid station here was very pleasant. The volunteers were making a very large cauldron of udon (which I enjoyed). I also was able to get hold of an energy gel, another two cans of coke, and some bread. While I was eating my udon I plugged my main headlight into a battery pack and put it in my backpack (just in case), stowed away my useless wrist light, and got out my cheap (but reliable) standard battery powered light. This was the last aid station. Less than half a marathon to go. It was before 11 pm when I left so I was still making decent time.

富士吉田 (Fujiyoshida) to 富士山GXスタジアム (Fuji GX Stadium) (68.6 km)

The next section had me running through a residential area in Fujiyoshida for a while. This was a pretty easy downhill section. I ran past an apartment building and saw two volunteers stood at the entrance to the 霜山 (Mt Shimoyama) trail. I tried to jog in with a bit of swagger and said, “This must be the final boss," on the way in. I don’t think I impressed anyone.

This section was a 3 km trudge up a mountain with 600 meters of elevation gain. Literally nobody was running or jogging this section. It was a big zombie style shuffle.

On multiple occasions I heard some whistling in the woods. I thought I heard it going up Mt. Shakushi as well. I couldn’t be sure if what I was hearing was real or some kind of auditory hallucination at this point, but my mind kept drifting back to some horror stories I heard that had a warning about whistling in the woods.

“Don’t whistle back. Because if you do, it will know where you are.”

Your mind can go to weird places when you are running in the middle of the night.

This climb seemed kind of endless. I kept checking my watch and saw the remaining climb counting down. I kept splitting it down as I went along. 500 meters to go. Two thirds to go. Only 300 meters to go. Two thirds done. 100 meters to go. Almost there. Every few meters I ended up thinking of a new way of describing how much I’d done and how much I had to go. That was another place my mind took me to between the whistling.

Once I got to the top I needed to deal with the last big descent. I slipped another few times, one time being quite near a cliff, which caused my body to tense up more and made moving even harder. I was cursing my shoes at this point and started feeling quite bad for holding up people behind me.

Where I could, I let people pass me on the trail, but there were some parts around here that were VERY narrow. A foreign runner came behind me, read my name from my race number and asked how I was holding up. I told him honestly that I didn’t feel like falling off a cliff and DNFing or dying after coming this far, and he assured me I’d be ok and that a “big beer” was waiting for me at the finish line. I don’t drink, but I appreciated the encouragement.

I slowly (much more slowly than I would have liked) managed to complete the final trail descent on the course and once again found myself in a kind of residential/industrial area. The tension in my body from all the descent stress was still not leaving my body and I found it difficult to do much more than power hike around here. I managed the occasional jogging burst but most of the strategy from here was to not drop below a focused power hiking pace.

I moved around the Fuji Q Highland theme park (I really want to go on these rollercoasters someday) and found myself entering a final trail section heading towards Hokuroku park.

I was kind of expecting this section to be a little more festive as we approached the final stretch, but it seemed a bit more like a final trial. There were occasional markers on trees that counted down the final few kilometers but other than that there was nothing but darkness.

I was by myself when I entered the finisher funnel. At that point I had a nice adrenaline boost and hard charged down the runway and under the arch where the race director was waiting for me and gave me a high five as I finished the race.

After the race

It was just after 02:30 when I finished. I hadn’t noticed it was cold until after I stopped moving, so after I picked up my medal I hurried off to pick up my belongings. I put as many layers on as I could (still cold) and laid down in the hall for a short while.

After about 30 minutes of shivering and attempting to sleep, I gave up and checked my phone to see if any of my friends were on their way to the finish line. I had an app monitoring their positions and found that two of my friends were on their way to finish. I grabbed all my gear then went to meet them at the finish line.

My friend I met on the course earlier finished his 100 mile run at roughly the same time my other friend finished the 70 km division. It was great to see everyone I came with complete the race.

What an experience.

Race results

Below are the results I got from my Garmin. I displayed the results alongside my race medal.

The medal itself is a cool one. I especially like the jagged design above the Mt. Fuji 100 lettering. That is the course profile for the entire 100 miler. I’m pretty sure that is just added pressure to get Kai finishers to complete the 100 miler in the future.

Final thoughts

I had a great time at this race. I know from this race that I am a much stronger runner than I was when I took on the Izu Trail Journey a while back. I do however think that I could have done much better if I had better shoes. The shoes I had were probably not appropriate for such an intense trail run and I need to get some shoes with more stable grip and field test them before attempting another race like this.

