Today is October 1st, one of my favorite days of the year. September and October are my favorite months… I love autumn! The back to school excitement, football, cooler temperatures… wait, I’m sorry… This September we got a blast of summer the week fall officially started with temperatures in the 90s! And what did I get to do the weekend that we had our Indian summer? Oh yeah, I ran 20 miles. It cooled down this past week and my running was so much more enjoyable.
- Total Miles: 135.36 miles – highest monthly mileage EVER! :)
Hey, speaking of monthly miles… I haven’t updated my “Banking the Miles” in quite a while! Here’s how I’m doing with my running + walking miles for 2017:
- January 2016: 55.13 miles / January 2017: 73.83 miles
- February 2016: 45.57 miles / February 2017: 33.39 miles
- March 2016: 41.39 miles / March 2017: 51.51 miles
- April 2016: 61.39 miles / April 2017: 68.68 miles
- May 2016: 57.14 miles / May 2017: 61.50 miles
- June 2016: 51.5 miles / June 2017: 51.62 miles
- July 2016: 52.08 miles / July 2017: 70.38 miles
- August 2016: 96.27 miles / August 2017: 104.54 miles
- September 2016: 82.63 miles / September 2017: 136.86 miles
- October 2016: 68.17 miles
- November 2016: 52.0 miles
- December 2016: 41.8 miles
- TOTAL 2016: 705.06 miles / TOTAL 2017: 652.31 miles so far…
What was I training for? Detroit Marathon – with a 10k and a half marathon thrown in there for fun.
What races did I run? Run for Your Heart 10k and Capital City River Run Half Marathon
Best performances: This month was a great month for running and racing. I pounded out my last long runs… 18 miles, followed by a half marathon, and then my 20 miler on the hottest weekend ever. I also got a 10k PR at Run for Your Heart and I achieved an official half marathon PR at Capital City.
Opportunities for improvement: I still need to do more cross training, although I did improve from previous months. I have been doing a lot of yoga with some strength training a couple times per week. I’m not planning on doing much significantly different at this point with only two weeks until… well…
What’s ahead: … two weeks from now I will be running my second marathon! I am nervous but excited. My plans for this race have changed drastically from when I originally signed up and I have made peace with it. I have a friend who will be running her first half marathon (the international half, which is the first part of the marathon) and I have offered to run with her. She will keep me at a good pace for the first half of the marathon and I will keep her company during her first half! She has been extremely nervous for the race because the people she has been training with are running a different half. She wanted to run Detroit because she is from the metro Detroit area and of course because it is the 40th year. I may or may not have helped convince her to sign up for it! ;) So I am really glad that I will be able to run with her.
My taperitis is not horrible this year, but I am definitely feeling like I did last year – so sick of training! 2018 is going to definitely be a calmer year for races. I still want to do a race every month to continue my streak, but I do not plan to run a marathon in 2018. I’m going to focus on getting fit, having fun, and running with my husband. I have recently realized with the help of my friend Jenny that I have a serious case of “FOMO” – “fear of missing out” – which has caused me to overdo things in the past. This next year I’m going to focus on what really matters to ME and my family, more than what everyone else is doing.
The first big focus is going to be starting a challenge group with some friends and acquaintances – we’ll be doing T25 Alpha and Beta rounds (10 weeks) starting October 23rd and ending on the last day of the year, December 31st! It worked out perfectly that October 23rd is a week after my marathon, so it will give me a week to relax and recover before I jump into it, and I think doing something like this will give me the change of pace I am looking for from running. I don’t want to get burned out of something that I love so much! I’ll be sure to post about the challenge in my October training recap!
RD on the Run 