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 learn. For instance, I used to play a few different musical instruments when I was young. But decades of totally not touching a musical instrument means I have absolutely no idea how to play. I can’t read music at all either.

Languages as similar to this. I learned French and German when I was in secondary school. Right now I cannot speak German and my French is very inadequate. (I tried to rekindle the French a little last year for a trip I took).

It’s a fact of life that many things we pick up operate on this “use it or lose it” system. But there are times when we can make something more.

When experience crystalizes

Even things that are generally regarded as “use it or lose it” have a tendency to crystalize over time. Repetition of things that seem mundane will end up producing something that is almost impossible to lose.

It becomes almost as natural as breathing.

Back when I worked in a lab I needed to make sure my samples didn’t get contaminated. It was essential for me to learn how to unscrew bottle tops and pour liquid with one hand so I could reduce the chance of anything falling into whatever sample I was working with and contaminating.

I don’t work in a lab anymore but I still have this weird skill of being able to hold and open bottles with screw tops using one hand. The skill crystalized due to repeated practice.

This is a minor example, and a relatively worthless crystal. But there are more valuable ones out there.

When the crystal feels magical

Experience being crystalized is when your body remembers something and makes something yours to keep. Getting to that point can require you to have repeated, sometimes grueling exposure to something before it finally sticks.

The first time I every ran a marathon I was in so much pain it was unbelievable. It took me months to recover properly. But every marathon I run becomes easier. It’s like my body just remembers that I’ve done it before, and recovery has reduced from months to days.

I will never forget the first time I ever ran 100 km. It was actually a 118 km run. For more than a week after I felt like I had powdered glass in my quads. But every time I run that distance it gets easier.

A day after the ultra I was walking a bit funny. Two days after I was normal. Three days after and I was back to running again.

It’s almost as if my body has remembered and crystalized the experience. It’s mine now. And that’s precious to me.

Final thoughts

I’m the kind of person that worries about things sometimes. It’s not so much that I worry about how I will be perceived, but I worry about how I perceive myself. It took me many marathons before I started calling myself a “marathon runner.” Because I thought maybe running a marathon once might have just been a fluke.

Of course, you can feel free to call yourself whatever you like. If you have run a marathon once, you’ve earned that title. But I am very strict with myself.

The more ultras I run the more it turns from me saying, “I’m an ultrarunner” to my body reacting like one.

And that, to me, is cool.

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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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)

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 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 particularly sporty over the past week because I’ve been out of town on business. I have however just spent a week in the Bay Area (California), and I think it would make a nice change of pace to write up a bit of a travel blog about it.

Golden Gate Bridge

Probably the most iconic landmark in the Bay Area is the Golden Gate Bridge. Going and seeing this bridge was an absolute must. So I did all the business I needed to do in the area, jumped on a bus, and got taken to the Golden Gate Bridge toll gates.

My image of California has always been that the area is hot. I’d been to San Diego once a few years ago, so I was expecting similar weather. It turns out that San Francisco can get quite chilly. Luckily I prepared and had a hoodie with me.

When I arrived at the bridge there were clouds/fog around the top of it and a strong wind was blowing across the bridge. As I was walking from one side to the other I noticed that there was a small mountain with a flat top that people seemed to have hiked up to. It wasn’t on my original plan to go and see that, but since it was there I decided to find a way up that mountain.

When you get to the other side of the bridge you can find a path that takes you under the bridge and to the other side. I took that path and found a trail entrance that took me to an area that used to be used as some kind of fortified gun emplacement. I’m glad I went up here because this was clearly the best place to see the bridge from.

I climbed back down, and found my way to the bus stop. It took a while to get back to the city because buses were very few and far between. The whole journey on the bridge took me about an hour and half and was about 8.5 km in length. Be prepared for a long walk if you go.

Sunnyvale Bay Trail parkrun

If I’m around somewhere for a weekend and there is a parkrun, I’m going to go out of my way to do the parkrun. The closest parkrun to me was the Sunnyvale Bay Trail parkrun.

