July 2022 Monthly Running Challenge

I got dressed to run yesterday, then didn't.
Today I got dressed AND ran, an easy interval jog around the block. Probably about 3-5 minutes running with 30 second walk intervals. Maybe comparable to something in early C25k. Starting over is fine with me if that's what I need to do 🙂

Got home to find that I missed the raspberries staring to ripen last week and had a lot of berries to pick. Got a full bowl of raspberries and sour cherries that I turned into cherry juice and raspberry sauce (that I put in the freezer to use when it's my turn to bake something for church). I also ate a bunch of them right off of the bushes, YUM!

Got in 7 treadmill miles after work. It didn't suck.

Pretty shoes @eleanorhawkins! Sorry about the blisters. Maybe try some different socks to keep them from running?

@polskagirl01 Fresh raspberries sound yummy!

I got in my two runs today to catch me up for the week. First run was at 5:30 this morning in the rain. 5 min Z1, 30 min Z2, 5 min Z1 = 3.29 miles.
Second run was 5 min Z1, 35 min Z2, 15 min Z3 = 4.46 miles. I finished just before it started storming.

Hi all, sorry for disappearing for a bit. Between the race, vacation, work, life, it was hard to find time to get back to the computer. I don't have my race report done yet, but I wanted to post other run updates and hopefully write & post my race report tonight or tomorrow.

7/01 - 5.6 mile trail run on my way to our boat. Just a slow run/hike to get more experience with my new hydration vest and get a few easy miles in before the big race. Raspberries are starting to ripen so I stopped often for those. Other highlights include running near a golf course and finding a dozen errant golf balls along the trail (collected those for a friend of mine), running near a correctional facility (prison), and beautiful overlooks of the Mississippi River. The trail actually went through correctional facility land had had signs up every 100 feet or so sternly reminding me to stay ON the trail. I was glad to be through that section. It was a nice 5.6 mile loop and I'll come back again.
7/02 - 31.2 miles - Race Report coming soon!

7/06 - 9.5 road miles. Slow and probably too soon after my race.

7/07 - 6.6 miles and 1300' of gain doing hill repeats. I went back to the local sledding hill on a very HOT, HUMID evening. After a 1 mile warm up I tried to run the hills at first but it just wasn't happening. I then resorted to power hiking up, letting my HR settle, then running back down. I did this 24 times. There were softball games going on at the bottom of the hill and as I walked up I was given some cheers by a of the players who had just finished their game. That made me chuckle. They said they had been watching me the whole time and wanted to know what I was training for so I stopped and talked to them a bit. Even though I hike the uphill, it felt good to do it.
7/08 - 4.7 mile walk. I walked to the sledding hill with pruners. There is the steep trail I like to go up, but there's another trail I wanted to take going down but it was too overgrown the day before. I went back with pruners and cleared it all out so the next time I could run loops when I run hill repeats.

7/09 - 8.6 trail miles. I intended to do this loop twice but the humidity really kicked my butt. I was dripping sweat within a mile and even though I had a liter of ice water with me, I felt miserable. I decided a combination of heat, humidity, lack of sleep, and heavy legs from the previous weeks miles left me with no energy so I bailed out and decided to do my 17 miles the next day. I did try my new Saucony Peregrine 11's today and they felt good. The other thing which worked well was the deer fly tape I tried for the first time. The place I often run trails is notorious for vicious, biting deer flies in the summer and I rarely run here in the summer as a result. I found out about deer fly tape and decide to give it a try. It's a 2" x 6" strip with mild adhesive on one side, and strong adhesive on the other. Just carefully place on the back of your hat and run. After a couple of miles, with no flies bothering me I took off the hat to find 7 flies already stuck. At the end of my 2 hour "run" I had 33 flies! Yet not once did I notice any of these flies bothering me.
7/10 - 8.6 trail miles. Yep....quit half way through my 17 miles today too. It sucked big time...worse than the day before. Even my shoes let me down today...the same shoes which worked so well the day before. This run I was sweating so much that it ran down my leg and drenched my socks. So much so that my feet were sliding all over the place in my shoes and making my toes smash up to the front on the downhills. It was so bad I was only able to run the flats. I was too tired to run up and it hurt my feet to run down. I tried tying my laces tighter but that didn't work at all and somehow made my insole slide around and bunch up. At that point I knew for sure I was done. At least the deer fly tape didn't let me down...I caught 40 of those little pests that day.

7/12 - 10 miles and 1600' of gain doing hill repeats. This run was fantastic. I felt I had energy even in the midday, 80F sun. The downhill trail I had cleared out the week before gave me a really nice loop which added some running "rest" after my uphill climb. In general I'd run about halfway up the hill until the grade became too steep and I'd power hike the rest. 30 loops! It felt so, so good!
7/13 - 9.5 road miles. I made the mistake of too much snacking right before the run and had to do walk/run intervals for the first 3 miles until my stomach settled. After that the run was fantastic with a good pace, considering my heavy legs from the hill repeats the day before.

Which all brings me to 90 out of 180 miles for July

Rest day from running today so I did a 30 minute strength workout before work this morning. Tomorrow evening I'm running the Crazy 8s race which is an 8K race that starts at 8:58 pm. It's a very popular race and this year is the USATF Men's 8K Road Championship. The winner gets the title and $5,000. In the past the Kenyans, Ethiopians and other foreign runners have ran and set the world record on this course but this year the race organizers have focused in a different direction. I haven't ran it in several years because I am not much of a night person but I signed up for it this year because it counts towards a series I'm doing with our local track club. The organizers have track and field events for little kids, a 3K run/walk at 7:58, and then the 8K at 8:58. There were about 1500 people who finished the race last year. There is no wave start, everyone lines up wherever they want, and the course is pretty crowded with only street lights so it's easy to step into a pot hole. My only goal is to finish without hurting myself!

July Goal: 110 Miles

7/1: 2.02 miles
7/3: 10.26 miles
7/5: 6.02 miles
7/6: 6.02 miles
7/7: 7.06 miles
7/10: 10.02 miles
7/12: 6.02 miles
7/13: 6.02 miles
7/15: 2.52 miles


55.96/110 miles completed for July

I didn't post yesterday, but I did get a short run in. There is a really nice park across the street from my daughter's apartment complex and I was able to run 2.5 miles before heading home yesterday. I also walked there on Thursday to keep my mile per day streak going.
Everything went well with her procedure except that they have diagnosed her with celiac. Which we were hoping they wouldn't, but expected they would. So if anyone has any gluten free recommendations I know she would be interested.

My family reunion is this weekend. Luckily we have it at the lake here that is only 6.5 miles from my house. I plan to do my "long run" tomorrow, but it may not be too long. Last night I didn't get to bed until after 1:00 am and I really need to get up early to beat the heat. I would just run out to the lake, but I will want to run pretty early and everyone who is staying out there would probably either be still sleeping or out somewhere fishing so I would rather just do my run and come home and shower before heading out there.

I hope y'all are all doing well. I need to go back and catch up on the thread. I just figured I would go ahead and post thus while I had a minute.