Monthly Wrap-Up: August 2017

Well, that was a month. I survived.

August 2017
Total Mileage:
164.47 miles
Average Pace: 11:37/mile
Number of Runs: 22
Last Month (July 2017): 142.52 miles
Last Year (August 2016): 150.46 miles
Races: None

Total Mileage for 2017 (through August 31): 1,112.83 miles

Yes, I broke 1,000 miles for the year this month. I ran farther than last month and last August, so that’s good. I was a little slower this month, but I had to deal with some pretty heinous weather conditions.

I’ll say this about the weather, it feels like we got some breaks, but when it was bad, it was really bad. Last year, the worst days weren’t quite as bad, but there was something about it that seemed unrelenting. I think I prefer this year, with the occasional breaks.

This is the part where I say I’m going to check in on my goals, but really, it’s only the first goal that has any changes.

Goal 1: 1500 miles

Average miles per day is 1112.83 miles divided by 243 days, that’s about 4.58 miles per day, times 365 days for the year, comes out to over 1,671 miles for the year. Last month’s projection was 1,632 miles, so, uh, wow. I’m pretty sure the projection will go up again next month. (At some point I probably need to switch to a countdown instead of a projection.)

Goal 2: 6 races, with 2 that are 13.1 or greater
Goal 3: A PR in 3 different races

No races. At this point, I’m not sure if I’ll even have a warm-up race, so I may be scrambling for another race after New York City. Just to review, I’ve run 4 races so far, one that’s 13.1 miles, and have 2 races with PRs.

Run That Broke the Best/Worst Scale: August 15, 6.26 miles, 10:39/mile.

I wasn’t sure what to do with this run, but I felt like it needed to be mentioned. Best? Worst? Both? Neither? It kind of broke the scale.

It was my fastest average pace for a run all month. It featured my fastest mile since the Teal Diva 5K. But I also bonked and couldn’t finish. So, yeah, scale broken. But I had to mention it here, so that my Best Run makes more sense.

Best Run: August 16, 6.01 miles, 11:13/mile.

The day after a blow-up, this was the run that I needed. It wasn’t my fastest run (or my fastest non-blow-up run), but I was really happy with it.

I’ll give a shout-out to my most recent workout run, a fartlek on August 29, with an average pace of 10:44/mile (making it my actual fastest non-blow-up run). It may have been assisted by some slightly cooler temperatures, but it was still a tough workout, and I think I ran it well.

Worst Run: August 26, 15.01 miles, 11:50/mile.

The other run this month where I blew up. Except this time I didn’t have an insanely fast mile, just a couple of miles where I went a little faster than I should have. Also, I forgot my Body Glide. It was a learning experience. (I mean the pacing part, not the Body Glide part, I already knew about that, I’ve had chafing before.)

Next month, the miles are going to keep piling up, but the weather shouldn’t be quite as bad. Since September has 5 Saturdays, I’ve got an outside chance at setting a new record for mileage in one month. The old record is 181.3 miles in October 2016. We’ll see how it goes.