Physically I was ok on the run and could have gone much further. The mental toll from slipping and falling so many times was probably the thing that damaged me the most during the race. I wasn’t physically injured (mostly due to conditioning), but the mental strain slowed me down.

The day after the race couldn’t even really be called the day after. After I got back to my hotel I slept for one hour then spent the day in traveling around with my family who were visiting. We went to a hot spring in the afternoon (which was very welcome), and I had a great day.

Thank you for reading

Thank you very much for reading this long report. This clearly wasn’t a report written by an elite runner and wouldn’t be useful to any elite runners doing this race. However, I hope reading about my experience was enjoyable and I also hope that it will be useful to any mid-pack ultrarunners that are considering taking on the Kai in the future.

Finally, I’d like to give a special thanks to all of the organizers, staff, volunteers, and other runners of the Mt. Fuji 100. This was an unforgettable experience that wouldn’t have been possible without you.

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I started my Substack in August 2023. Where possible I am still going to try to upload weekly in 2025 on Wednesdays at 17:00 JST. These milestone posts serve as update posts to keep myself accountable with my training and to also give an update to those who are following me.

Milestones will stay up but for the rest of my articles they will generally be archived after one month. After they are archived, they will be accessible to my paid subscribers. Free subscribers can read everything I post for free as it comes out.

This month…

In this Monthly Milestone I’m going to be covering the following:

• Substack Stats

• Monthly Training Stats

• March Race/Event Results

• Reading List (what I’m currently reading (including audiobooks))

• Final Thoughts and Hopes for May

Substack Stats

I ended March with 736 subscribers and I am ending April with…743! It’s been the first time in quite a while that I’ve seen a positive shift in my subscribers. Welcome to those new people who decided to come along for the ride!

Monthly Training Stats

Here are my training stats for April alongside the March stats for comparison:

April run total: 272.4 km (March: 302.0 km)
April walk total: 23.6 km (March: 18.7 km)
April run/walk total: 296.0 km (March: 320.7 km)
April elevation total: 4,750 m (March: 3,173 m)

This month was very quality over quantity. I had quite a big race during the month (which I’ll mention in the next section), so I needed to do a taper beforehand. Thanks to that race I had quite impressive elevation for the month but overall my distance was a little less than ideal.

Race/Event results

I entered 3 parkruns (5 km races) during April:

• April 4th: 19:11. 5th overall (3rd in age group) (Instagram pics here)

• April 11th: 19:19. 5th overall (4th in age group) (Instagram pics here)

• April 18th: 19:11. 7th overall (2nd in age group) (Instagram pics here)

My parkrun times have been pretty consistently under 20 minutes recently. The run on the 18th marked my 10th consecutive parkun (excluding when I was a tail walker) as a sub-20 minute runner. I am quite happy with this result and I will strive to keep running fast, but I’m guessing my results are going to start getting a bit slower as things start getting hotter and I run parkruns while recovering from races.

Speaking of which, I am in the process of writing up a full race report on this but from April 18th to April 19th I ran the Fuji 100 Kai 70K. The race started at 14:00 on the 18th and I managed to complete it by 02:30 on the 19th. It was a brutal run but a fantastic experience. I 100% need to get better shoes for my next trail race. More on that to come in the later report.

I only took one day off beach sprinting this month (that was to enter the Kai). Weather conditions continue to improve, meaning more and more people are coming to the beach. This definitely beats having freezing feet tho.

Iaidō and karate were business as usual but unfortunately my attendance was not great. This was largely due to schedule conflicts and the halls being unavailable for seasonal reasons. This may continue a in May and June but I’ll be trying to attend as much as possible.

Reading list

I finished one audiobook in April:

• Gun Samurai by Matt Okuhara

I actually did a full review of this audiobook. That review can be found here:

I had one ongoing audiobook in April:

• Warhawk by Chris Wraight

I have been slowly chipping away at this book (largely due to my tapering and recovery schedule). This was another Siege of Terra book. I am approaching the end now.

This book mostly focuses on the confrontation between the Jaghatai Khan and Mortarion. I am very much enjoying it but it is very clear that the end of a story I have been listening to for 7 years is approaching. I may need to take a short break to prepare myself emotionally for this.

