August Recap

Hey friends! Long time no talk read or write! Another month has come and gone. Let’s chat a bit!

Month Recap: August 2018

Oh, August … what a crazy month you were! Within a time span of 10 days, I ran a one mile road race, a 5K and a Ragnar Relay. Oh and somewhere along the way, I also registered for a MARATHON! Surprise! California International Marathon … I’m coming for you!

I took a down week with no stress workouts after Ragnar (which felt a bit like running a marathon in and of itself). I took a few days off completely before easing back into the swing of things. I’ve done a few workouts now, so I guess we’ll say that I am back in the saddle at this point. I took an unplanned break from writing training log posts, but when you aren’t doing any workouts there isn’t quite as much to report from each run. It’s like, “I ran. It was humid. The end.” I was almost ready to just scrap the idea of writing training log posts altogether, but I think I’ve changed my mind about that. I make no promises that I won’t change it again though.

My training for CIM will not officially begin until the middle of September (12 weeks out), but for my own purposes, I’m kind of using this past Monday as my starting date. That gives me 14 weeks until race day and with a two week taper, it’s only 12 weeks of training. Mentally, I need those few extra weeks so that I can tell myself that I have “plenty” of time to get into the shape that I want to be in.

I’ve got lots of fall races picked out to do along the way! I’d like to add a couple more as well, but for now a tentative schedule looks like this:

09.08.18 – Hurricane Run 5K
10.06.18 – TBD 5K
10.13.18 – Shrimp Festival 10K
10.21.18 – Gulf Coast Half Marathon
11.03.18 – Senior Bowl 10K
11.11.18 – Pensacola Half Marathon
11.17.18 – Turkey 10 Miler
11.22.18 – Turkey Trot 5K
12.02.18 – CALIFORNIA INTERNATIONAL MARATHON

Workouts: I only did a couple workouts this month, since the first half of the month was full of races and recovery. Once I did get back into it though, I got in some good efforts!

2 mi. WU, 8 X 300 w/ 100 recovery (66, 68, 66, 65, 65, 64, 63, 61 (5:43 avg.)), 3 mi. CD

2 mi. WU, 3 mi. (6:55 avg.), 2 mi. (6:44 avg.), 1 mi. (6:28), 3 mi. CD

2 mi. WU, 10 X 2:00 hard (6:01 avg.) w/ 1:00 recovery, 2 mi. CD

Favorite workout: My favorite workout was probably the 3 mile, 2 mile, 1 mile cutback workout. Although it must be said, I really enjoyed the 8 X 300 workout as well! The 10 X 2 minute workout went fairly well and I didn’t *not* enjoy it, but man oh man, it was tougher than I was expecting!

I’d say it’s a good sign that I enjoyed the longer workout because I’m sure that’s exactly what I will have in store more as we progress throughout the training cycle. I’m planning to get VERY comfortable running at marathon pace. I don’t think that I’ve done enough training at my goal marathon pace in the past. Practice makes perfect and you certainly can’t expect your body to run comfortably at marathon pace if you haven’t practiced it a pretty good bit. The 3 mile, 2 mile, 1 mile workout was a good starting point as my goal for the 3 miles was just over marathon pace (6:55 was the goal there) and my goal for the 2 miles was just under marathon pace (6:45 was the goal there). Of course, goal marathon pace could change as the cycle progresses! In fact, I very much hope that it does.

Races: As I mentioned earlier, I ran 3 very unique races this month!

Race Recap: Fairground Road 1 Mile

Race Recap: Crime Prevention 5K

Race Recap: Ragnar CO “Last to Start, First to Finish … ROUND 2!”

Favorite race: I thoroughly enjoyed the one mile road race that I ran. It was a small race, but I love a small, local race. It’s also really fun to test your speed at the one mile distance (in my opinion). With that being said, it would be nearly impossible to top the experience that we had in mountains of Colorado! There is so much more to an overnight relay than just the race itself. While the race itself was amazing, it was the trip as a whole that makes this race such a memorable experience and really seals the deal as its spot as my favorite race for the month.

Paces: My paces ranged from 5:25 (one mile race) to 10:41 (with Brooks).

Miles: 249.3 miles this month.

Longest run: My longest consecutive run was 13 miles. I did run 20 miles one morning (as an attempt to run my age for my belated birthday miles), but the run was really 13 miles with an hour or so “pause” for breakfast with friends and then 7 more miles, so I don’t think I can technically count that as a 20 mile run. While we are on that topic, I am officially putting my birthday miles tradition to rest at this point. Again, I make no promises that I won’t change my mind, but for now … it’s too much.

I attempted to run 33 miles within 24 hours twice during August. Once was at Ragnar. I was already running close to 20 miles as part of the relay, so I was thinking that an extra 13 wouldn’t really be too bad. Turns out … I was wrong. I was physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted from the race itself and there was no way I was running one more step after my last leg of the relay. The second attempt was much better and I even made it to 26 miles before deciding that I was done. There’s no doubt in my mind that I could’ve run 7 more miles that day, but the point was that I simply didn’t *want* to. The tradition used to bring me a lot of happiness, but this year it didn’t and that’s completely fine. I’ll find other ways to celebrate I’m sure!

Shortest run: 3.5 miles.

Rest days: I took two days off completely.

Strength training: I started doing Pilates and I LOVE it. I’m going once a week, but I really wish I could go more. I’ve been going for three weeks now. I’ve also been keeping up with my planks at home and have also added in some crunches. Somewhere along the way I forgot about crunches (not sure how that happened). I went to the gym one day and rediscovered medicine ball crunches. I don’t even think I did that many of them, but my stomach felt like it was on fire (in a good way (if that is possible)) for days afterwards! Apparently planks don’t touch some of those key core muscles.