July has come and gone– and that means the Pike’s Peak Ascent is here (yikes!). To be honest, I was ready for July to be over. I like summer at first, but by the time the insane heat rolls around, I’m ready for autumn. There is nothing better than autumn running. My heart is happy just thinking about it 🙂
If this is your first Monthly Miles– welcome! This is my way to reflect on the miles I put in over the past month, find areas to improve, and encourage others to put in a few miles over the coming month.
I do something slightly different that most people when tracking mileage. I count my cycling miles as “equivalent” miles based on calorie burn. A cycling mile is not the same effort as a running mile {at least for me} so I don’t want to take “extra” credit for something.
Breakout
Running – 108 miles
Cycling
Running
Running made up all of my miles for the month of July. I don’t typically like doing this. I think cardio cross training is important to keep injuries at bay. But knowing this month was going to be crazy busy, I made sure my runs were ones that would count. No junk miles. Every run had a purpose. My weeks consisted of 1-2 weekday morning maintenance runs, a hill day, and the long run.
I ran one 5K during the month of July. The Tata Trot 5K to raise awareness for Breast Cancer. I did this race with my parents. You can read about our experience here.
I ran on the trail only once last month 😦 This is super sad, as the trail is my happy place. As we segue into training for Marine Corps Marathon we’ll be hitting the trail hard again– woot woot! The weekly hill runs were my favorite. They lasted roughly an hour {including warm up and cool down} and were one of the key components of our Pike’s Peak Ascent training program.
Our July long runs were nuts. I’ll go into detail next week during Part II of my Pike’s Peak Experience mini-series {you can read Part I here}. Every long run had a treadmill incline portion, and by the end of the month we were on the treadmill for 4 hours at 10-12% incline. The first long run of the month ended up being 19.7 miles– 2.5 hours outside running and 1.5 hours on the treadmill at 10-12% incline.
There was a lot of time spent on the treadmill this past month. At an incline. And I’m feeling it. My hamstrings are tight tight tight. I’ve never done so much hill training. I’m trying to stretch well, but it doesn’t seem to be quite enough. I’ll be happy when I don’t have to spend so much time at an incline.
I plan to begin increasing my mileage during the month of August. Since we’ll be removing the ridiculous incline from our long runs, mileage will automatically increase. Marine Corps Marathon training will also be picking up. I’d like to get on my bicycle more in August, and continue performing at least one {but more would be better!} HIIT, Strength Training, or Barre workouts each week. With an increase in mileage I will be conscious of stretching, yoga, and foam rolling. I’m also joining my friend Melissa {remember her from the Ironman 70.3 Eagleman guest post?} for her Monday night Boot Camp!
Your turn! How was your monthly mileage for July? Are you progressing along in your #1MillionMinutes goal? What are you most looking forward to in August?
