August 2019 Monthly Running Challenge

I hope to get 50 miles this month. I had an uneven start.

8/2...2.12 miles. My husband was sick. So I offered to cut the grass, leaving very little day light for a run. Better some miles than none.

8/3....3.1 miles.....Getting it in before it got dark.

8/7....5.27 miles. Late start with my run. Wanted to get 6 miles, but the sun set earlier than I thought.

8/9...Indiana State Fair...Lots of walking with my husband, at least 5 hours of walking. I am not counting this, but I am sure that it helps legs get strong. Those farm animals are sure cute....my favorite are the sheep. They are so sweet.

8/11...4.2 miles....After work, very sunny and bright, and no breeze. Legs felt like I was running in glue. Also needed to use the bathroom the last 1.5 miles...so very uncomfortable.

8/13....4.11 miles....An afternoon run. I forgot my music and almost didn't do the run. Anyway, I talked myself into it. I heard snippets of conversation on my run, and saw a lot of people walking their dogs. One dog looked like a Great Dane, but it had pink eyes and no pupils. It was kind of creepy. The run without music wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.

total....18.8 miles.
goal...50 miles.

My husband (Ed) received a referral to an orthopedic surgeon, but has not seen him yet. Ed thinks that he tore his meniscus. Of course, we are going on vacation in 2 weeks. Fortunately, we got traveler's insurance, mainly due to the fact that my mother is 91. My husband assures me that we are still going on vacation. So I put down another payment toward our condo in Cody, Wyoming.

@PastorVincent Does GF stand for gluten free or General Mills? Oh, and are you willing to share the recipe?

I have been away visiting my daughter and did not run at all (never even took my running clothes out of the suitcase) but walked a ton (and baked a bunch in baking class!! ❤️). We also visited Vancouver and went to Stanley Park - oh I would love to run there!
I think I am pretty caught up here.
@cyoka13 - great job adding in distance! Don't try to do too much too soon though. Give your body time to adjust to the new distance then go up again.
@pastorvincent - great job for you and Mrs PV on the multiple races in one weekend!
@ROBOTFOOD - welcome back! Awesome pictures too!
@JMNagain - you will have to post some pictures of where you run in Bucharest! It is one of my bucket list places to visit!
@RunsOnEspresso - I'm so excited for you!
When I started back from my stress fracture I was going to use Zen labs initially but decided to use the Galloway method instead and made up my own intervals after talking to the PT. I did 5min walk/2min run for about 2 weeks and then increased the run and decreased the walk each week or so. By the time of my HM (~10 weeks) I was running 5mins and walking 30s. I also made sure I had a rest day every other day for quite a while and if anything hurt I rested an extra day. I am still being extra careful because I don't want to hurt my foot again!
@Faebert - welcome! Looks like the running addiction has gotten you too 😁

Had planned to run around 4-5 miles on Tuesday before going to strength training but life kept intervening. I did go out but only had time for a very short run around the neighborhood. Today was better even if I didn't get out super early as planned and I am so sore from training yesterday. Tempo run was on the plan for today and it worked out ok other than I ran into friends and paused to chat with them a little. I also walked a few times just to get my HR down. I am sure it was high because of the heat and me trying to push the pace a little. I was soaked when I got home and felt like my body (and face in particular) were on fire. Cut up cold watermelon is such a great recovery food!
Also I checked out the elevation map for my HM... I think I need to get in some more hill repeats! Date........Miles.......Total
08/01......0.00........0.00
08/02......4.28........4.28
08/03......0.00........4.28
08/04....11.14......15.42
08/05......1.62......17.04 - Recovery
08/06......4.15......21.19 - + Strength Training
08/07......8.46......29.65
08/08......0.00......29.65 - + Strength Training
08/09......0.00......29.65 - Seattle/Burlington
08/10......0.00......29.65 - Vancouver
08/11......0.00......29.65 - Burlington/Seattle
08/12......0.00......29.65 - Home
08/13......1.61......31.26 - + Strength Training
08/14......6.03......37.29



2019 Planned and Completed Races
02/03/19 - Surf City Half Marathon Deferred to 2020
05/11/19 - Santa Barbara Wine Country HM
09/15/19 - Jack and Jill Downhill HM - Boise
11/23/19 - USA Women's HM
02/02/20 - Surf City Half Marathon

6 miles today. Craft projects for the weekend plans interfere with my running. I should be in bed already, but I still have to shower.

A little slower today..my legs were feeling it.

August Goal: 37-40 miles
Total Miles:16.09 miles

My August Runs/Walks
8/2: 3.09 miles
8/5: 3.27 miles
8/10: 3.25 miles total (1.25 mile of continuous run and walk/run alternating for 2 miles)
8/12: 3.25 miles total (2.25 miles of continuous run and 1 mile walk)
8/14: 3.23 miles total (1.25 continuous run and walk/run alternating for just under 2 miles)

Date :::: Miles :::: Cumulative
08/01/19 :::: 3.6 :::: 3.6
08/02/19 :::: 4.1 :::: 7.7
08/03/19 :::: 10.2 :::: 17.8
08/04/19 :::: 3.7 :::: 21.5
08/05/19 :::: 3.7 :::: 25.2
08/06/19 :::: 3.1 :::: 28.2
08/07/19 :::: 5.1 :::: 33.3
08/08/19 :::: 3.0 :::: 36.3
08/09/19 :::: 0.0 :::: 36.3
08/10/19 :::: 8.7 :::: 45.0
08/11/19 :::: 3.8 :::: 48.8
08/12/19 :::: 4.2 :::: 53.1
08/13/19 :::: 2.3 :::: 55.3
08/14/19 :::: 5.4 :::: 60.7

Marathon/HM group tonight and the workout was ramps: one set of 1-2-3-4 minute intervals with 2 min recovery between, then repeat the set with 90-second recovery. 12 minute warmup (not sure why we stopped at 12 rather than the promised 15) and a 10-minute cooldown, plus 4 sprints. Overall I felt better than expected for this workout. It was a pretty pleasant night, which helped a lot, and I'm feeling much less sore. I walked for an hour beforehand with the dog, which I think also helped.

@polskagirl01 and @MegaMooseEsq Congratulations on your anniversaries! I missed Megamoose’s since it was buried in a race report, sorry about that!

Today (Wednesday) was our 26th anniversary - after a big celebration last year we weren’t planning on doing much, and since the heat was absolutely horrifying on Monday and Tuesday, we agreed to go out to dinner and a movie a day early and then have an anniversary run today after the weather broke. Which turned out to be a really good idea. This was the weather at the time we were having dinner Tuesday night:

Yeah, okay, that is hot. I don’t remember ever seeing that high a heat index here in my lifetime. It felt unsafe just being outside, much less being active. When we went to the movie theater, their AC which usually feels like being in the meat department of a grocery store couldn’t handle it and we were all sweating.

Thankfully it started storming during the movie and by the time we emerged steam was rising from the wet streets. And by morning we were back to normal August temperatures in Memphis, aka purgatory but not actually hell. By late afternoon when we got out for a run the temperature was in the 90’s with a heat index near 100, and everyone we passed at the park was smiling through their sweat as if to say, “Hey, at least it’s not yesterday!”

We did 10k very easy because of the heat, then realized we were out too far on the Greenline to get back to our car before the park closed at sundown and ended up running part of our cool down walk. The sun was down and the ranger was giving the closing announcement when we got back, but there was still some light in the sky at least.