So Long July.

A great month to be sure. I finished it off with a solid week. Monday I did a 4.5 mile run. Tuesday 51 minute strength workout. Wednesday I did run-swim at lunch: 4 mile run and ~10 minutes of swimming and then biked home - over 9 miles - 42 minutes of biking. Thursday I biked back into work. Friday I did a 5 mile run. Still hot! Saturday off. Sunday I did a 1 hour 7 minutes strength workout. The totals were nice and balanced: 1 hour 59 minutes running, 1 hour 35 minutes bike/swimming and 1 hour 58 minutes of strength training.

Tomorrow I tentatively start my marathon training. I'm still only 60-70% committed to actually doing a philly and the humid weather is going to make it tough to do the workouts - but I'll give it a shot.

More Swelter.

I ended up skipping yet another race - the NB track mile on Tuesday night - because my side hurt from Monday's swim. I was unsure why it that day - it felt like an internal organ was rupturing whenever I stood up. But then I reasoned that it must be muscular since a ruptured organ would probably hurt when I sat back down. Anyway - I felt fine again come Wednesday morning - although a little bummed I missed another race.

Wednesday I did another run/swim. The water was absolutely perfect that day and it felt great. The only downside is I hit my first jelly of the season. It was a large one and it stung bad. Fortunately I was 5 1/2 laps into the six lap swim - so I just headed in. Nevertheless, it has me thinking about paying for the pool again.

Thursday I managed a 30 minute strength workout at night and Friday I did a brutal simmering 4.5 miler. I left early (10 am) wanting to beat the heat - but I was cooked after about 25 minutes. Never fun to run on the hottest day of the year - but somehow I always manage. It's all cooler from here on in though!

Summer Swimming

I haven't done a swim workout about 6 months. That changed today when I did the ol'run-swim down at the Shenny beach area with Bruce from work (thanks Bruce!). The normally placid water was unusually choppy due to high winds - so I sucked down a good bit of ocean. I also had my heel nipped by a crab. But overall it felt great to get back in. We did 6x165/170ish. I'm calling it about 1000 overall and 25 minutes. It was about 4 minutes per length, but the last few I started to slow. I'm not in good swim shape at all. Makes me a little scared to think about my first bike of the season. I'll probably be a disaster.

Summer Simmers in SE CT

Finally back from the longest vacation of my life (a whole 2 weeks). I'm back in the workout groove. I did M/Wnd/Fri runs of 4/5/4 miles. Nothing too fast. The 5 miler was actually remarkably slow - but in a good way. I managed a solid strength session Tuesday and should do another tomorrow and managed a fair bit of yoga.

A few great *free* races coming up (thanks Snerro dudes!). The first is next Tuesday - weather permitting - the Nick Bottone track mile at Westerly High. Can I break 6 minutes at 39 years of age? The next great *free* race is the John Kelly Ocean Beach 11.6 miler. I can't find a link, but it's on the schedule. Show up to Ocean Beach on Sunday August 6th at about 8:30 to register and you are good to go.

Other than that I'm enjoying great summer time fun including swimming with the girls, playing an actual real game of frisbee with my daughter (now 7) and watching the comments of the Podium Cafe's internet blog of the Tour de France because I'm too cheap to buy the Versus live feed - and the fact that the comments are pretty interesting and entertaining.

Back from Hawaii

I finally made it back from my trip to AZ/Hawaii over the last 2 weeks. Not much running to speak off: 2 runs in AZ (<3 miles each) and only 1 run on the NCL cruise boat - just over 3 miles. But, in all honesty, it wasn't about running - more about family, food and relaxation. Hawaii was spectacular. It reminded me that vacationing is really of state of mind - and I'll strive to bring that home and keep it with me (as I sit on my butt and blog).

Made it out today for ~4 miles in excruciatingly swampy conditions - it actually felt worse than Arizona running. I also managed 18 minutes of much needed yoga. The focus over the next 2 weeks needs to be on strength and flexibility.