August Summary

Runs - 25
Workouts - 0
Injured - 0

The Bad: That big ZERO that follows the word workouts. I pride myself on pushing weights in the gym and for the second straight month I slacked on that. I got a feeling that this will bite me during Steamboat. From one stand point, I only have so much time to focus on my exercise routine and lately it's been on running. At the same time though, is it really that difficult to wake up an extra hour or so earlier to hit the gym before heading to the office. Lately it has been for the following reason.

The heat over the past month has wiped me out. Specifically within the house. We don't have A/C so our house gets hot. And it stays hot. Normally I'm asleep early but over the past month my sleep time has been later and later which means I'm waking up later then my normal 5am time. I sleep in to catch up on the z's, but that means I miss out on going to the gym.

The Good: Twenty five runs this month is about as good as it gets for me. I've never been a huge monthly/weekly mileage guy so I was very excited with hitting this number for the month. The number of runs this month would have been higher had I not taken a mini taper before Leadville. I was also excited about exceeding the 100 mile mark over the last 12 days of the month.

Evening walks. Michele and I have gotten in the habit of walking the dog anywhere between 0.5 to 4 miles a night. Evening times during the summer up here in Denver are wonderful and we felt this was the best way to take advantage of it. Much healthier and cheaper then hanging out patio style at a local pub. Wonder if I should count these as really slow miles towards my monthly tally?

Bottom Line: Overall it's been a really good month. Yeah I wish I did somethings better or differently, but it was a solid training month. More importantly I've spent a lot of quality evening time with Michele.

With some 18 or so days before Steamboat 50, I'm going to take on my first true taper since last year prior to PPM. I'm almost not sure how to taper since it's been so long. Part of me is extremely tempted to log in one more long weekend of many miles. But the reality is I won't be able to as I'll be working as we're in the middle of another forecasting cycle. So instead I'll get in some shorter mile runs and refocus on the stretching, foam roller and massages.