This parkrun is an out and back course. It started at one of the entrances to the Bay Trail and was an out and back style parkrun on a dusty, gravel trail that goes through wetlands. The beginning of the course was a bit tight and I got stuck behind a lot of people at the start, but once I got going I managed to make up a lot of time. The turns on the gravel path were a bit precarious, but it was quite a nice, scenic run.

My watch told me that I completed 5K in about 19:40 but my parkrun time was just over 20 minutes. The course itself was a little longer than 5K, so you need to really put some extra effort in if you want a specific official time.

The parkrun group went out for a coffee in downtown Sunnyvale after. I enjoyed talking to the locals and also to some of the other people who were visiting. I ended up getting some inspiration for something else to do from one of them. (More on that later).

In-N-Out Burger

I sometimes come across people from California talking about a burger chain called In-N-Out. This chain seems to be part of California culture and people who eat there swear it is the best burger place in the world.

Over the weekend I ended up going to In-N-Out burger twice. This wasn’t necessarily something I planned, but I now think I’ve had the full experience so can comment on the place.

The first time I went (I ran to an In-N-Out after the parkrun), I just got a basic burger and fries. Pretty good. Pretty fresh. Nice staff. Clean restaurant. Not too expensive. All positive points that contribute to the good reputation of the place. But I hadn’t tried an ‘Animal style’ burger or fries. I don’t know if or when I will come back to California, so I decided to go back and try again the next day.

Before going to my ‘mystery’ location on my final day, I went back a different In-N-Out and ordered an, ‘Animal style double-double, with animal fries.’ These items are not on the menu. They are a poorly kept secret that you just have to ask for.

An animal style burger has grilled onions rather than raw onions, has mustard grilled patties, and has extra thousand island spread and pickles. Animal fries are topped with cheese, onions, and thousand island spread.

I would say that the animal style burger is an improvement but the fries are a bit much.

Final verdict: I enjoyed In-N-Out burger. It’s good but for me, it is not the best burger place in the world. I think it is the context of it being California culture that makes Californians love it so much. And I can understand that.

Very decent burgers, with a side of placebo.

The Winchester Mystery House

After the parkrun one of the other tourists told me that they had booked a tour for the Winchester Mystery House. I had actually heard about this but I didn’t realize it was in the area. Once I realized I was close to the place I booked a tour for the following day.

The Winchester Mystery House was built over a period 40 years for Sarah Winchester. Her husband, William Winchester was the inventor of the Winchester repeating rifle, which could fire 15 bullets before needing to be reloaded. These guns were incredibly effective and made the Winchester family a lot of money. But after William died of tuberculosis and left everything to Sarah, she started adding extensions to their house.

Sarah Winchester was a very spiritual person. But not only had she lost her husband but she had also lost a child earlier in her life. After consulting a medium, she was told that the source of her misfortune was that she was being haunted by the spirits of those who were killed by Winchester rifles. So to combat this, she started building a gigantic mansion with weird features set up to confuse the ghosts, like stair leading into the ceiling, doors that open onto walls, windows in the floor, and even a door that simply led to a 10 ft drop.

There are 160 rooms in the house and the tour took us through most of them. There was the possibility to pay extra and go and see the attics and basements (I saw some people wearing hard hats to do this), but I didn’t think I needed to spend the extra $20 to go and see a few extra rooms. The tour itself was already $45. But it was very much worth the price and I’m glad I used a day to go and see it. The house is stunning, the tours are well conducted, and it really is a unique place to visit. I highly recommend going if you happen to be in San Jose.

Final thoughts

There are obviously a lot of things to do in the Bay Area that I didn’t get around to doing. This wasn’t an exhaustive list of everything that I did in the area, but these were the main things I wanted to do while I was in town, and I had a very good few days there.

I know this article was a bit different to my usual writing, but I hope it was a welcome change. I will probably write similar articles in the future if something else comes along to totally throw a spanner into the works.