Final Thoughts and Hopes for May

So the Kai was a success. It was one of the most brutal races I’ve entered so far and it is taking a bit of time to recover from it. This was supposed to be the end of my trail running for this season but I am finding myself looking at other trail races. I’m not sure if this is manifestation of some sort of delirium or not, but I think I would like to run more trail races once I get my shoe issue sorted out. During the Kai I fell many times and it turns out that my shoes may not have been appropriate. Maybe buying good trail shoes and giving another trail run a go would boost my confidence. But still, it needs to go on the back burner for now.

My next race is the Hida Takayama Ultramarathon (100 km) in June. The total elevation for this run is 1,530 meters, which is about half that of the Kai. It is also all on roads and has a time limit of 14 hours. All being well, this should be a much easier ultra to run, but I still need to make sure I arrive at the start line in good shape. This means my training needs to focus more on accumulation of volume on roads rather than worrying about running up and down trails. So my next training block will focus on that.

The month of May is going to be a bit of a weird one for me. The first week of the month is Golden Week. That means a lot of national holidays and schedule disruption as a result of those. Then it’s a week or so of normal schedule followed by the latter half of the month of me being on a business trip. I’ll be out of the country in a mystery location for the latter half of May. I’ll be doing my best to get some running in during that time (there is a parkrun where I’m going), so watch this space for more details.

Thank you to all my readers

I hope you had a fantastic April and are ready to get after it during May.

Osu!

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2. (First paragraph). Last weekend I ran an ultramarathon. I spent quite a lot of time preparing for it and I am now in recovery mode. I traveled back on Monday. I also had a VERY busy day at work yesterday and I am behind on my writing.

3. (Get changed. → Second paragraph). Because I’m so behind I didn’t think I would…

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In martial arts, strong martial artists are able to throw powerful punches and kicks. If you use a sword, being able to make powerful cutting motions is the goal.

When I was young I wanted to try to become strong. I would put a great deal of effort into punching hard and kicking hard. When I took up iaidō I also put in a lot of effort…

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Matt (Gun Samurai) is a member of the Matsumoto Castle Gun Corps and recently let me know about a book he wrote titled, Gun Samurai: A Decade in the Matsumoto Castle Gun Corps.

Matt has lived quite an interesting life. He was a soldier, a nuclear police officer, and is now an important member of the Matsumoto Castle Gun Corps.

The book itself acts as a biography for the man behind Gun Samurai, a history lesson on the history and practices related to Japanese gunnery, and a story about what it was like to go from an unknown foreigner to a cultural custodian.

As a martial artist myself, I have a lot of empathy with this story. During my time in Japan I have had a lot of very kind instructors who have taken me under their wing and taught me about martial arts. But the martial arts I practice are a little more well known and accessible than the one practiced by Matt.

砲術 (Hōjutsu) or “gunnery” requires the use of firearms, which are not exactly easy to get hold of in Japan. It requires a lot of dedication to get the licenses involved and foreigners being foreigners, may not be able to dedicate themselves to such an arduous process.

Without giving too much of the book away, Matt discusses the process by which he went from a temporary member that was mostly there to observe and translate, to a senior “samurai” gunner in the Matsumoto Castle Gun Corps.

A lot of people who have little to no experience with Japan describe Japanese culture as some mysterious entity that foreigners can never become a part of. But this is as ridiculous a notion as “Samurai never used guns because they thought they were dishonorable.”

If you want to be a real part of Japanese culture it takes a lot of time and dedication. But you most certainly get out what you put in.

Based on my experience with Japanese martial arts I have always felt that the system is very meritocratic no matter where you go. There might be the odd weirdo out there that will complain about a foreigner having a gun or a sword, but the vast majority of people will respect those who have put in the time and effort to learn the craft properly and preserve an art form that may die out if it is not kept alive.

I’d like to thank Matt for writing this book. I listened to the Audiobook version of this and managed to complete it in about 4 days during my morning runs. It was great to run with you. I need to go over to Matsumoto some day to witness one of the displays myself.

Thank you very much for reading. If you enjoy my work please share it with someone you think would also enjoy it.

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Osu!

I’d like to start off this article by sharing a well known Mr Lovestein comic.

Anyone that has been on the internet for any length of time can probably relate to this. Especially if you have explored 𝕏, the website formally known as Twitter.

