At the end of the year in 2023, I totaled up my reading and exercise stats for the year. It’s not an exciting post unless numbers are your thing, but since I listed some goals last year, I thought I would follow through. So, here is some data from the year that was for reading, writing, and exercising.
Reading
Books: 115 (out of 121 started)
Pages: 36,740* (100 per day, almost exactly)
Audiobooks: 34
Hours Listened: 481
Average Year of Publication: 1952
Rereads (or relistens): 35
* with some margin of error
Fitness
Running: 890 miles (74 per month; 17 per week)
Hiking/walking: 620 miles (52 per month; 12 per week)
Steps: 6,302,957 (525,250 per month; 121,210 per week; 17,500 per day)
Biggest Month: June (736,500 steps)
Vertical Climbing: 18,400 floors (1533 per month; 50.4 per day)
Lifting: 63 hours—this is a rough number, which I don’t like—my watch also gives me stats on total weight lifted and total number of sets; neither is particularly helpful
Writing
Total Posts: 94 (1.8 per week—lower than last year)
Reflections
As far as some highlights go, here’s a list:
Backpacking 100 miles of the Camino de Santiago with three amazing co-leaders and mostly cool students.
I did a 40-mile hike/run on my 40th birthday.
I took my oldest son on an intense backpacking trip for his 13th birthday.
I hit my goal of bench-pressing 255 pounds for a set of three; I didn’t make my goal for pull-ups.
Given that I had less quantitative time available to me for reading this year, I am happy with the totals: 149 books put me within a respectable margin of error for previous years.
This had to be a record for audiobooks. I spent more time driving and even used some of my flight time to listen to books instead of watching a movie. I also listened to fewer podcasts this year.
I am super happy with the total miles. I wish more of them were running, but running is getting harder on me than in years past. The same goes for my vertical climbing. To average 500 feet a day of climbing is a pretty cool feat. Obviously, this is contingent upon some massive days in the summer, and hiking up and down the Spanish coast certainly helped.
Goals for 2025
Running: Actually average 100 miles per month of running. I still think that is an achievable and worthy goal. I signed up for a race in May to help motivate me during the harsh late-winter, early-spring months around here.
Lifting: Practice moderation: I’ve decided it’s better to be moderately fit all of the time than have periods of intense training. For example, I hit my weightlifting goals this year, but I injured my shoulder in the process. I’ve barely touched an iron bar in two months. I’ve lost the gains I gained. I want to stay healthy and fit all year.
Reading: This is always a funny one for me because I never have lofty goals. I make a list at the beginning of each year of books I would like to read this year (I’m attaching that below), but I also want to be free to follow whim and serendipity. For example, when I was promoted in the middle of 2024, it made sense for me to read some books on leadership and organizational management. So, while I do have a number of “goal” books for the year, by about May-June, I am generally off that list and following other trails. I am going to do a post in the next few days on how to read more, though.
Writing: I am fine with the pacing I’ve maintained here. I have an article I am writing for the Christian Educator’s Journal and a big project on The Anxious Generation I am working on for my church. I love having a space here, though, to write about whatever interests me. There is no pressure here to write a certain way or cover certain topics. I just get to follow whatever I am reading or thinking about, which is a lovely gift. Thanks for reading.
Prospective Book List
Kevin Vanhoozer, Mere Christian Hermeneutics
Karl Ove Knausgaard, The Wolves of Eternity
Karl Ove Knausgaard, The Third Realm
Flannery O'Connor, The Violent Bear It Away
Derek Walcott, Omeros
C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Letters (with Owen)
Roger Erdvig, Beyond Biblical Integration
Carl Trueman, To Change All Worlds
Erich Auerbach, Mimesis
David Goodhart, Head, Hand, Heart
Hanne Orstavik, Ti Amo
O. Carter Snead, What It Means To Be Human
Esther Lightcap Meek, Longing to Know
Henri Nouwen, Discernment
J Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism
Thomas Mann, Buddenbrooks
Musa al-Gharbi, We Have Never Been Woke
Paul Putz, The Spirit of the Game
Michel Houellebecq, The Map and the Territory
Homer, The Odyssey (with kids)
Virgil, The Aeneid (with kids)
Cormac McCarthy, Suttree
Haruki Murakami, The City and Its Uncertain Walls
Hans Boersma, Heavenly Participation
Hans Boersma, Scripture as Real Presence
David Bentley Hart, All Things Are Full of Gods
Spencer Klavan, Light of the Mind, Light of the World
Wendell Berry, A Place on Earth
Joonas Sildre, Between Two Sounds
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot
Jordan Peterson, We Who Wrestle with God
Philip Secor, Richard Hooker
Richard Hooker, The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Vol 1
James Davison Hunter, Democracy and Solidarity
Garth Risk Hallberg, The Second Coming
Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose
Umberto Eco, Travels in Hyperreality
Charles Dickens, Bleak House
Charles Dickens, David Copperfield
How do you go about compiling these stats? I've always wanted to do something like this, but it's hard to track everything. Do you just have a running spreadsheet?