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!

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 writing an article this week, I am determined to get it done.

I was a bit up in the air about what to write about this week (especially due to my full travel schedule), but last weekend something happened and provided a bit of inspiration for my writing.

The Beast of the East

Last year I ran an the Nobeyama Ultramarathon in Nagano Prefecture. This ultramarathon is a 100 km road run around the Yatsugatake Highland area. As road ultramarathons go, it has a reputation for being one of the toughest in the region, and has even been dubbed the 東の横綱 (Higashi no Yokozuna: The Yokozuna of the East). Yokozuna is the highest rank you can get in sumo wrestling, but this is essentially a very Japanese way of calling it, “the best of the east.”

I did not run the Nobeyama Ultramarathon this year. I am in the process of preparing for another ultramarathon in the same series called the 飛騨高山ウルトラマラソン (Hida Takayama Ultramarathon), which is another 100 km race taking place in June in Gifu. But because I am a Nobeyama veteran I have knowledge about the course and as a result I sometimes have people asking me questions about it.

Ambitious running friends

People who follow my blog know that I quite regularly engage with beach sprinting. A big group of us go down to the beach every week and sprint up and down on the sand to build both speed and endurance. We run 200 meters at a time, which means we end up with a big mix of people running, from elite runners that make me look slow to weekend warriors who have this as their only running session of the week.

Leading up to the Nobeyama Ultramarathon, one of my friends started asking me more and more questions about the ultra. His marathon time is about 5 hours (he may have only run one marathon), but he told me that he had entered the Nobeyama marathon as not only his first ultramarathon, but his first 100 km attempt.

YOU’VE DONE WHAT?!

I was quite impressed that someone who has little long distance running experience would not only jump from marathon to 100K, but also that he chose pretty much the toughest road 100K in the region for the attempt. But being impressed was also mixed with a little concern, because I know from experience how hard the race is.

Over the next few weeks we met at the beach sprinting events and I gave the advice that I could about the race. Most of that information came in the form of:

• Don’t walk any of the downhill sections

• Pace yourself on the uphill sections (run where you can but don’t tire yourself out)

• Drink more water than you think you need at the aid stations (drink until you think you’ve had enough, then drink a little more)

• Focus on making the checkpoint cut-offs, not the overall race cut off

• Study the course in detail

• Have fun

I also shared the articles I wrote about the race, including the article that described the course in detail, and my final race report on the course.

My friend was understandably a little bit nervous having spoken to me (and others) and getting the, “You entered the hardest ultra in the region as your first ultra?!” reaction, but no matter what the result would be, the attitude of, “in great attempts, it is glorious even to fail,” remains true.

Monitoring the situation

The race took place on Saturday. Over the day I was keeping an eye out for news about the ultra. It seemed like it was a bit of a hot one and I received news about people dropping out of the race.

But at about 7PM I received a message from my friend.

As you can see from the picture, he has a race medal. The message from him was:

“I completed the ultramarathon without incident. Thank you very much for your advice.”

I responded with, “WONDERFUL! CONRATULATIONS! ULTRARUNNER!”

This was obviously the best result I could have hoped for in the race. My friend went from a 5 hour marathon runner, to a Nobeyama 100 km veteran.

This would be a massive achievement for any ultrarunner, but to go from essentially a beginner with no experience of that distance to finishing the toughest road ultra in the region is incredible.

You’ll never know your potential unless you push yourself

I am of the opinion that most people could run a marathon. They just don’t because they set a standard for themselves that is too high, and as a result never even try. They think they will need to run at full speed for the full 42.195 km. I have run many marathons now and even I don’t run at “full speed” for the full distance. I find my marathon pace and run at that.

No matter what you do, actually putting yourself out there and attempting something is the most important step. I wasn’t sure I could run a marathon when I first ran one. But I ran it and I finished it. Same with my first ultra. (My first ultra was a 70K). Back then I didn’t have anyone to talk to about whether I could or couldn’t do something. I just did it. And I succeeded.

