Monthly totals:

Miles run: 239 miles (8.9 fewer miles than August)

Days run: 30 out of 30 (it’s a run streak!  Currently at 78 days)

Calories burned during run: 31,200 kcal (that’s 8.9 lb if 3500 kcal = 1 lb)

Run time: 46 hr 12 min (92 min per day average)

Monthly averages and superlatives:

Average speed per mile: 11:35 per mile (34 sec per mile faster than August)

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

Average heart rate during run: 139 beats per minute (same as August)

Longest run: September 18 – 16 miles

Shortest run: September 1 and 28 – 6.2 miles. 

Fastest run: September 29 – 9:47/mile, 8.2 miles (Tempo run, and yes, I actually did an 8 mile run under 10:00/mile, I know it is hard to believe)

Slowest run (not counting hill runs): September 19, 12:42/mile, 6.6 miles.

Fastest mile: September 29 – Miles 4 and 7 at 9:17.

Fastest strides: September 29 – strides: 166 per min

Slowest strides (not counting hill runs):  September 19 – 154 per minute.

Total ascent:11,583 ft. (up 1,348 ft. from August)

Non-run monthly stats:

Total distance (running + walking): 275.5 miles (down 14.1 miles from August)

Average distance per day: 9.2 miles (down 0.1 miles from August)

Total steps: 510,450 steps

Average steps per day: 17,015 (down 633 from August) 

Average resting heart rate: 58 bpm (down 3 bpm from August)

Lowest resting heart rate: September 8 – 52 bpm (down 2 bpm from lowest in August, why is it so low some days? I don’t know)

Highest resting heart rate:  September 29 – 64 bpm (down 4 bpm from the highest in August.  This seems pretty low for “highest resting”, especially with lots of speedwork and hill repeats this month.  Maybe having enough oxygen in my blood helps?  Maybe just in better shape now?)

September monthly thoughts:

1.)  My mileage is looking pretty good.  Fewer miles than in August, but I’m strategically alternating longer long runs one week and shorter long runs another week, in order to work on both speed and slowly increasing distance, and  incorporate more hills.

It’s probably not a good idea to work on all these things at the same time, but so far I am staying injury free and healthy.

2.)  It looks like this was another 10K every day month for me.  This wasn’t intentional, I just like the way my body feels after I run 10K, and I like to run every day.  It is currently very easy to get this distance in.

3.) My speed is coming around… the goal is not to be “fast”.  The goal is to regain some of the speed I’ve lost over the last few years battling health problems and to maybe set some new “fast for me” PRs.  So a 9:47/mile tempo run?  That is fantastic.

I ran 34 sec faster per mile than in August, with the same average heart rate.  Part of that is temperatures cooling down, part of that is continuing to produce more red blood cells and increasing my oxygen carrying capacity.  Maybe part is becoming more cardiovascularly fit?  I will take it. Also, reduced thyroid hormone on August 11th. Does this also affect my heart rate on runs? Probably.

Hopefully I am at a good dose for me. So far I haven’t noticed an increase in fatigue or brain fog, and I’m able to engage my brain in ways it has been difficult to for years due to hypothyroidism and anemia. So I’m hopeful that we have thyroid hormone levels figured out finally. (It helps also having enough oxygen getting to my brain now – anemia is not fun.)

4.)  I attempted to trick myself into doing some strength training this month.  How’d that go?

I was very good at doing shoulder exercises (for my frozen shoulder) and leg band exercises almost every day.  (I skipped some days around the 16 mile long run).  These are all exercises I was pretty good at doing a few times a week before September started, so no surprise there.

I did a decent job of all the rest – I enjoy deadlifts, calf raises, yoga, stretching, and balancing, and maybe did this 50% of the days in September.  I tolerated ab exercises (it has been since before fibroid diagnosis so November 2019 since I’ve done any ab work).

I still really hate with a burning passion: squats and lunges. 

It’s so “interesting” that I have no problem finding 90 minutes (or more) everyday to run, but trying to get myself to spend 5 minutes stretching is a complete road block.  I prioritize what I like to do, and I like running.  I apparently do not like strength training, but I am working on it.

