August Summer Body Experiment Check-In!

In June, after being laid off, I decided to dedicate this summer to my health, both physical and mental.

My goals for July were:

stick to 90 percent of my planned workouts. Crap. I can say I stuck with pretty close to 90 percent of my runs and most of my cross-training.

(from DailyMile)

In fact, I ran 85 miles this month! Had I not blown off my runs while at the beach Fourth of July weekend, I’d probably be pretty damn close to 100 miles. Last week alone, I ran 26.6 miles! As you can see from the chart above, the last time I ran 85 miles (exactly, apparently) was September, the month before my marathon. I’m definitely running more mileage this time around (or maybe just logging it more?), but my body seems to generally be okay with this so far. And if it’s not, I will sure as hell let Marc know.

do yoga at least once a week formally, and do at least a few poses at home everyday. Oops. Nope. And my creaky legs are evidence of this. Recommitting to this for August.

chill the eff out. (Please see: most of my stomach problems related to my level of anxiety.) I’d actually say I did a pretty good job of this. Yes, I’ve done some freaking out over not having a job, but I’m looking for/doing some freelance work and interviewing my ass off, so hopefully something will come through soon.

Take vitamins. Um, well. My stomach has largely calmed down, so I’ve been a bit nervous to mess with a good thing, and vitamins can definitely irritate my stomach.

Try more recipes. I’m not working and I’m not going away any other weekend in July, so I don’t really have any excuses. Um. No. I haven’t really tried anything new, but I have definitely been cooking/preparing food for myself more, which is also fine with me. Although, I did retry protein pancakes, and it turned out well.

August Goals

I like Beth’s idea of keeping it focused on just a few attainable ones, so here goes.

1. Stick to my marathon training schedule as closely as possible. Run an awesome half marathon in Portland–whether that means racing it or doing it as a long run is something I’m not sure of yet. I may wait until after the marathon to focus on speed and beating my sub-2:00 goal.

2. Don’t slack on strength. Do it twice a week and yoga once a week. Whether this means taking a class or attempting to face my weight room fears, JUST DO IT, THEODORA.

3. Begin tracking food again. I requested a FitBit for review, so once it comes, I plan on tracking food (and blogging it again, too) for the rest of the month so I can really get a good idea of calories in and out during marathon training. I think this will lead to being more

4. Get on a more regular eating schedule. The completely irregular schedule I’m on right now (every day has been a little different) and my sensitive stomach have led to waiting until I get way too hungry to eat because I don’t want to eat before an interview and then not feel well in the middle of an interview. I really need to keep doing a bunch of small meals–my stomach is really so much happier this way.

5. YOGA. (See above.)

6. More water. I was actually a lot better at drinking water when I was at work–it was a welcome diversion to get up and fill my water bottle every few hours.

What are your August health goals and how have you been doing on your summer goals?