Sometimes talking to people can be a bit of a double-edged sword. Especially if they make judgements about what you can do based on what you’ve done so far. Before my first marathon, the longest distance I’d ever run before that was a half marathon. Maybe a more experienced runner would have been nervous about me trying a full marathon if they knew my personal best race distance was just under 22 km. But getting out there and trying is where we find the limits of our potential. Or in both my case and my friends case, find that we were able to complete our goals and as such, have yet to have found the limits of our potential.

Final thoughts and take home messages

I am always very happy to see people do well. I am even happier if something I’ve said, written, or done helps people to achieve whatever goals they have set out to achieve. So I was over the moon when my friend took time out of his day to send me a picture of him at the finish line to thank me for helping him achieve his goal.

If you have something you want to achieve, go out and give it a go. That’s how you get it done. People who have done it before would likely love to help where they can and give you advice, but they can’t achieve the thing for you.

Nobody can climb those mountains for you. And nobody can tell you that you can’t climb those mountains based on your previous achievements. Sometimes you only need one attempt to get it done and discover that at the top of the mountain, you discover more of your potential.

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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And if you are feeling generous but don’t want to commit to a monthly subscription, you can send a small donation to my Buy me a coffee page below.

Osu!

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 …

Read more

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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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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Japanese is a beautiful language. One of the things I enjoy about the language are the neat idiomatic phrases that are built into it. The name of my blog, 文武両道 (bunburyōdō) is an example of one of these idioms, meaning to be skilled with both the pen and the sword. (文 (literature/culture), 武 (martial), 両 (both), 道 (road): One who walk…

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One thing I don’t like about the English language is that there are a lot of words where the nuance is lost due to the presence of double meanings. This is probably true in other languages as well, but I don’t need to deal with the consequences of those being spoken on a daily basis.

Because of my science background I am very careful when…

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I ran the Shizuoka Marathon for the first time in 2025. If you read the race report I wrote about it you will know I was met with quite a few issues related to my shoes last year. I was hoping that I managed to resolve that this year but I’m not sure I got all of the kinks out of my plan.

Just to give you a bit of background on the race (and to not make you go and look at the previous report), here is the Shizuoka marathon course. It is a flat course with just under 100 meters of elevation.

There are 15 water stations on the course, 6 of which have food as well. There is also an oden aid station but I knew from experience that I would not stop there since it is off the course at the 25 km point and would definitely be a time sink.

Before this marathon I made sure to “get some things right” that I did “wrong” last time. I bought a new set of shoes (same ones I completed my 100 miler in) and completed a few 5K races in them (setting a PB). I also bought some new gels and practiced with them (no stomach issues). One concern I had was that I was about 3-4 kg heavier than last year (I’ve been working out), but otherwise I felt pretty optimized for the race.

静岡マラソン (Shizuoka Marathon): 8 March 2026

Like last year I woke up at 4:00 to get over to Shizuoka. The first train was at 5:18 and the Shinkansen from Odawara was at 6:17. I went to bed at 20:00 the previous evening so I was well rested and ready to go. Exactly the same as last year except I didn’t have a reservation for the Shinkansen and needed to stand for that 20 minute segment of the journey.

I walked over to Sunpu Castle and everything was ok in terms of the queue for the restrooms etc. I didn’t drink any coffee on that day and didn’t feel any restroom related discomfort around the beginning of the race.

I got to the starting block as planned and when I looked over the crowd I was able to see the 3:00 pacer ahead of me. I wanted to try and keep the pacer in my sight for as long as I could but I knew they would have a head start on me.

The opening ceremony went ahead and by 8:20 we were off.

There were so many people at the start that it was not comfortable to move forward. Normally that’s expected at the beginning of a marathon but this one felt a bit oppressive because of the sheer number of fast runners. This gave me a chance to ease into going faster but I was not out as quick as I would have liked to have been. Being in the A block would have been perfect but B had me fighting my way for the first while.

