I decided to try doing a post about my previous month of running. Monthly Wrap-Up lacks the alliteration of Weekly Wrap-Up, but it’ll do.
I’ll start out by reviewing my goals and my progress towards them. As an added bonus, since my first goal is mileage for the year, it’s a good place to mention my mileage for the month.
Goal 1: 1500 miles
Total on January 31: 127.77 miles (23 days of running, 24 runs – I count my 1.01 mile pre-race warm-up as a separate run).
When calculating my projected mileage for the year, my first thought was to multiply my total by 12, which would give me 1533.24 miles for the year. Excellent! The only catch is that January has 31 days, but there’s 6 months with fewer than 31 days. So a more accurate way to make a projection would be to calculate my average number of miles per day and multiply by 365. I ended up with an average of just over 4.12 miles per day, which comes out to 1504.38 miles. OK, that’s cutting it close. I do think I can do better than 127 miles per month. (I’ll have to do better than that if I get into the NYC Marathon.)
Goal 2: 6 races, with 2 that are 13.1 or greater
I ran the Joe Davis Run For Recovery 10K, which counts as the first of the 6 races, but it wasn’t 13.1 miles, so I still need 2 of those. I’m registered for the Tobacco Road Half in March, then I’ll get the other long race in the fall, either in NYC or a half marathon somewhere else. So I’d say I’m on track.
Goal 3: A PR in 3 different races
I got a PR in the Joe Davis 10K. Woohoo! Just two more PRs to go.
For the non-specific goals, I’ve done well with getting other exercise, doing a bodyweight routine on almost all of my rest days, and I’ve done well with the slower easy runs and faster workout runs. I haven’t done well with the better eating, less Mountain Dew, or working on this blog.
Best Run: January 14, Joe Davis 10K, 57:04.2 (9:11/mile pace)
A 10K PR is pretty much going to be a shoo-in for best run of the month, unless I somehow manage to get another more impressive PR, but this was my only race this month. Also, all of my workout runs except the very first one were done on a treadmill, and I would hate to have to call a treadmill run my best run of the month.
Worst Run: January 17, 4.06 miles, 11:40/mile pace
I felt terrible on this run, and I think the race – and the 9.12(!) miles I ran on January 16 – caught up to me. It happens. I recovered pretty well, though.
Overall, it was a pretty good start to 2017. I stayed healthy, and if nothing else, the slower training runs helped keep my legs from feeling beat up all the time, and that’s a good thing. Mountain Dew continues to be my weakness, but I’ve managed not to gain too much weight because of it.
For February, I’ve got the Charlotte 10 Miler. I may have trouble getting to 127.77 miles again, just because I’ll have 3 fewer days to do it, but I have managed to slowly increase my weekly mileage recently, so hopefully I can make up for it. I’m really curious to see how well my slower paced easy runs will work when I run my race. I’m not sure what (if any) affect they had on the Joe Davis 10K. I know I PRed, but I hadn’t been doing the slower easy runs for very long, so other than going into the race with rested legs (which I could have accomplished with a taper), I don’t think it affected my performance. The Charlotte 10 Miler will be after a month and a half of the new strategy, so I’m really curious to see how it goes. Of course, I had quite possibly the best race of my life at last year’s Charlotte 10 Miler, so it’ll be a tough act to follow. We’ll see.