The Monthly Milestone (July 2024)
The Monthly Milestone (July 2024)
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Greetings to My Readers
Things are still going strong since I started my Substack in August 2023. I started in late August so it is a bit early for any sort of celebration, but thank you to everyone that has come along for the ride.
Articles are uploaded on Wednesdays at 17:00 JST including monthly milestone posts to give a few updates at the beginning of each month. Monthly milestones will be updated on the first Wednesday of the following month, meaning there will be one milestone and three regular articles per month. (That’s the plan anyway).
Articles will generally be archived two weeks after posting.
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 August
Substack Stats
I ended June with 695 subscribers and I am ending July with 706. Growth is slowing down these days but I am very happy to have hit the 700 subscriber milestone!
A lot of the articles I’ve been putting out recently have a bit of a hybrid feel to them. If it’s clearly a karate/iaidō/running article I will post it to a karate/iaidō/running forum. But these hybrid pieces don't fit into the same niche areas so I share them less. If you think a specific article would be of interest to any specific group I would greatly appreciate it if you could share it.
Monthly Training Stats
Here are my training stats for July alongside the June stats for comparison:
July run total: 205.9 km (June: 187.9 km)
July walk total: 95.7 km (June: 117.7 km)
July run/walk total: 301.6 km (June: 305.6 km)
July elevation total: 2,120 m (June: 2,360 m)
I managed to increase my running numbers in July a bit compared to the previous month. As I mentioned in the previous update I have started doing some more sprint training, which has a tendency to completely wipe me out.
The recent sprint training I am doing feels like it’s having some positive effect on me. I feel more energetic (not that I lacked energy before) but my watch is more likely to be in “productive” status now and this month I managed to set new personal second bests for my 400m an 1k time during a 1k beach run. During this run I got hit by a wave as well, so under more ideal conditions I may set a new PB for my 400m and 1K time.
Race/Event results
I entered 4 parkruns (5 km races) during July.
July 6th : 22:45. 8th overall (2nd in age group) (Instagram pics here)
July 13th : 20:57. 9th overall (1st in age group) (Instagram pics here)
July 20th: 21:21. 6th overall (2nd in age group) (Instagram pics here)
July 27th: 21:02. 3rd overall (2nd in age group) (Instagram pics here)
You’ll have to forgive me for my slower pace during the July 6th run. I had some extra weight to push.
My parkrun times always suffer in the Japanese summer. The park takes on different weather systems with some nice shady areas in some parts, some dry deserts in other parts, and one damn hill that is like a noisy rainforest. I will keep running to the best of my ability but my times are probably not going to get below 20 minutes until it cools down.
In addition to my parkrun events I recently started taking part in 砂浜ダッシュ (Beach Dash) events at Enoshima Beach.
The events take part at 6:50 on Sunday Mornings and consist of 20 x 200m sprints followed by a 1km run. I want to try and join these more and set this as a regular speed session.
The event is organized by one of my parkrun friends along with an elite runner called Tomonori Sakamoto. Sakamoto San has a full marathon time of 2:13:49 and places at the top of marathon events including getting first place in the Yokohama Marathon in 2022.
When I heard about this event I thought it would be a great opportunity to train with and learn from elite runners, so now (as often as I can) I’m going to be doing these barefoot sprints up and down Enoshima Beach.
First event (Instagram pics here)
Second event (Instagram pics here)
Beyond all the running, karate and iaidō is progressing as normal with no special events.
Reading list
I finished 2 audiobooks in July:
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Ultramarathon Man by Dean Karnazes
I have recently been on a Cormac McCarthy kick. I really enjoyed Blood Meridian and No Country for Old Men. These books are incredibly well written. The Road is also very well written but is also very dark. It’s the story of a man and a boy trying to survive in a dying world. It’s an incredibly depressing story but is very deep and definitely worth a read.
Ultramarathon Man is the biographical story of ultrarunner Dean Karnazes. His stories about competing in the Western States 100 and the first Antarctica marathon were really inspiring. Anyone who is into running stories will really like this one. Go Team Dean!
Ongoing audiobooks
The Greater Good by Sandy Mitchell
This is another of the Ciaphas Cain stories based in the Warhammer 40K universe. I was slowing down with these books because I’m approaching the end of the series. This book has Cain overseeing an alliance between the imperial forces and the Tau in order to fight off a Tyranid hive fleet. It’s shaping up to be good.
Final Thoughts and Hopes for August
July was a month that had a few ups and downs. For those that read my work regularly and saw my article, “The benefits of injury,” you will know that I ended up taking a pretty hard kick to the iliac crest, which made sparring and running hard for while. I’m fully recovered now after working around the injury but that sort of slowed me down over the month. I ended up learning a bit more about the mechanics of my body because of that so I’ll still consider it a win.
This new beach sprinting event that I’m running is going to become a more regular part of my training. I was doing a lot of long runs on Sundays but this sprint training is at the same time. I may end up needing to sacrifice some milage in order to enter this sprinting event, but I feel like the beach sprints are good quality training. I don’t really believe in ‘junk miles’ because everything you run is providing some benefit, but the beach sprinting is clearly superior training than doing a zone two 22k jog. I also feel a lot more energized after the event so it will probably help me enjoy my weekends more.
I put in an entry for the The Izu Trail Journey (70K trail race). The results of the lottery are announced on August 9th. 2,309 people have applied for a place and there are 1,200 places. The odds to get in don’t look amazing (especially considering some people get priority entry), but I have my fingers crossed. My backup plan is still to run The Shonan International Marathon. I’ll update on what happens next month.
The Tokyo Marathon will be held on March 2nd 2025. General entries open on August 16th and close August 30th. That is also a lottery system with the results announced on September 20th. If you are thinking about entering the Tokyo Marathon please keep these dates in mind.
Beyond this it’s just steady away. I’m keeping my eye out for some other races to enter but my ability to enter them will be based on the results of these lotteries.
August is a hot month. There’s also a sort of summer holiday in Japan called Obon. I’ll be taking a few days off around that time to go on a trip. I’m looking forward to a bit of a break. I’ll try and get some running in while I’m away (though an actual rest may also do me some good).
Regardless of what happens I’m going to keep trying to push myself wherever I can and do my best to get better. The fact that I don’t know exactly what I’m trying to get better for is part of the fun.
Thank you to all my readers
I hope you had a fantastic July and are ready to get after it during August.
Osu!
Anthony