The first 10K of the race went well. I picked up drinks at every water station and managed to get to the 10 km mark in record time…but only just. The water station was right before the 10K mark and I ended up losing a bit of time trying to pick up a drink. I managed to get through that section fine though with an average speed of 4:10/km. It was at this point that I had my first gel. So far so good.

On the next stretch of the race I found the 3:00 pacer and observed that I was still running comfortably at 4:10/km. I felt like if I kept my pace going at that rate I would have no problem but I also did what I could to accelerate and try to chase down that pacer. During one of those turns I noticed that the pacer was wearing a hat which made him look like a monkey. So playing in my head over and over again was, “chase down the monkey.”

I saw some of my friends in the loop leading up to the 15K turnaround point, which gave me a boost, but right at that corner before heading to the river I took a very quick restroom break since the toilets were free and right next to the course. I put in some extra effort right after that point and saw the monkey pacer ahead.

Running down that river segment is one of my favorite parts of this course. It is a little narrow but very scenic. You also run over quite a nice bridge at the 18 km point, which brought fond memories back of the previous year.

I blew through the 20 km point, had my second gel while charging past a taiko group, then after hitting the halfway point I felt like things were starting to go a little wrong. I had a numbness starting to bother me on my right foot. I could deal with it at the time but it’s not something I’d felt before. It was only impacting my right foot but it may have started wearing down my running form from that point onwards.

There’s a bit of climbing going in the loop at the south side of the course and then it comes to a straight line for the next 10 km of the run. My foot was holding up until roughly the 30 km point but then I started to break down a bit. I had my third gel but stopped to stretch as I had it. I occasionally needed to stop here and there to stretch my toes back because of the feeling of both numbness and pain on my right foot. Not ideal, especially when I thought I’d properly prepared.

Last year I stopped at some of the aid stations along the coast to eat/drink something and based on the way things were going (me needing to stop and stretch every so often), I decided to combine the slow parts with visiting those aid stations again. At one of the aid stations a bunch of kids (junior high school/high school) were shouting at me to get strawberries. I stopped, grabbed a cup of strawberries, shouted, “LET’S GO ICHIGO!,” ate the strawberries, then grabbed another cup as I started jogging again. That got a great reaction.

I was planning to have my next gel at 35 km but I took it just before the 34 km point to get it out of the way and hope the caffeine would push me through. Right after taking that gel a guy in front of me fell and did a sort of half roll. I grabbed him by the hand and hoisted him up using a karate technique I use during paired drills and we both managed to get moving again with almost no time loss.

I ran around the curve at just before 35 km, planning to slow down for a bit just after that point, but there were a couple of friends of mine there cheering me on so I decided against stretching there and powered on to the next aid station at 36K.

While stopping at that aid station the guy I helped caught up to me, tapped me on the back as he went past and thanked me for helping him out. Once I started up again I passed him saying, “頑張りましょう! (ganbarimashō : let’s do our best)” as I ran by him. I think we were both suffering a lot at that point but it was very good to see him moving again at a good pace even after a fall.

The last section has some really great support from the crowds in Shimizu City. I still needed to slow down every so often as I ran along but I made sure to not stop dead. When I needed to slow I’d do so by walking for 100 meters and then start running again at my regular pace. My pace at that point was still around 4:40/km even despite the pain in my foot so I was still going strong.

Once I hit the 40 km mark I was doing my best to keep going without stopping at all. I was considering stopping again to stretch but leading up to that point I realized I would be able to finish in a decent time as long as I kept up the pace. Since I wouldn’t be able to get a sub-3 hour marathon this time I was just aiming for a PB, but that plan changed when I realized a sub-3:10 would still be possible.

The last area of the course has you doing a few twists and turns around Shimizu City. There was a taiko group playing drums in the last kilometer but I still couldn’t see the finish line. I ended up turning one more corner, seeing the finish, then trying to speed up as much as I could before the finish.

