August Recap

Miles: 129.38

X-Training: 5 (swim - 4, elliptical - 1)

Rest Days: 6

Race(s): Centennial Lake 1 mile swim. Hurricane Irene cancelled the second one (a 5k swim)

New gear: I gave the Asics 2160 a chance and found out that I like them.  Whatever went wrong with the 2150 (at least for me) has been corrected.  Plus, they are lime green!

Workout goals: 
Be smart as I start my marathon training plan - I think I did a good job with this.  I did more cross training at the beginning of the month and made sure to get in all of my scheduled rest days.  I've started taking ice baths after long runs (something I've never done before).  So far, I have enjoyed getting back to a run dominated schedule and my legs have not protested.

Keep swimming in the rotation - I did okay here.  My goal was to try to swim once a week.  I ended up swimming four times, but one of those was a race.  I also went about 2.5 weeks towards the end of the month without getting to the pool.

Plank a day - I started off well, but fell off towards the end of the month.  I did a plank 20 out of 31 days. That sounded decent to me until I realized it was only 65%.  Certainly it is better than the amount of core work I was doing before (none), but I can do better.

Non-workout goal: New recipes.  I did okay here.  With a few weekends out of town, my CSA produce started piling up and I got a bit overwhelmed.  Still, I've been able to use all of it, even though it hasn't always been in fun new recipes.



Ice cream flavor of the month: Oatmeal Cookie Chunk

August was a good month for me and marathon training got off to a strong start.  My running mileage is way up, though that is to be expected when I switched out of tri mode and into marathon mode.  I viewed August as more of a base-building month and a chance to get back my running legs.  I made the decision to run with the Capital Area Runners, which is going to completely change my training plan.  I'm 1/4 of the way to race day and excited to see what the next 12 weeks will bring.

I really enjoyed racing in my first open water swim in years at the beginning of the month.  I was hoping to get in one more race, but Irene had other plans.  One of the best things about tri training was getting back in the pool and I'd really like to avoid totally abandoning this as marathon training gets more intense.


September Preview

Workout goals: 
Focus on balancing workout intensity - I noticed in mid August that I was doing the majority of my runs at the same pace and intensity level.  The only guide on my plan was the mileage so I was doing the same thing every time.  I really tried over the last week to run my recovery runs at a recovery pace.  I think that now that I am going to have three hard workouts a week (intervals, tempo, long run) it will make it easier to keep my other runs easy and save my energy and effort for those days.

Injury prevention - I know this is extremely important as the miles continue to ramp up and I add in speedwork.  I'm going to make it a priority to do plenty of stretching and foam rolling.  I also plan to keep up the post-long run ice bath

Keep swimming - I'd like to make it to the pool at least once a week

Planks - I need to improve on August's 65%

Races: The 5k swim has been rescheduled for September 25.  I will probably participate, assuming I am able to get to the pool regularly this month.  Also, I don't own a wetsuit, so if for some reason the water temps drop dramatically, I'm out.

Non-workout goal: Work on the design of this blog. I'd like to play around with my current design.  I think there's a fair amount that could be improved