August Review - Best Mileage Month Yet

August turned out to be exactly what I needed in order to prep for the Hartford Marathon. I was able to get two 13+ mile runs in and exceed my best mileage month from 2008. Not bad at all… September is going to be key as my one and only goal is to feel that I can complete the 26.2 miles without injury, death, ya know, that kind of stuff. J I’m pretty confident right now, but feel I need to get at least one 20+ mile run in and then I’ll declare myself ready. Thus far, the 15 miler is my longest to date, but I tell ya, I felt like I could have gone another 5 no sweat at all….well…of course there would be sweat, but you know what I mean.

I had hit over 100 miles Sunday evening with a 3 mile treadmill interval session (100.58 to be exact) and exceeded my June 2008 total of 100.17. These are all run miles, I do keep track of the walking/warm-up-down miles separately. Happy to have exceeded it, but yesterday was an outstanding weather day so I put in a lunch run of 8 miles really boosting the total over my previous best. The 8.23 miler was incredibly easy and felt great, the only reason I stopped was time, had to get back to work (this put me at 108.81 total for Aug). As I had mentioned previously, I’m tracking my average heart rate trying to slow things down in order to maximize speed at a given HR. Well, I compared my 8 miler to a run last week that was similar in every way (except it was warmer last week) and I reduced my HR by 3 (149 to 146) and was nearly 20 seconds faster per mile…go figure… It’s a challenge to keep in the HR zone when I was feeling really good, but I did and feel like it’s paying off. I’m going to keep this up through September as it really should help me in the marathon (hopefully).

In any event, probably not going to get a long run of more than 9-10 miles in this week with two b-day parties for my daughter Saturday and Sunday, but I’m going to keep up the frequency best I can prior to school starting back up Monday evening (the 14^th).

One more note, yes Mike, I use the caffeinated gels infrequently. Pretty much the first one for a morning run and then switch over to the non-caffeinated ones. I drink enough coffee as it is! Used the shot blocks yesterday and I like them a lot, so much easier to stomach, but not as easy to “take” while running. I’m used to the gel packs, so I’ll probably keep going with those (perhaps try some of the other brands that y’all have been mentioning..hammer and whatnot). Oh, and I’m slacking on the push-up/sit-ups and have put a 1500 goal on each for this month. Only finished with 600/800 last month L Core, Core, Core!!!