Some friends of mine were at the end and even managed to get a video at the finish. Epic!

After the race

After the race I limped over to pick up my medal, finisher towel, and other participation goodies (a bottle of tea, an orange, and some snacks). Just like last year. The atmosphere is always amazing at the finish line.

I made sure not to accidentally step on the orange I received this year. This was made easier by the fact that it was a pretty warm day so I just went to pick up my belongings and finisher t-shirt then chill out on the street for a while.

I ended up meeting some friends of mine right after the race. There was a tent giving out venison meatball soup to the runners so I enjoyed a chat with my friends over a very welcome bowl of soup.

Race results

Very similar to last year, I crushed most of my previous personal bests.

The official race certificate had my net time at 3:07:39 (with the record time of 3:08:54). My previous PB was last year’s Shizuoka Marathon, which was 3:15:43, meaning I officially improved my time by 8 minutes 4 seconds (according to race records).

Also, here is this year’s finisher medal:

Final thoughts

This year was a massive improvement on last year. I didn’t hit my ultimate goal of a sub-3 marathon, but I am getting closer. If I am able to make the same improvement at my next marathon I will be well under 3 hours.

I thought I had everything dialed in on this one. The gels I used worked well, and my physical condition was generally good, but my shoes (once again) ended up causing an issue, despite the fact that they were shoes I thought I could trust. Was it that they weren’t broken in enough? Who knows? But next time I’ll probably use a different set of shoes after a consultation with staff and make sure they are properly broken in before the race. (My right foot has two quite nasty blisters on it from the run).

I took a look at my pace chart from this race. Definitely an improvement on the last Shizuoka marathon, but I’m still not quite there. That last hour just wasn’t up to standard. But I did clearly have a strong finish. There was plenty of fuel in the tank aerobically, but my legs/feet just weren’t playing when going so fast for so long.

When I think about most of my training, it is very focused on just building running volume so I can run for a really long time. Getting a sub-3 marathon is likely to need some more focused high aerobic training over long distances and with shoes that are comfortable enough to get the job done. Each time I do one of these it’s a learning experience.

Marathon season is now over for me. My next two races are ultras so I’ll need to be training specifically for those. The next one is a trial so I’ll be spending a lot of time trail running moving forward. I’ll also need to consider which marathon to enter in Autumn/Winter and prepare to train specifically for that.

Let’s do this.

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!

Cover photo:

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

• February Race/Event Results

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

• Final Thoughts and Hopes for March

Substack Stats

I ended January with 739 subscribers and I am ending February with 736. I’ve been a little more active on Notes this year but so far the trajectory hasn’t really changed much. A little disappointing but I will keep chipping away.

Monthly Training Stats

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

February run total: 284.0 km (January: 353.0 km)
February walk total: 25.8 km (January: 13.5 km)
February run/walk total: 309.8 km (January: 366.5 km )
February elevation total: 2,491 m (January: 2,761 m)

I ended up doing a lot of trail running for the first few weeks of February but later in the month I started backing off as part of my marathon training block. The final week of the month had me doing 5K a day rather than at least 10K a day. I didn’t feel the need to go for a 300 km February. I think the quality was overall quite good, as you’ll see in the next section.

Race/Event results

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

• February 7th: 19:37 6th overall (6th in age group) (Instagram pics here)

• February 14th: 18:47. 3rd overall (3rd in age group) (Instagram pics here)

• February 21st: 19:12. 3rd overall (3rd in age group) (Instagram pics here)

• February 28th: 19:04. 3rd overall (2nd in age group)(Instagram pics here)

February was quite a productive parkrun month. I managed to run my first ever sub-19 minute 5K and also managed to get under 20 minutes on every parkrun in the month. I purchased some new shoes to get ready for the upcoming marathon but I didn’t wear them until the 14th. So some of this could be due to improvement, and some could be down to new shoes.

