26

Oh. 

It's that time of year.   {sigh}

The would-be snarky wrap up of the last 365. The promise of not promising anything for the next 365. Or at least next to nothing. 

I saw a meme that said 'if 2025 were a drink, it would be colonoscopy prep'.  

I feel that is apt, if not a bit off the mark. At least that would clear out the shit. I feel that this point we are still bottled up and yet overflowing at the same time. 

If you read me - you know: no resolutions. I don't believe in them and they're far too easy to dispose along the way. Or as you know it - January 10th. 

2026 has one goal for me at this point:  win finish the 2026 Berlin Marathon.

So far we have our hotel in Berlin, but that's it. No other itinerary items. No flights. But I had to secure a place to sleep and shinola. 60,000 other people are gonna want places to do those things, and we needed to beat some of them to the punch.  

I'm 100% sure I've never made any travel plans this far in advance. Alas, we are not "those" guys. We absolutely should be, yet here we are. 

Running is the goal. No injuries is a goal. I suspect like resolutions that last one could be gone by January 10th. You just don't know. 

Of course I have dreams. But they involve shoulder-to-air missiles that take out an entire administration - including its spokesperson. 

I don't want for much. Not really. 

As I am unaware of how to access the dark web, it seems I'll have to leave that entire endeavour up to someone else.  ....so Secret Service and the NSA can just stand down.  ...cuz you know they're reading. 

Oh - another goal is continuing my mental health rebuilding / rebranding. It'll take more than 2026, but I'll keep plugging away. Though the above would go a long way in help shoring that up. 

The less said about 2025 the better, but I'll try to be silver lining-like here. 

I ran relatively completely uninjured (well no new aches or pains) this last year. In terms of races I completed:

• 1 marathon 
• 4 half-marathons
• 2 quarter-marathons
• 3  5 milers
• 2 5ks

For each distance I had at least one PR per category. That's not nothing, nor do I think it would be an easy repeat (and I'm NOT planning 4 half marathons this year!). I'm not often proud of my achievements, but I feel pretty good with these. As I said earlier in the year, PRs will be defined now by seconds, not minutes. A full 26.2 maybe by minutes. Maybe. Hopefully

During all of 2025 I ran 1,371 miles. Plus a little more, but my watch either failed or I forgot to start it at all. As Rita Coolidge might sing, it's an all time high. 

Let's see.............I got past 9.2 million views of this blog thing. Somewhere down the road is 10.....if things keep moving. 

710 and I are just 20 days away from 41 years. Yikes. 

I read 26 books (mostly fiction), which is about 20 less than I had planned. But when I get in a reading slump it takes me a while to dig out. That said, read some really good books and a few that were really really bad. My "problem" is, there are books I should probably just put down and stop, but I don't. In for a penny........and all. 

....oh, and I got to see my best friends a few times this year. So, it's not ALL bad. I hope more of that in 2026 as well. 

As for this blog and 2025, as Kai Ryssdal might say, let's run the numbers:

• Number of posts: 365. 
• Number of unique page views: 2.16 million.  Last year it was 4.45 million (!). In actual terms, it's a lot less than 2024, but fuck - 2 million +?  There were days I was getting double digit visits. And that wasn't all that long ago. My least visited month (December) is still about 67,000 more than I used to get - and I only got 68,000
• Month with most page views: January 2025 with 610,440. Again, quite a bit less than July 2024 with 997,668 hits, yet I am not complaining. They're good numbers. 
• Number of comments: these remain flat for the third year in a row - at about 1,100. 
• Top 5 posts of 2025: 
• You Just Haven't Earned it Yet, Baby - I gotta say this surprised me. 
• Something More Than Free - I never did follow-up on this. Did anyone? 
• I'll Meet You Halfway - see the comment on the top post.
• the Last of My Kind - a post about resistance. Glad to see one made it on here. 
• Flipping the Bird - well make that two. 

Not a pet post in the top 5. THAT is unusual. But 2025 was a fucked up year -  I think we can all agree on that. 

So, we are off on our '26 adventure. 

YAY?

Song by: Chic