A summer to relax (in some ways)

Just wrapped up August with a PR in the quarter marathon.  I had been trying to break 1 hour as my "ambitious" goal and beat my time from 4 years ago as a "doable" go.  I was able to get both of these goals which surprised me.  It had been hot that day as well as humid.  I pushed myself pretty hard, found out I was in zone 5 heart rate about 44% of the race!  But the more I looked into that, I feel it was because I ran about a 9 minute pace for 6.5 miles in hot and humid weather.  This has given me some hope that I can continue to improve.

I'm going to start doing some more trail running in September.  I have a race coming up that is partly on trails and partly road.  But most of it is pretty hilly terrain (it is a 20k).

Then in October, I'm going to try to run a fast half marathon again.  Not sure how I will do, but I'm hoping better than I have in the past.  November, I will get to do a race I've wanted to do for a while (half marathon close to where I grew up).  I'm also doing a Thanksgiving race later in the month, and a few other random 5ks scattered throughout the fall.  I'm trying to take it easier right now as I anticipate something a bit longer for 2019.  Will get into that at a later time, depending on what I decide.

The summer has been pretty good.  I tried to get 100 miles each month.  I did fail in July because we went on vacation and ended up walking 60+ miles that week at Disney.  So I really wasn't feeling running every morning of that week in addition to the walking.  So I got 80 miles for July.  August should close out at 100 and June was 100.  I did a family race and a 5k in June, another 5k in July, and one that got rained out in August (I did complete 2.5 miles of it though).  I also ran a mile race in early August (placed 1st in my age group, but there were only a few of us).  I was proud of my new mile record of 8:10.8.  I say 8:10.8 because my previous record was actually 8:11 so that extra two-tenths matters.  I'd really like to get a sub 8 mile time but might need to wait for cooler weather to try for this.

I've also been running a lot slower for long runs to work on keeping my heart rate in optimal zones more often.  That's about it for now.  It's been a nice break with few goals.