For beach running we had some pretty extreme difference in temperature. At the beginning of the month a snowstorm blew in and gave us some very interesting conditions to run in (cancelling the Saitama Marathon in the process).

Later on in the month it was much nicer.

Iaidō and karate were both business as usual.

Reading list

I finished one audiobooks ongoing in February:

• The First Wall by Gav Thorpe

Siege of Terra: The Horus Heresy, Book 3. The first space port falls to the traitors but not all is lost. This book was very well written. I love it when your expectations are suddenly are flipped.

I had one ongoing audiobook in February:

• Saturnine by Dan Abnett

Siege of Terra: The Horus Heresy, Book 4. Probably one of the best books in the series so far. A flaw in the defense of the palace becomes a trap. Very cool.

Final Thoughts and Hopes for March

My training in February ended up being not quite what I expected it to be. I will be running the Mt Fuji 100 (Kai) (70 km trail) in April, but before that I’m running the Shizuoka Marathon for the second time. I need more trail running to get ready for the Kai but it would also have been beneficial to do more specific road training for Shizuoka. I ended up focusing a lot on running predictable trails quicker, and then going all in on my parkruns. Looking at how quickly I ran my parkruns in February, I think the training may have paid off but I won’t know until I clear the marathon. Once that is done I’ll have more of a heavy trail focus with a lot of climbing.

From January this year I have also been doing a lot of strength training. I’ve gained about 2-3 kg of muscle. I don’t feel like I’m being weighed down so the additional muscle is likely helping me out. (I’ve been focusing a lot on core and leg strength).

I have a clear road map of my races coming up later in the year. After Shizuoka and the Kai, it’s Hida Takayama Ultramarathon (100 km) in June. So once Shizuoka is done it’s going to be climbing, strength training, and keeping my speed up at parkruns. Keeping it simple.

Shizuoka this weekend. All my focus is on that right now. Ganbarimasu! I’ll probably do a quick update on Notes first so watch this space for more details.

Thank you to all my readers

I hope you had a fantastic February and are ready to get after it during March.

Osu!

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I’m sure that at some point in their lives every single one of my readers has had some kind of experience with performance anxiety or stage fright. If you are expected to stand up in front of a lot of people then a feeling of dread can end up interfering with your ability to perform even if it is something that you are …

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I have been practicing karate for a more than 20 years now. One thing that has always appealed to me about karate is that is literally related to empty hands (空手: Karate: Empty hand). That is not to say that I am against the idea of training with weapons. It would be absurd for an iaidō practitioner to think that way. I just appreciate that …

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I’m not sure why but I’m recently seeing a trend on social media of people claiming that doing cardio (especially running) is going to do irreparable damage to your body. These kinds of comments are usually coming from either these ALPHA MALE gym bro types or people attempting to appeal to the ALPHA MALE gym bro types. Th…

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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

• January Race/Event Results

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

• Final Thoughts and Hopes for February

Substack Stats

I ended December with 738 subscribers and I am ending January with 739! Not much difference between the months so I’ll take that as a good sign. Moving forward I’m going to try to be more active with Substack notes as well so watch this space for more notes.

Monthly Training Stats

Here are my training stats for January alongside the December stats for comparison:

January run total: 353.0 km (December: 300.9 km)
January walk total: 13.5 km (December: 6.6 km)
January run/walk total: 366.5 km (December: 307.5 km)
January elevation total: 2,761 m (December: 2,070 m)

On January 1st I ran a full marathon, which contributed heavily to the higher than usual run stats this month. Plenty of trail running to get the elevation total higher as well. As much as possible I’ve been trying to get in some varied training as well, with low aerobic, high aerobic, and anaerobic training sessions mixed in. So far so good.

Race/Event results

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

• January 1st: 23:55. 15th overall (4th in age group) (Instagram pics here)

• January 10th: 20:26. 7th overall (2nd in age group) (Instagram pics here)

• January 17th: 21:17. 14th overall (5th in age group) (Instagram pics here)

• January 24th: 40:42. Tail walker (Instagram pics here)

There were a couple of parkrun cancellations in January, but there was also a New Year special on January 1st so I ended up getting 4 in.

