In Review: July

I knew June was going to be a hard month to beat, but July came darn close!

I am relieved to say that I continue to feel better, and if nothing else this set back has proved to me how important exercise is to my emotional well-being. I am so glad that I made the decision to do something instead of staying in the slump I was in.

July was a great month for running. I ran 68.34 miles, which surpassed my goal of 60 after a 41 mile month in June. I bumped up my long runs to 6 miles, and, although I'd like to be going further and faster, continually feel like I am slowly making progress towards getting back to where I was a year ago. I was actually surprised to find that 68.34 miles was my highest mileage month since June 2014, when I ran Grandma's Marathon! That shocked me, since last July and August were good months for me! Show how much I was cross-training, I guess!

With our summer travel plans, I even got to take some runs on the road:

Speaking of cross-training, in addition to my runs, I went to the Y for a total of 17 group fitness classes. These included TRX, kettle bells, cycling, kickboxing, and cycle box. I got to spend one hour kayaking while camping, and took a 4 mile hike to get some cross-training in, too!

Overall, I logged some form of exercise on 24 of 31 days this month; some days (mostly after the end of summer school) even included double workouts.

I am still not seeing the results I would like to see on the scale after gaining weight this winter/spring. This is frustrating for me when everything else seems to be going so well. August 1 compared to July 1 was actually one pound higher!??! I've tried to limit how many times I weigh myself per week, but this last week, I monitored it each day to try to look for patterns. I am a yo-yo when it comes to weight! I'll just keep trucking - the real key will be when I go back to work at the end of August (how is that coming up so soon?!!?) and get to try on the dress pants that were getting snug at the end of the school year.

7/1: 192.8, 7/6: 194.4, 7/13: 193.4, 7/17: 192.8, 7/20: 192.8, 7/21: 191.8, 7/27: 195.2, 7/28: 192.8, 7/29: 193.8, 7/30: 192.8, 7/31: 192.8, 8/1: 193.8

Some other (non-running) highlights of the month were:

my Grandma's 90th birthday

camping

getting some reading in

spending some extra time with her

 

 

See you in August!