Health & Fitness in August

I'm one month into marathon training.  It's going well.  It started off rough though.  Really rough.  But after a month, I'm good.  Well...as good as I could have hoped at this point! Surprisingly, I stuck with my schedule of running (sometimes in more of a walk/run pattern) four days a week.  It was great in the beginning.  I felt like it really helped me to get back into the swing of things.  However, as the month progressed and my body got used to running those short(er) runs during the week, it started to feel a little repetitive to run back-to-back on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Given that and a number of other reasons, I decided to make a switch for September.  I am going to cut back to three runs per week.  As the mileage increases both during the week and on the weekend long run, I want to ensure I give myself a proper amount of time to recover between runs.  We'll also be gone for a portion of the month and I know it won't be realistic to keep up with all the runs then so I am attempting to keep things somewhat attainable.

My only other update to the schedule is the addition of a half marathon the second weekend in October.  Originally, that was scheduled to be my final long run (20 miles), but after further reflection I think a timed race at that point will be more beneficial for me.  Mostly, I feel it will give me a realistic idea on my pace for the marathon itself.  Either way, I am looking forward to the challenge/test!

Andrea :)