On the January 1st event I ran 38 km to the parkrun in another city and used that parkrun as the finish line for a personal marathon. It ended up being a really good way to finish off the challenge.

I took the tail walker position on January 24th because it was the day before another event. This took me to 50 volunteer credits and my next parkrun milestone! I try to volunteer whenever I can but I generally volunteer for positions where I can also run. Tail walker is a good position for that and it makes it essential for me to slow down.

Speaking of other events, on January 25th I ran the Shonan Fujisawa City Marathon. This event is a half marathon (despite the name), and I generally view it as something of a running festival in Fujisawa but I still try to give it my all. I ran hard this year with the aim to break my half marathon personal best. And though I did smash every one of my personal records from 10 km all the way up to half marathon, I am a little concerned that it felt so exhausting to do so. I have a marathon coming up in March and I’m not sure if I could run at that pace for another half marathon. But we shall see.

Beach running was business as usual. We’ve had some very cold days but also some pretty pleasant ones. No rain at all so that was definitely a bonus. These remain a highlight of my week.

For iaidō I took part in a tournament and 初抜き (hatsunuki: first drawing) event on January 12th. My team didn’t win but it was certainly a good experience.

Business as usual for karate.

Reading list

I finished two audiobooks ongoing in January:

• The Solar War by John French

This book was a fantastic start to the Siege of Terra series. The traitors have arrived in the solar system and charge right at Terra. Some familiar faces make a (tragic) reappearance and most of the void war stuff is done and dusted here. Planetfall!

• The Lost and the Damned by Guy Hayley

The traitors start making planetfall. The daemon primarchs are not able to set foot on Terra which makes Angron even angrier than usual. This book establishes that the primarchs are ready to attack Terra but the palace is still largely protected against the warp. This series is fantastic.

I had one ongoing audiobook in January

• The First Wall by Gav Thorpe

I’m going through this series quite quickly. Really enjoying it though. So far in this book the traitors have decided to take one of the main space ports on Terra and establish that as a stronghold. There’s a lot of focus on the imperial army forces going there by train but I still am not sure of the significance of this yet.

Final Thoughts and Hopes for February

I could say that I had quite a successful January. I got new PBs for my half-marathon (and other distances), I got some varied training in, I started really focusing on strength training to boost my overall fitness, and I am pretty locked in to my iaidō and karate training. However, I’m not sure if what I am doing will be enough.

In March I’ll be running the Shizuoka Marathon for the second time. The half marathon time I ran in January set me on the right track for a sub-3 hour marathon, but I was more exhausted than I expected to be at the end. I have all of February to try to increase my high aerobic endurance to try to get a good time. Last year I ran the same half marathon in January and then comfortably ran a quicker marathon PB in March, so let’s see how this goes.

The next race is the Mt Fuji 100 (Kai) (70 km trail) in April. I have a hotel booked for before and after this run so I should be able to go prepared. This is going to require a lot of climbing and trail experience. My strength focus is gonig to help me with this but I am putting my training focus on high aerobic endurance first. Once the Shizuoka marathon is done I’ll be focusing heavily on climbing until the Kai.

Next is Hida Takayama Ultramarathon (100 km) in June. Once the first two races are done I’ll be focusing mostly on volume to make sure I have the low aerobic endurance to get it done. This race should in theory be easier than Nobeyama, but I’m not going to underestimate it.

With these three races to prepare for I have different training themes coming up over the next few months. I am however going to keep supplementing my training with weights and tons of ab wheel work outs to give me more strength and stability to get it done. This will hopefully help with my karate and iaidō as well, but that will be more about getting strength training out of my system and then relaxing while doing martial arts.

No races in February. Just sticking to the plan and trusting the process. Let’s go.

Thank you to all my readers

I hope you had a fantastic January and are ready to get after it during February.

Osu!

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