Monthly Roundup: August

I can't believe it's already September and that the summer has already come and gone. It went by so fast. August was an interesting and busy month. It included vacation, some heat and humidity and a new job. My training and weight loss had some ups and downs during the month, but still moving forward.

Trainings

Not a bad place for a 14 mile run.

My training this past month wasn't great. It included a lot of missed sessions. In fact, I missed more times than I actually worked out. I'm not happy with that. I'm not happy with myself. I expect more from myself. With that said, it was not all bad. I did have my longest run to date: a 14 mile run that I did on vacation none-the-less. That did in fact save my monthly total miles to look better than it should have likely been. I have started to bounce back from the missed sessions as well and have a renewed drive to get all my runs in. As I've mentioned before, my biggest hurdle is wanting to sleep for morning runs and just plain forgetfulness for evening runs. But I only offer that as explanation, not as an excuse. I cannot let myself make excuses and expect to improve.

Races

I had no races in August, but I think the 14 mile rhn should count as a psuedo-race. September has the Perfect 10 races, where I plan to run the 10K. They offer a 1.0 mile, 10K and 10 miler. I'd want to try the 10 miler, but the 10K fits better with my training schedule.

Some Monthly Stats

Geeky stats time for the month of August.

Running the Roads
Total Distance: 24.19 miles
Total Time: 6:13:02
Average Pace: 14:49 min / mile
Best Pace: 13:34 min / mile
Best Split: 12:59 min

Total Distance Year to Date: 117.52

Do you see that? I have run 117.52 miles since April. That's just on the road, nothing in the gym counted. Going from nothing, that number is hard to fathom for me. Then, I start to think what that number would be without all the missed training sessions and it's just so hard to take in. I can't even believe that number is real, for me to have done all that already.

Looking to September

Credit: austincc.edu

We're already fast into September. I thought a good way to look at the month is to set some goals for myself. Some will be more difficult to others. I will strive to accomplish them all. But goals should stretch you, so I'm not just picking things I know I can accomplish.

• No missed training sessions
• Add 1 non-running training session per week
• Run 40 miles total
• Lose 5 pounds

I think these are good starting goals. The first, no missed sessions is obvious. It is how things should be every month, but have not been yet so far for me. The second is something I want to add to increase my overall health and compliment my running. Ideally, I want to add yoga, weight and other cross-training activities to my workouts. I think I'd like to do yoga once a week to increase my flexibility and joint strength, weight train one day to work out other muscles and another day just doing other exercises, such as for my core. That is obviously a lot to add in, so I'm going to pull out the developer in me and apply the iterative approach. I'm going to start with one extra session a week, then come back and add more. Right now, with my new job, I don't have a gym. In our new office, we'll have one to use again, but for now that means my extra sessions will be something I will do around home. One extra time a week will be good for me I believe.

The next goal is to run 40 miles. My largest has been 30 outside, so I wanted to step it up from there. In addition, looking at the training plan for this month, this requires some of my week day runs to put the 45 minute side of the 30 - 45 minute window because I will need more 3 mile runs than 2 mile ones to meet this total. Lastly, I want to kick my weight loss up a gear. It has done ok, slowly losing a little with a slight setback recently. That is a change I really want to see that I haven't yet, so I want to push myself on that as well this month.

I've also decided to give the Nike+ Running app a try this month. We'll see how it goes. If you're on Nike+, look me up and add me. I used the screen name WickeeWickee.

What will September hold? More work, more progress, more success.