Every year I review my habits, exercise, and projects for the previous year.

Daily Habits

This section is pretty much a copy+paste from last year. In a good groove.

• Read (part of) a book. Finished 36 of them in total. Wrote up my top picks for the year.
• Anki cards. Another year of the same geography and element cards. This is maybe three cards a day. We crossed Dunbar’s number at work so also started adding new hires to try and remember names for a little while longer.
• Gratitude journal. I record both things I did well, and things that brought me joy.
• Prehab. Bare minimum stretching and exercises for my back.

In addition I also tracked the following but didn’t commit to any frequency:

• Set of pull-ups. Daily with occasional rest days, plus a few gaps from travel and minor niggles. Typically between 8-10.
• Set of push-ups. Same frequency as pull-ups but more consistent through travel. Usually 15-25.
• Alcohol-free day. I had a drink about once a week, with July to September being primarily dry except for a trip to East Timor. December and January brought the average down considerably courtesy of Carwyn Cellars Canvent again….

This coming year is going to look fairly similar I think, I’m not feeling the need to change much.

I use and recommend Loop Habit Tracker and Gratitudes Journal to keep track of things.

Sport

Running

Trained seriously for Oscar’s HUT2HUT, a mountainous 100k around Mt Buller. Unfortunately not the right mix of training: DNF’d at 70k. Still very happy with what I managed to do with the body I had on the day.

Took about five weeks off afterward, then switched to road for a three month build into the Gold Coast Marathon, my first serious crack at the distance. Was very happy with a 3:08:36, faster than the 3:10 I was pacing to and with no serous issues nor blow ups.

(Quick side quest in April: work trip to the US then to the Galapagos! Mostly kept up on training.)

Power recovery for the next month into a social trip to Timor Leste start of August. Big volume week in the heat, but low intensity and was able to enjoy it with new friends.

Fell into a bit of a rut afterwards. Got sick for a week in September and copped my only zero week for the year.

Fun but ill-advised 60k day start of October doing a lap of the Capital City trail (my first ever) for Al’s birthday, before legging it down to Anglesea to sweep leg 3 of the Surf Coast Century with Dad.

Decent if uninspired volume through October but fell back into that rut for November with virtually no training leading into Run Bibbulmun – a three day stage run I’d signed up for with the family. Wasn’t a target race so was just messing around: beat myself up day one trying too hard on the long course, hiked first section of day two, then dropped down to short course for day three and ran with my Dad and sister, which turned out to be a highlight for the year. (Dad won his age group, sister came second!)

Barely ran in December but as of starting Christmas leave feeling back in the game mentally. Keen to try improving my marathon time in 2025.

I often ran with Hunter Athletics Tuesday mornings around Olympic Park, Studley Park Run Club around the Yarra trail Thursday evenings, and Dandenong Trail Runners on Sunday … though much less so the latter two since switching back to road. I continued to be coached by Tim from the Distance Collective.

Other

I maintained a social bouldering habit, with forty trips to the gym. Got a coaching session on a lark which was fun and useful.

Failed to cement the strength habit like I hoped, but at least was still sporadically present. Between travel and laziness ended up having to restart squats (with associated soreness) about five times. Also deadlifted semi-heavy for the first time since my back injury a few years ago. Lifted with a belt for the first time.

Projects

• Created an experimental proof-assistant DSL in Haskell.
• Various small fixes and features to sternbot, a scraper and slack integration for Stern Insider. (Didn’t play much Godzilla this year, but did get a few high scores on Demolition Man.)
• Learned the basics of Lean 4, a theorem prover.
• Created my first Factorio mod Floor Placer
• Started poking at contributing to another Factorio mod, Factory Planner

Games

• Completed Ultracube and a second run of Space Exploration overhaul mods for Factorio, just in time for the Space Age expansion release in October which I also completed, picking up all extra achievements except for the fastest speed run one.
• A second run of Midnight Suns to explore all the DLC.
• Continued a sporadic crossword habit, primarily from the NYT. Can now have decent cracks at Thursday & Friday grids, which was a goal for the year.
• Collected nearly all achievements in Balatro, a fantastic indie deck-builder.
• Special mention to Tainted Grail, another deck builder with some interesting mechanics, and Node Buster, a short and tidy incremental game.
• Enjoyed the new Slay the Spire board game, got to play it a little while visiting my brother in Chicago.

Music

Virtually nothing this year. Little bit of piano here and there.

Miscellaneous

Saw a few shows:

• Wicked, the stage show … for the third time. Always great.
• Wicked, the movie. They delivered!
• Dictionary of Lost Words, Sydney Theatre Company. Also read the book. Fine. Interesting set.
• Groundhog Day musical. Went in expecting nothing, but it was spectacular.
• Momenta, Sydney Dance Company. This was … a lot. Incredible expertise but exhausting.
• The Lion King (in NY!) Incredible puppets, as expected.
• Virtuoso, Melbourne Fringe Festival. Extremely random pick, was worried in the first 15 minutes but turned out excellent.
• Plini (again!) supported by Sungazer and Jakub Zytecki. So good.
• TesseracT. Pretty much what I expected, glad I went, had enough half way through and left. This kind of music better recorded.
• The Mirror, Gravity & Other Myths. Saw this last minute to fill time when a long flight stop over coincided with the Darwin Arts Festival. Incredibly creative and talented acrobatics, one of my favourites shows of the year.

Watched some good TV:

• The Patriot. Dark comedy.
• Scavenger’s Reign. Animated sci-fi with fantastic creatures.
• Mr Robot. Rewatched the whole series before embarking on season 4, a worthy addition.
• Tour: Unchained. Best way to watch the tour – I avoided spoilers for a year.

Dined at Attica for Jodie’s birthday, an amazing and unique culinary experience.

Installed straps on my fixie pedals. Huge improvement.

Acquired cast iron pans and a big chopping board. Cooked more. Took inspiration from Rainbow Plant Life and Derek Sarno.

Took on an extra role at work and joined the executive team: Chief Digital Officer for Bendigo and Adelaide Bank.

A few lovely weekends away with Jodie: to the Blue Mountains, to Brisbane, and the Galapagos trip mentioned earlier. And a fantastic Christmas with the family.