State of the Marksman: Q1 2025 (and Other Housekeeping)

Back in April, I launched "Project Hoplite," a 25-week program to prepare for a Spartan Race Super 10k. My "why" for this journey boils down to doing hard things for my family, my career, and my own capabilities. Now, six weeks in, I'm sharing the first update: how the gains are going, and the lessons learned from pushing the limits. See how the needle is moving!

Recently, I mentioned that I was going to run in a Spartan Race Super 10k at the end of October 25. To train for success, I've organized a 25-week training program covering all aspects of physical success for the event. This is the first part of a series of posts where I'll share how training is going, and lessons learned as a 40-something guy attacking Tactical Fitness in a way I haven't really tried before.

Let's take a look back at Q1 of the year and where I'm at with several projects for myself and the site. There's a lot of content coming, and I'm having a blast digging into pistol shooting. Let's get started.

Here at the end of the year, it's time to look back across 2024 and grade myself on how I've done (pretty mediocre, to be honest). I'm also setting the main targets for 2025, which ties back directly to what you can expect next year.

A bit of an off-the-cuff musing about the current state of the second amendment legal world. I've been in this debate for a long time, and I think we've got a lot of momentum behind us- but I also think there's some serious risk in the future. The debate is not over, not by a long shot.

At the start of October, I went to a Project Appleseed Pistol Clinic to get a refresh on my pistol skills and see what the new program was all about. I came away both satisfied with my performance and appreciating the hard work that the Appleseed folks put into developing this new curriculum. Let's dig in!

I've got a bit of a confession to make, and it's embarrassing. I'm not all that great with pistols. I'm not a bad pistol shooter, per se. But on balance, my pistol shooting lags way behind my rifle shooting. I think that's a problem, so let's talk about why I'm going to fix it.

Let's talk long term. Too many people think that success is just a few weeks or months away, when that is far from the truth. In reality, success is a culmination of long term effort often years in the making. In this piece, I take a little known two day challenge and show you how I would break it down into a series of seasons and blocks that could be repeated over and over again, always driving closer and closer to success.

I've got a little bit of a bone to pick with how a lot of the shooting culture talks about drills. Much like weight lifting and gym bro culture, it seems a lot of shooters are more interested in flexing their egos than actually using drills as a way to improve. But how, exactly, should we approach that?

There's been a question floating around the web that I wanted to take a poke at. If you were advising someone on how to start their own "serious" arsenal, what would be your suggestions? In what priority order? HEre's my answer.