The big achievement this month was the culmination of the half marathon training, ending October by finishing my first one.

The other notable movement was surpassing the 500 mile goal, which happened on this run and I didn’t even realize it at the time. I was able to knock out the mileage goal 2 1/2 months early. Back in March I definitely didn’t expect to be much over the target at all, let alone a full 100 miles beyond the pace mark. At this rate I’m pretty confident in hitting the 600 mile mark, especially with the nicer weather around the corner. I might do one more race in December, likely only a 10 or 15K.

This month I finally finished The Federalist, which I’d put down for a while. I made extensive notes throughout it. I’m looking forward to flipping back through for a refresher soon. Such a phenomenal work to put together such a deep, thoughtful, still-relevant rationale for strong but limited governance.

The other read this month that definitely made my “best of” list for the year was Tracy Kidder’s The Soul of a New Machine. A riveting story of a small team developing an early minicomputer. This story had to be one of the inspirations for Halt and Catch Fire, turning rooms full of geeks into a fast-paced drama.