Being able to talk to people around the world is great. Recently there has been a bi…

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I started my Substack in August 2023. Where possible I am still going to try to upload weekly in 2025 on Wednesdays at 17:00 JST. These milestone posts serve as update posts to keep myself accountable with my training and to also give an update to those who are following me.

Milestones will stay up but for the rest of my articles they will generally be archived after one month. After they are archived, they will be accessible to my paid subscribers. Free subscribers can read everything I post for free as it comes out.

This month…

In this Monthly Milestone I’m going to be covering the following:

• Substack Stats

• Monthly Training Stats

• March Race/Event Results

• Reading List (what I’m currently reading (including audiobooks))

• Final Thoughts and Hopes for April

Substack Stats

I ended February with 736 subscribers and I am ending March with…736. It seems like there have been some new followers in addition to some old followers dropping off. Revolving door month. Welcome to my new subscribers.

Monthly Training Stats

Here are my training stats for March alongside the February stats for comparison:

March run total: 302.0 km (February: 284.0 km )
March walk total: 18.7 km (February: 25.8 km)
March run/walk total: 320.7 km (February: 309.8 km)
March elevation total: 3,173 m (February: 2,491 m)

I have been focusing a lot on trail running this month. I wasn’t just brute forcing volume. The climbing results were decent so I’ll take that. More trail running next month!

Race/Event results

I entered 4 parkruns (5 km races) during February:

• March 7th: 35:20. Tail walker. (Instagram pics here)

• March 14th: 19:18. 3rd overall (3rd in age group) (Instagram pics here)

• March 21st: 19:01. 6th overall (3rd in age group) (Instagram pics here)

• March 28th: 19:23. 7th overall (2nd in age group) (Instagram pics here)

On the first week of March I took a tailwalker position at parkrun due to having a race the next day. Every other run I took seriously and I have been continuing to stack up sub-20 5Ks every week. Good results this year.

Speaking of races, on March 8th I ran the Shizuoka marathon for the second time. I didn’t quite get under 3 hours but it was my fastest marathon to date. Fantastic result. Full report below.

Beach running has been getting nicer and nicer. The weather conditions are great recently so running barefoot is very comfortable again.

Iaidō and karate were both business as usual.

Reading list

I finished two audiobooks ongoing in March:

• Saturnine by Dan Abnett

Siege of Terra: The Horus Heresy, Book 4. Amazing book. The siege is well under way now. This book follows the story of the assault on the Saturnine gate. A lot of stories are ended here. Very cool.

• Mortis by John French

Siege of Terra: The Horus Heresy, Book 5. There was quite a major focus on following Ollanius Persson and his crew in this book but this was at the same time that major titan engagements started happening and getting closer to the wall. I’m really looking forward to continuing the story but I’m going to take a little break for a while.

I had one ongoing audiobook in March:

• Gun Samurai by Matt Okuhara

I have been communicating with the author of this book. Matt is a very interesting person. This book is part history and part biography, focusing on his service with the Matsumoto Castle Gun Corps. I have not finished the book yet but I am very invested in learning more.

Matt also has a YouTube channel. I’ll share a short video here:

Final Thoughts and Hopes for April

The majority of my training in March focused on trail running. This is all for the upcoming Mt Fuji 100 (Kai) (70 km trail) in April. I’m feeling a lot stronger thanks to all the trail running and this seems to be translating to strength in regular running as well. Seven out of the past eight parkruns were under 20 minutes (one of those runs I was a tail walker so it shouldn’t count, meaning I’m 7/7 on serious runs). This seems to represent an overall improvement in my running performance. I’m guessing this will start failing when it warms up but I’ll try to hang on as long as I can.

April is going to again focus on trail running. I need to keep climbing and doing so carrying the equipment I’m going to need on the run. Leg strength and overall endurance is the name of the game.

My next race after the Kai is the Hida Takayama Ultramarathon (100 km) in June. That is road based so once this trail running block is over I’ll be back to flatter roads and building volume there.

The Shizuoka marathon in March was a great result. I still have room to improve but I’m getting stronger all the time. If possible I would like to run a sub-3 hour marathon this year, but this will probably be something I attempt in the Autumn/Winter season. Still need to figure out which marathon challenge it at.

I’ve not put an entry in at Shonan yet but it is likely I will be running this one in December. I kind of feel obliged to. Here is the promo video for the Shonan International Marathon this year.

Thank you to all my readers

I hope you had a fantastic Marach and are ready to get after it during April.

Osu!

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