Greetings to My Readers
I started my Substack in August 2023. That means this Substack just turned two years old! Woo! Where possible I am still going to try to upload weekly in 2025 on Wednesdays at 17:00 JST. These 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
Race/Event Results
Reading List (what I’m currently reading (including audiobooks))
Final Thoughts and Hopes for September
Substack Stats
I ended July with 735 subscribers and I am ending August with 738. Welcome to the few new people who followed and thank you to everyone for sticking around. Keep being awesome.
Monthly Training Stats
Here are my training stats for July alongside the June stats for comparison:
August run total: 322.3 km (July : 342.0 km)
August walk total: 3.0 km (July : 8.0 km)
August run/walk total: 325.3 km (July : 350.0 km)
August elevation total: 2,160 m (July : 2,129 m)
I had quite a busy August in some ways but a quiet one in others. It was very hot but I still managed to get out and go running every day. My walking has really dropped off recently. I know I walked more than 3 km in August but I am just not focusing on recording every short walking activity.
Everything (other than walking) was just a bit above target so I’m happy with that result.
Race/Event results
I entered 5 parkruns (5 km races) during August:
August 2nd: 20:12. 5th overall (2nd in age group) (Instagram pics here)
August 9th: 20:41. 7th overall (4th in age group) (Instagram pics here)
August 16th: 20:58. 7th overall (1st in age group) (Instagram pics here)
August 23rd: 21:15. 7th overall (1st in age group) (Instagram pics here)
August 30th: 21:11. 6th overall (2nd in age group) (Instagram pics here)
In August I made a habit of doing a 5km warm up before the parkrun event followed by a one lap cool down. August has been a very got month so I haven’t been running at my best speed, but I can keep running for a long time if I manage it well. I got some decent times, but I’m expecting to be much faster when it gets cooler and it doesn’t feel like I’m running through a rainforest.
Beach sprinting is still taking place every week. I missed one sprint session due to an event (which I’ll get onto next) but I was on the beach 4 out of 5 weekends in August. On the final weekend of August S-San and F-San went to Hokkaido for the marathon so I was left in charge of the beach run. I’m happy that I am trusted enough to lead this event when necessary. We had about 40 runners and no injuries. I’ll take that as a victory.
The one beach sprinting event I missed was because of a double booking with the prefectural iaidō tournament. I took part in the tournament in the 4th dan division. I advanced to the second round but I was beaten by the eventual winner of the tournament. I learned a lot during this event, which was the main reason I showed up. Instagram post below (including videos).
This month I also took part in an interesting workshop on the use of single toothed geta. I wrote a full article on the workshop, which you can check out by clicking on the link below.
It was business as usual at my karate dōjō. No special events to report.
Reading list
I finished two audiobook in August:
The Burden of Loyalty by Dan Abnett, John French, L J Goulding, Rob Sanders, Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Chris Wraight, David Annandale, and Gav Thorpe
Horus Heresy anthology book. Big focus on the Space Wolves for some reason. I enjoyed the book but not much to report. I power through anthologies to get on with the story.
Wolfsbane by Guy Haley
Book 49 of the Horus Heresy series! Carrying on with the story. Leman Russ decides he’s going to fight Horus but knows he can’t beat him. He goes to Fenris to figure out how he can hurt Horus, and finds it was the spear he was avoiding using this whole time.
I actually really liked this book. Mostly because it really leaned into the theme of both Horus and Russ being “wolves.”
I had one audiobook ongoing in August:
Born of Flame by Nick Kyme
Horus Heresy book 50. Salamander focus. ANTHOLOGY!
Final Thoughts and Hopes for September
August was a busy month with a lot of challenges. It was hot, I had a lot of events, and towards the end of the month I had a wisdom tooth pulled out, which cased a bit of disruption to my training schedule. My jaw is still on the mend even as I type this, but I am otherwise in good condition.
Right now there are no specific events I have booked in September, but the lottery results for the Tokyo Marathon (March 2026) will be released in mid-September. Hopefully I will get in, but if I don’t I’ll probably be looking at entering a different marathon around the same time.
I still have two events I’m looking to enter:
Mt Fuji 100 (Kai) (70 km trail): April 2026 (Entry in November)
Hida Takayama Ultramarathon (100 km): June 2026 (Entry in November)
Beyond that my calendar is still open.
In August I ordered a set of one toothed geta which will hopefully arrive at some point in September, so once those arrive I will start incorporating to geta work into my schedule as well.
September has a tendency to get a bit typhoony (if that is even a word). A typhoon looks like it’s going to hit this week. This might cause some disruption to my running if the weather is really bad, but a bit of sideways rain doesn’t normally stop me. We’ll see.
Thank you to all my readers
I hope you had a fantastic August and are ready to get after it during September.
Osu!
Anthony