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Monthly Summary – August 2014

This wasn’t the month of training I expected. Or the month I wanted. But it was the one I got and I made the best of it.

I first noticed that my achilles was bothering me right around the first day of August and – of course – hoped it wasn’t anything to worry about. Thirty-one days later, I’m still being cautiously optimistic. I only ran twice this month: first, pacing Billy during his amazing kick-ass performance at AC 100 at the beginning of the month and then mid-month during our stay in Paris. My achilles barely bothered me during either run, but after each run it was really inflamed and tight. After the run in Paris, I decided I wouldn’t run on it until I was more certain it was actually better. I’d much prefer taking a relatively little bit of time off now instead of seriously messing something up and being forced to take a lot of time off later.

In some ways, the break from running has been refreshing. This has been my first extended time off from running in a long while. Since at least the beginning of 2013, I’ve either been training hard for a race, racing or recovering from a race and even then I don’t think I’d taken more than a couple weeks of recovery at a time. That’s a lot for me and I know I needed a break. I would have much rather taken that break on my terms, but if I’d left it like that who knows when I would have actually done it!

I still worked out this month, but did not make it the priority it is when I’m training for races. During our time in France, I went on a few good hikes on the GR-6 around Sainte Rémy (an 1100 km walking trail connection Bordeaux and Provence, but which is not particularly straightforward to find or follow). The views were well worth it and I rarely saw anyone else out there during my hikes.

Since we’ve been home, I’ve gone to the gym nearly every day to get on the elliptical and/or do strength work. I’ve also made it to a couple yoga classes. That’s all good but the biggest problem has been that I miss being outside. So, in the last week or so, I started going back to the pool and even got on my bike yesterday for the first time in close to a year.

My ride was a really easy urban ride to Brentwood to visit with some friends and, after hanging out there for a while, I turned around and went home. If riding wasn’t so stressful and dangerous near where I live, I’m sure I’d spend more time on the bike during this time that I’m not running (and probably even when I am running).

As I mentioned in my last post, I dropped out of Wasatch. That felt like a tough decision at the time but it was the definitely the right one. There’s no way I could run 100 mountain miles next weekend. And making the decision when I did took some of the stress away from not being able to run. There will be plenty of other races!

Even though it wasn’t an ideal month of training, it was a busy month with some big highlights.

• Pacing and crewing Billy at AC and being around the race to see so many friends have awesome, inspiring races.

• Doing another podcast with Rich Roll. I did a podcast with him last year after we both crewed at Badwater. Rich now has over 100 podcasts with amazing superstars in health, fitness, nutrition and wellness. I was honored to have the opportunity to speak with him again; this time about my race at Badwater. The podcast should be dropping soon and of course, I’ll let everyone know.

• Our trip to Provence and Paris. It was a great trip with lots of relaxing, great food, sightseeing and just plain-old down-time. Provence was really nice and walking around some small towns was interesting and I really enjoyed the hikes I did on the GR6, but I absolutely loved Paris. We only spent two days there and I could have easily been there much longer. We saw a couple of the “top-10” sights (the Musee d’Orsay and Sainte-Chapelle), but mostly we just walked around and checked out the city.

Cruising around Paris on Velib bikes was another highlight. I loved the ease and fun of riding those shared bikes all over!

• I’m working on teaching Gus to fetch. Charlie did it naturally from birth. Gus barely even registers that I’ve thrown something. It’s been slow going but I think I’ve gotten him to at least notice the toy in my hand.

I have no idea what September will bring. My achilles will hopefully get better and I’ll be able to mix in some running with my cross-training. Or maybe it will take longer to heal. #patience

Here’s August:

Swim: 2,200 meters
Cycling (outdoors): 17.6 miles
Run: 11.0 miles
Total Run Elevation Gain: 1,332 feet
Strength Training/Yoga: 12 sessions

Approximate monthly total training time: 28.25 hours

Weight: 159