Training Update & Highest Monthly Miles Yet!

Hello, July!

The end of June marks an important month in my book! Looking at my monthly totals, I ran my highest mileage in one month ever in the two years I’ve been running consistently! 192.3 miles (309.5K)! I know, I know – how could I NOT just run 8 measly more miles to make it a nice, round 200?! As much as I’d love to see that number, I know I will one day, and I KNOW I needed my rest day. After all, it’s about quality, not quantity anyway – though we all love to see a nice number on our stats. 😉

Thank you to Lifelong Endurance for not only getting me up and running (literally) after my injury, but for helping me come back stronger.

So, let’s see how my last week of an epic (for me!) month went!

Monday:

5 miles easy

After doing speed yesterday (did my runs a little out of order because – life), I wasn’t sure how this would feel. Specifically, I wondered how “easy” my easy run would feel, if at all. What do you know! It ended up feeling pretty good (once I had my coffee!)!!

Tuesday:

2 miles easy, 6 x 1K @ 7:45-7:35, 2 miles easy

This one was TOUGH. I actually plugged the workout into my watch, which I had been meaning to teach myself how to do for EVER. My inspiration for this was my Coach keeping me on my toes by using Kilometers… HA! No way I was going to be able to track that on my own (Kilometers = gibberish to me) 🙂 I’m thankful for this (silver lining!) because it turns out plugging in a workout is ridiculously easy! I can’t believe I hadn’t done it until now. It was nice to be told what to do and see my splits afterwards! The run was not easy but I did it!

Wednesday:

4 miles easy

So, waking up at 4-5:00 am daily to run can be *slightly* tiring – but COMPLETELY necessary during Texas summers. I was going to sleep in today but saw that it would be 103 degrees after work (“feels like” 110)… SO! 5:00 am it was! Glad I did it!

Thursday:

6 miles easy

I started off super slow and tired but after a mile or two, it was nice and smooth!

Friday:

Tempo! 2 miles easy, 3 @ tempo, 1 mile easy

This one felt surprisingly GOOD! I ran in a new/different location so it was nice to switch it up and I felt powerful!!!

Saturday:

Long run! 14 miles – 8 miles easy, 6 @ tempo/hard

HOLY HUMIDITY. I died. I didn’t know HOW the heck I was going to step it up for the last 6 miles. I didn’t step it up MUCH pace-wise, but I worked hard and did my best. I kept it at a little under a 9 minute mile the last 6 so I was happy with that!

Sunday:

REST!

How do you measure your running goals? Distance/# miles run? Time? Enjoyment? All of the above? 🙂