Monthly Summary – April 2015
It took me about nine months, but I’m finally starting to feel like “myself” again. Thank goodness for that. Nine months was a long time.
I’m not sure if it was the time “off” or the focus on swimming or the recent (last 2-ish months) of consistent strength training that I’ve been doing or some combination of those and other things, but during April, I finally felt like something of an endurance athlete again and didn’t spend much time even thinking about what’s “stopping” me. I did the most – and most consistent – running I’ve done since last summer. And since I’ve begun to feel more confident about my running, I started going on some group runs again. That confidence, plus getting back into the social swing of things has provided a huge boost to my overall well-being.
For the last few months, I’ve been looking at the below six goals each month and then evaluating how I’ve done. The red is my evaluation of how I feel I did in April:
- Eat better. A second good month in a row. Again, pretty much 100%. I allowed myself a few sweets, but just a little (well, except for those days when we were in San Diego and my mom had her homemade cookies out, but that’s excused!).
- Focus on getting better sleep. For the most part, I slept well. I’ve been conscious about getting to bed early and getting up early. The really early mornings are still pretty painful, but things like going out to meet the Coyotes or a friend for an early run have helped with motivation to get to bed at a reasonable hour and to get out of bed and moving early.
- Continue swimming, yoga and strength training on a regular basis. Once again, a “biggest month ever” for swimming. I didn’t do as many really long swims as I did in March, but I was really consistent. I swam 20 times for a total of nearly 55,000 meters. This month I also started swimming more long course than short course. For a while, even though I was swimming well, I was nervous in the big pool. But as my endurance and comfort in the water has increased, so has my confidence and now I’m doing some meter sets that I only used to do in the yards pool. In May, I’d like to do another 1,000 yard time trial (in March I swam 14:44) and also a 75 x 100 yard (or meter?) swim. I didn’t do any yoga (again), but I was super consistent about strength training; doing 2-3 workouts per week. I’ve added sets and some more difficult exercises.
- Run easy. Maybe hit the trails for some easy training. A solid and fun month of running. Finally. I’ve been running about three times per week, including getting on the trails for a slightly longer (8-10 miles) run each week. I had a mini-breakthrough run on Westridge last week. I didn’t really intend to run it hard, but I started off feeling pretty good and decided to moderately push for as long as I could. I ended up coming pretty close to my Strava PR, which I don’t think is my actual PR, but anyway, it felt great. Last weekend, a group of us helped “pace” a Nike Run Club trail run that Sally and Blue were coaching at Griffith Park. There were about 125 runners, and it was a lot fun.
- Be positive. A consistent runner is a happy runner?
- Read at least one book, hopefully two. I read three books this month that I really really liked and would highly recommend. My favorite of the three, which is actually one of my favorite books I’ve read in a pretty long while was The Martian, by Andy Weir. It’s a fantastic story and really well written. It’s fun and stressful and fascinating and deserves all the hype it’s getting. I also read The Goldfinch, by Donna Tart and Saga, Volume 4, by Brian K. Vaughan. The Goldfinch is a great story and, not surprisingly, I totally fell for the “little boy lost” plot. It’s long and I liked the first 3/4 of it better than the end, but I never wanted to put it down. I read the first three volumes of Saga earlier this year and the story is still going strong. The characters are great and reading a graphic novel is a nice change from “normal” books. Connect with me on Goodreads!
The one goal I didn’t achieve this month was finishing up my #100FewerThings. This was the first month since I started where I ended up with a net positive number (“positive” here is bad). I didn’t get rid of anything and acquired a few things. As of my last update in March, I was at 87. This month I got one book (written by a friend: The Melon Capital of the World, by Blake Allmendinger), two shirts (from a Nike event), one sculpture and one old 8mm video camera from Elizabeth’s grandfather. So 87 – 5 = 82. I also pre-ordered Rich Roll’s new book, The Plantpower Way, but it hasn’t arrived yet, and I’m not counting it until it does! I’ve still got my eyes on some things that will be easy to get rid of. I just need to do it!
Here’s April by the numbers:
Swim: 54,875 meters
Cycling (outdoors): 0 miles
Run: 76.8 miles
Total Run Elevation Gain: 7,376 feet
Strength Training/Yoga: 9 sessions
Approximate monthly total training time: 36 hours
Weight: I’m guessing it hasn’t changed much, but I haven’t been on a scale