The Monthly Milestone (January 2026)
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Greetings to My Readers
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!
Always enjoy the updates, thank you.
Quick question: do you ever read any books that are not Warhammer 40k? 😅