The Monthly Milestone (July 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
March Race/Event Results
Reading List (what I’m currently reading (including audiobooks))
Final Thoughts and Hopes for August
Substack Stats
I ended June with 732 subscribers and I am ending July with…728! Slight decline. Expected subscriber churn.
One stat that I should be paying attention to more is my number of FOLLOWERS. Although my subscriber count seems to be going down a little, my followers count has been gradually increasing over time and I’m now up to 898. So that’s something.
Monthly Training Stats
Here are my training stats for July alongside the June stats for comparison:
July run total: 256.04 km (June: 299.49 km)
July walk total: 15.24 km (June: 40.1 km )
July run/walk total: 271.28 km (June: 39.5 km)
July elevation total: 954 m (June: 2,521 m)
I was out of the country at the beginning of July and wasn’t able to run as much as I would like. I also needed to take another trip in July, which further caused some interruptions. I think I had a relatively successful July despite the setbacks, but at the end of the month I had a bit of an issue with my knee. More on that later.
Race/Event results
I entered 2 parkrun (5 km races) during July:
July 11th: 20:35. 8th overall (4th in age group) (Instagram pics here)
July 28th: 20:21. 9th overall (3rd in age group) (Instagram pics here)
July is getting hot. As a result we are starting to have parkrun events canceled due to the extreme heat. I ended up missing one for traveling and one due to a cancellation, but I did managed to get over to Saigawa ryokuchi koen parkrun in Ishikawa prefecture while I was on the road. It was the one yeawr anniversary for that parkrun so that was fun.
I attended as many beach runs as I could. Again, it is starting to get very hot. This is making the beach busier. It’s nice to be able to run in this sea in this weather tho.
I am not back to full operation with karate and iaidō. It’s good to be back.
Reading list
I finished one audiobooks in July:
The End and the Death: Volume I by Jonathan Keeble
This was the first volume of the final “book” in the Horus Heresy series. I really enjoyed this one. The Emperor is up an ready to lay some smackdown on Horus along with a boarding action to the Vengeful Spirit. It’s not going smoothly.
I had one ongoing audiobook in July:
The End and the Death: Volume II by Dan Abnett
Second volume of the final book. I only just started it…but the end is nigh.
Final Thoughts and Hopes for August
Things have not exactly been going my way recently when it comes to training. A few months ago I started feeling some pain in my right knee. I largely ignored it but after a while I decided that I’d go to the hospital when I had time. I had time at the end of the month.
I had an X-ray done on my right knee followed by an ultrasound. The good news is that there are no breaks. The bad news is I have 膝蓋靱帯炎 (Shitsugai jintai en) : Inflammation of the patellar ligament (also known as jumpers knee).
I am under orders from the doctor to lower my training volume, stretch, and take inflammatories until my knee repairs itself. My quads have been tight from overuse and it looks like I am putting too much strain on my right knee.
What this means for my training is that I am going to have a bit of a low key August when it comes to running and focus more on strength, flexibility, and skills. I have been wanting to memorize a certain exercise sequence for Ashihara Karate for a while now so I am going to focus on that.
Last month I mentioned that my next race will the the 青鳩トレイルラン (Aobato Trail Run) in September 26th. I received a message from the race organizer informing me that this race was cancelled. This is a bit unfortunate but at least I will have some additional recovery time without a race on the horizon.
I do have an iaidō tournament in August. That will be my next official event. I am not expecting to win anything at this tournament. I usually just take part for my own learning. I’ll make an update on this later.
It looks like August is going to be a bit more of a “relaxed” month. I would like to consider this time as an active recovery block rather than a “rest month.” I am still continuing to train and get better, but I think I’m probably going to need to rebuild my stamina once my knee is healed and summer is over.
Roll on Autumn!
Thank you to all my readers
I hope you had a fantastic July and are ready to get after it during August.
Osu!
