August Wrap-Up

Total Mileage: 136.5
Average Run Distance: 11.4 miles
Yoga Classes: 4

The news this month is mostly good, but lets go ahead and get the downside out of the way.

My overall mileage was about 25 miles less than last month, when I was hoping it would be more.  This was almost entirely due to my taking off 10 days from running in the first half of the month.  I already talked about in a previous post, but basically between the festivities for Paul finishing his PhD, and more pertinently, my major energy crash during the 2nd week of the month, my running took a big nosedive. Thankfully this new regimen of supplements seems to have really turned things around.  I still get tired, but not the way I was before.  And ever since starting all these vitamins, my running has really started to get back on track.

The evidence (and good news) ... Of the 136.5 miles I ran this month, 104.5 of them came in the second half of the month.  Had I been feeling that good all month, my numbers would have been much closer to where I had hoped they would be!

More good news ... even though my overall mileage was down from July, my average distance per run increased by nearly 1.5 miles!  So it looks like I'm handling the distance pretty well, I just need to stay healthy enough to keep up the frequency.  I'm really hoping September will continue to go the way the past couple weeks have gone.  Of course, we start speed work next week, and Steve has warned us that our mileage may have to drop a bit to keep up with the new intensity.  So I'll have to see how that goes.  But I'm really really hopeful.

Even the yoga improved a bit this month.  Again, still not quite where I'd like it to be, but I averaged at least one class a week, which is a big improvement over July.  I'd like to get it up to two classes instead of one, but this is progress.

So, let's look ahead and set some goals for September: 

Keep my running where it has been for the last few weeks, and hope for the best as I add in speedwork.

Try to get my total yoga classes for the month up to 7 or 8.

Find a running nutrition plan that works ... this means find a sports drink I actually like, and maybe some gels I can stomach, because right now I'm doing nothing, and that's not going to keep working for me. I have been good with the recovery drinks, so I will try to keep that up.

Work on overall nutrition.  For September, this means no alcohol, no fried foods (goodbye french fries and potato chips, it's time we took a break), and limited sugar.  By limited, I mean I can still have whatever I need to get through my runs ... I can still use a little bit of local honey in my tea ... and I can still have one Coke on my long run days.  But that's it ... no little pieces of chocolate in the middle of the day, no dessert in the evenings, no sugary foods in general. I've never had a huge sweet tooth - the french fry/potato chip ban is going to be harder - but even little amounts of sugar add up and so it's time to get myself off all of it.  It's not a full-on cleanse, but sort of a modified version just to fine-tune my system a bit and hopefully add to the benefits I'm getting from all the supplements.