How are we in September already?

Okay, so I’ve not written anything for probably half a month now not because not caring about the running and not feeling it... but because actually writing has been pretty tricky to get down what’s in my head onto paper... or at least onto a screen.

I have, as you’ve probably seen if you’ve tuned into the YouTube channel, managed to do lots of running. I've basically had an awesome August where I actually managed to smash out over 29 runs in the month - so three runs over what I really needed for the challenge tick.

August was brilliant for the mind and the body - and I managed to cover covered around 150km for the month, so that’s about 40km a Week, which I think is pretty good for someone trying to squeeze this into everyday life.

Some other stats and for those nerds out there:

• I managed to run for over 13 hours for the month, pretty much corresponds to about 25 minutes per day if you average out across the month.
• The ascent wasn’t too great at only 1500 m climbed for the month.
• According to my Garmin, I did manage to burn 9,500+ thousand calories... which is quite a few slice of pizza!

But having gone through all the stats... I'm most proud of this one. It's pretty cool when you take a step back. In August, I managed to go out for my 200th run. I had to think about that for a moment. That’s 200 runs in the calendar year so far. And that's 200 in terms of total runs for the year and also 200 runs ticked off, in terms of those counting towards the 26 in 2026.

I do, however, consider myself to be a runner. And when you put it in context over last year, where I only ran about 240-250km for the whole of 2025... and zoom forward to today where I'm doing around 150km per month... I'm absolutely stoked and have absolutely smashed what I expecting my body to be able to do and achieve. It's pretty cool to know what you can do when you put your mind to something like this. It just shows how consistency compounds over time - just like earning compound interest. Yes it takes some physical effort (a lot!) but you can push through and consistency builds that muscle memory, builds that strength, builds that habit forming process in your brain.

So to some up August in nutshell I am stoked and September has started off with a bang. It’s the eighth day of the month and have run seven times so one behind in terms of days but plenty of sunshine hours ahead to smash out the challenge.

So, until next time,

Mā te wā

Mat