Going the extra mile in August

I just finished my running for August and I am pretty sure this has been the best training month meaning where I have done the most running, and setting a personal best!

This month I ran a total of 94 miles! That includes weekend runs of 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 (this morning) miles as well as averaging 11+ miles per week. It has certainly helped that I did not travel and I have definitely had mornings where I wish I could stay in bed. For example we met at 5:30 this morning which meant I had to get up at 5 am to get ready. I woke up at 4am so I was juuust starting to get drowsy when the alarm went off. But, I knew I had to get out there and I knew that the others would be out there waiting for me, and they were. The last two runs were along the Los Gatos Creek trail which takes me past some of our old haunts from when we lived over in Saratoga including multiple parks and lakes. We are starting about 20 minutes before dawn so we start in the dark along the trail. At the beginning we are generally together but the faster folks take off after a short time.

I've really tried to focus this month in order to set a good foundation for my 1/2 marathon in early October. I still have two longer runs to go, a 12 and 13 miler which I will do in September. The 13 miler will be basically the same length as the race so once I complete that there will be no doubt about whether I can finish the race. The main challenge will be to keep from going out at too fast of a running pace.

With two weeks to go before the race I'll taper, running less and less per week, until I run just two 3-4 mile runs the week of the race just to stay loose.