I have noticed that by the end of this month, my stomach was noticeably much flatter.  Is it from lifting more weight/body weight exercises this month?  Or is it from the fact that now that I am not on Lupron Depot, my estrogen levels are coming back up, and if low estrogen causes me to store more fat in my abdomen, higher estrogen is rerouted fat storage back to hips and thighs, but hopefully fat is being burned and muscle added?  It could be either of those things.  I’m also running up hills a lot and running faster, both good for burning calories.  (Ab exercises do not specifically target fat on the stomach, but it is hard not to say “look, I finally did some sit-ups and my stomach is flatter.”)

Moving forward, I know I need to do strength training.  Rather than trying to do these every day, I will try to do same exercises a few times a week.  (The shoulder I really need to do every day, since I don’t want to lost any more range of motion, and I feel like the band exercises I have added are in fact strengthening my left shoulder.)

I’m not really that surprised or disappointed I was not 100% on this.  It’s not running or cardio.  (But good for me to incorporate more strength training! It is a work in progress.)

5.)  I’m not actually sure what the “rules” are for my virtual marathon in late October, so I am playing it fast and loose with being prepared to run a marathon by then “just in case”.  The plan is to still count the one I ran in April, but I’m not sure if they are reporting actual times or what, so I am now “half-prepared” to run another full marathon if needs be.  (I did an 18 mile run very early October, and I’m now realizing it is going to hurt a whole lot if I attempt to run 8 more miles than that in late October, but we shall see.)

Luckily for me, I LOVE RUNNING BY MYSELF.  I sign up for small marathons with the idea that I should be more social with my running, not that that is something I need or want to do.  I went from 2014 – May 2019 with no races, and somehow still managed to run a few to several times a week with no races on the schedule.

Races were never the reason I started running, never the reason I continue to run, so I feel lucky that I’ve had no loss of motivation with the race calendar being wiped clean.

6.)  Weight –it is not coming back down from January stress and Lupron Depot (February – July) weight gain.  I’m still not sure how much of the gain is fat, since my clothes fit fine, my stomach appears flatter, and my arms are looking more toned at the end of September.  If I had to guess, I’d say some extra water weight still (muscle inflammation/hormones), some muscle gain, some fat gain.

The goal is still to get it back to around 151 pounds, but another goal is to focus on the running and worry less about how fast I can get that weight off.  So that’s where I am now.

7.)  50 mile per week average goal for 2020

As of September, 2020, my weekly average was: 49.81 miles, total of 1,949.85 miles.

That is tantalizingly close to 50 miles per week… just a few more 56-58 miles weeks to put me over (on average).  It is a lot of consistent weeks of moderate mileage to hit these numbers, but right now I feel like I can sustain this high mileage for a while longer.

To meet that goal (if I decide to keep up with high mileage), I will need to run 664.44 miles in 92 days, or 50.56 miles a week or about 7.2 miles a day. 

8.) 100K feet ascent in 2020 goal

As of September 30, 2020, I am at 80,613 ft. 

That means 19,387 ft. in 3 months.  I’m on track to hit this and then some.

I don’t think I can stress strongly enough how wonderful it is to have enough oxygen pumping to my muscles to run up hills in ways I’d never imagine I could, when I was having chest pains in February 2020 after walking up a steep hill on a run, at the height of my anemia/fibroid issues.  (I stopped at the top of this hill, let my body calm down, and then slowly jogged back home all downhill, but chest pains going up a hill, even if caused by anemia, is  NOT GOOD for you, and this was the scariest moment of my running career, so far.)

I never imagined that one day, not only would I be able to tolerate running up hills, but now I would look forward to hill repeat day or make most of my easy runs be hilly runs.  But here we are.

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). 

Current weight:  160.2 lb  (that’s 0.3 lb. lower than end of August) 

Weight January 1, 2020: 151.0 lb

Weight change since Jan 1, 2020: + 9.2 lb

Previous month: August 2020

Next month: October 2020