Monthly totals:

Miles run: 247.9 miles (69.3 more miles than July)

Days run: 31 out of 31 (new run streak!  I’m already up to 48 days)

Calories burned during run: 32,600 kcal (that’s 9.3 lb if 3500 kcal = 1 lb)

Run time: 50 hr 17 min (97 min per day average)

Monthly averages and superlatives:

Average speed per mile: 12:09 per mile (9 sec per mile faster than July)

Average stride rate: 158 steps per minute (same as July)

Average heart rate during run: 139 beats per minute (3 bpm slower than July)

Longest run: August 15 and 21 – 13.1 miles.

Shortest run: August 4, 6, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16, 23, 25, 27, 28, and 31 – 7 miles. 

Fastest run: August 24 – 10:21/mile, 6.2 miles (Tempo part of a 8 mile run)

Slowest run (not counting hill runs): August 15, 13:16/mile.

Fastest mile: August 31 – Mile 7 at 9:19.

Fastest strides: August 24 – strides: 164 per min

Slowest strides (not counting hill runs):  August 15 – 152 per minute.

Total ascent: 10,235 ft. (up 3,318 ft. from July)

Non-run monthly stats:

Total distance (running + walking): 289.6 miles (up 48.1 miles from July)

Average distance per day: 9.3 miles (up 1.5 from July)

Total steps: 547,090 steps

Average steps per day: 17,648 (up 2,335 from July) 

Average resting heart rate: 61 bpm (up 1 bpm from July)

Lowest resting heart rate: Aug 27 and 31 – 54 bpm (up 3 bpm from lowest in July, why is it so low some days? I don’t know)

Highest resting heart rate:  August 17 – 68 bpm (up 1 bpm from the highest in July, why?  I ended up sitting in a hot car for 1.5 hours waiting for someone to have an eye doctor appointment on this day, so I guess my heart did not enjoy that)

August monthly thoughts:

1.)  Mileage is back up this month.  I had a goal of running at least 7 miles every day in August, and I accomplished that goal.    

Anywhere from 50-60 miles a week is a good amount for my body (good meaning my body likes that amount of mileage.  Less and I don’t feel good, more than about 65 and I start to feel achy and run down).

2.)  I’ve started working on improving my speed again.  It will probably start to come up on its own with cooler weather in the next couple of months, but this month I did two tempo runs, so that is a start.

I also did a hill repeat workout at the end of August, and I am back to loving the hills.  It has taken some time since surgery in July to recover fitness and feel like this type of thing is not overworking my heart.

3.)  My October marathon has been cancelled.  I’ve decided to run it “virtually”, but instead of actually training for a marathon, I’m just going to count my April virtual marathon which was on the day this October one was supposed to be on before being postponed (and now cancelled).

No marathon  in the near future has made me question whether I really need to be doing 16-18 mile long runs this autumn for no “good” reason.  Right now, my plan is to switch to a short long run (10 miles) one week, and a longer long run (13.1 miles for now, maybe more when cooler outside) the next week.  On the shorter week, I can focus more on speed workouts. 

I have been known to do 16 mile runs in the winter when I had no plans to run any marathon (like in 2018, after I lost weight and before I was diagnosed with a thyroid problem), so I can’t imagine I won’t do any runs over 13.1 miles in the next few months.

4.)  A really long time ago (in January 2020) I wrote my running goals and one of them was to run a half marathon PR.  Which, I’m going to say is faster than 2 hr 6 min and  26 sec because I have no evidence there is a faster one, although my split times from my first marathon probably have that one slightly faster (above 2 hr, but faster than 2 hr 6 min), but I can’t find the splits, so I will go with 2:6:26.

My hope from 2020 states “Run a half marathon faster than 2:08:00, because that’s what I remembered it to be, but I looked it up and I was incorrect.  (I don’t spend that much time obsessing about my PRs.)

I’ve already set a 5K (28:06) and 10K (56:49) PR this year, because having enough red blood cells in my blood apparently makes running faster easier than my previous strategy of losing lots of blood and being anemic.

So, I plan on working on my half marathon speed.  I don’t actually know if I can set a new PR this year, I wasn’t planning on spending months on an estrogen suppressing drug, waiting for surgery, and in general worrying about the state of the world in a multitude of ways I had not thought about back in January. 

5.)  Also, revisiting my goals for 2020 also said “stop worrying about my weight”.  My weight continues to do weird and unexpected things this year.  Part of that is stress.  Part is from estrogen suppressing medication that made me swollen.  Now that I’m off the medication and my weight is still up, I’m trying to not be hard on myself.

I counted calories for about 5-7 days this month.  I’m confident I’m not overeating, and I’ve decided to focus on running and not worry what the scale says for a while longer.

Why do I weigh myself everyday if I’m not going to worry about my weight?  After gaining without realizing it when my thyroid was failing, I just like to keep track.  It helps me gauge if my thyroid medication is working correctly, and I like graphs and data.

6.) The Lupron Depot induced hot flashes have thankfully stopped.  My doctor suggested what I was experiencing in early August might just be because I’m getting older and starting to enter perimenopause, I thought the more likely explanation was that this medication that causes hot flashes was still slowly working its way out of my system, once it was gone and my hormones came back, the hot flashes would stop. One of us was right, and the hot flashes stopped at the same time my hormones returned to their normal cycling.

7.)  50 mile per week average goal for 2020

As of August 31, 2020, my weekly average was: 49.08 miles, total of 1,710.85 miles.

To meet that goal (if I decide to keep up with high mileage), I will need to run 903.44 miles in 122 days, or 51.83 miles a week or about 7.4 miles a day. 

I’m behind, but with two weeks off for two surgeries, and decreased mileage from recovering from surgery, general 2020 stess, etc., I’m not doing that bad.

8.) 100K feet ascent in 2020 goal

As of August 31, 2020, I am at 69,030 ft. 

That means 30,970ft. in 4 months.  This is much more doable than 50 miles per week goal.

Current thyroid medication: 137.5 mcg levothyroxine (T4) daily, 10 mcg liothyronine (T3) split up into 5 mcg twice a day (started August 11, 2020). 

This is a drop in thyroid hormone of 12.5 mcg T4 a day, starting in the middle of this month. I’m still experiencing extreme afternoon fatigue, but since I’m now no longer losing a large quantity of blood every month, I think dropping the dosage so my free T4 is not as high is a good idea.  I’m hoping that as I continue to build more RBCs, some of that fatigue will go away. Anemia and hypothyroidism can both cause fatigue, and I’m now aware that a large part of my fatigue in the past couple years may have been exacerbated by undiagnosed anemia. I wish my doctors tested me for anemia in 2018 after repeatedly telling them that I was losing lots of blood (a hypothyroidism symptom, which reached new levels of loss after thyroid surgery and then much higher loss which was caused by a fibroid), but now I know and am working to not be anemic.

Current weight:  160.5 lb  (that’s 2 lb. higher than end of July) 

Weight January 1, 2020: 151.0 lb

Weight change since Jan 1, 2020: + 9.5 lb

Previous month: July 2020

Next month: September 2020