August resolutions

The sweat is still pouring down my face twenty minutes later and post-shower (the nice young lady who brewed me an iced tea at the air-conditioned cafe, after inquiring with perplexity as to why I was so red and so wet, said blithely, "I never sweated so much in my life!"), but it was good - one hour on the treadmill.

An arbitrary challenge which struck me as a very good idea around the 20-minute mark: this will be the month of run frequency! I will try for 30 runs in the month of August, I am allowed to count 10 mins. warmup before strength training as a run (but perhaps will try to do 20 minutes those days if it will be my only run). It's already August 4 and I've only done two runs so far, so I'm starting one down already, but I think it is a good idea nonetheless!

Two other good things: there is what was originally scheduled to be a 60-mile bike race on Sunday, which I was contemplating doing as a training ride (Brent seemed to think it was a tolerably sensible idea, which I find usually a good indicator - my own notions are not always so reliable!), but it has been downscaled to 40 miles and scheduled to start a bit earlier due to concerns about the heat and a desire to be inclusive and encourage as many as possible to participate. This is excellent - I know I will be up almost all night beforehand with nerves, I haven't ridden a bike for six weeks and it lets the anxiety mount back up again, but it will be a good start to training on the roads in coming months - I think we will probably ride rather than drive to the start, which will make it 60 miles total (10 there, 40 ride/race, 10 home).

The other good thing is that I think I have found a morning training partner to run with me quite slowly twice a week at 6:30 - this is very good, as I truly cannot get out the door in the mornings unless I have a PLAN. Things are definitely looking up....