Day 217, 148 To Go

August 5, 2013

To brighten my Monday, I will report my July monthly numbers today.  Numbers make me happy and Monday's make me sad, so this is a little bit of an offset to my Monday!

There was some milestones on my part this month as far as distance and time running are concerned, but not a lot of progress as far as speed is concerned.  Honey, however, had new highs in mileage, time and pace!  She had a great month.  The only issue is that she increased her mileage a little too much and I think that may be part of the reason she is experiencing some knee problems.  The speed work also contributed to this.  On my end, the speed work I did, which isn't necessarily reflected in faster daily times, contributed to some foot pain for me.

This was also the first full month of running 25 minutes every day, so this increase in volume along with some increases in intensity were a double whammy for us.  I am hoping that going into my second month with 25 minutes a day will be handled a little bit better by our bodies.

So, here are my monthly numbers:
              Total Miles | Total Time
January          52.24    |    9:25:00
February         52.01    |    8:40:07
March            74.57    |   11:30:00
April            75.59    |   12:00:16 
May              79.51    |   12:31:00
June             82.35    |   12:40:19
July             92.09    |   15:01:00

Here is a week by week breakdown:

Steve's Total Miles Logged: 92.09
Partial Week 1: 3.02
Week 2: 19.87
Week 3: 22.29
Week 4: 22.33
Week 5: 19.61
Partial Week 6: 4.54

Total Running Time: 15:01:00

Honey's Total Miles Logged: 32.28
Partial Week 1: 0.00
Week 2: 8.18
Week 3: 6.23
Week 4: 8.92
Week 5: 6.65
Partial Week 6: 4.54

Total Running Time: 6:40:00

So my overall mileage and weekly mileage were highs for this experiment.  I should have been able to push week 2 and 5 over 20 miles, but I missed them by just a little.  Two thing contributed to that.  One was that Honey ran much more this month than usual, and that decreases my mileage and the second was in week 5 I did a short long run.  Now the lower mileage because of Honey is not a knock on Honey.  This is actually a good thing in that it keeps me in check and doesn't allow me to go overboard.

I had a fewer amount of days running sub 9 min miles and only 1 day of running a sub 8 min mile.  I did do speed work almost every week, but because of the rest periods, the overall pace does not break the 8 min mark even though the faster paces broke the 7 min mark.

Honey had a great month all around.  She had a PR for her pace with a 10:47, she ran 15 days out of the month, she had the most miles of any month with 32.88 and her running time was her highest with over 6 hours.  Her biggest improvement was her daily pacing in which she had 10 days with a sub 12 min pace.  This is 2 1/2 more than in any other month! 

Now for today.  It was a slow day, and that was mainly because of me.  Honey's knees were barking, and when they hurt, she actually feels better if she runs faster.  I believe this is because her running form improves at a faster pace so the stress on her knee is less.  I was holding her back because I was sore and nursing a toe injury.  I'm fine with that though.

Here are our numbers:

Time: 25:00

Distance: 2.06 miles

Pace: 12:06/m

Max Pace: 9:21/m

Calories: 202
Avg HR: 109

Max HR: 128

Slow as molasses, but necessary.  Tomorrow will be a little better...but probably not much!  We'll see.  Until then...

Run for Life!!