October in Review

I'm quite happy with how October looked in my training log:

• SWIM: 11,050 yards
• BIKE: 4.00 miles (to go cheer on Mama at the TC Marathon)
• TRAINER TIME: 10 hrs 53 mins
• RUN: 99.80 miles
• STRENGTH: 39 hrs 24 mins

The only "rest" days up there are before and after the TC 10 Mile on the 2nd, and before the Minneapolis Halloween Half Marathon on the 29th. I skipped my run on the 3rd as it was the day after the 10 Mile, and I moved my run on the the 24th up a day - we unfortunately had family funerals on the 3rd and 24th as well.

Swimming was solid - I did an extra swim post-race on Monday (the 31st), but otherwise had a swim workout each week. That put me over 11,000 yards for the first time since January of 2020. (But don't be too excited about that: I've only swam a few months at the end of 2021 and now at the end of 2022, so it's not that amazing of a stat.)

Only July had fewer trainer minutes all year, but that's because I've been swimming more (which eats up a trainer workout each week). And July was shorter for trainer rides because that was my biggest month of ACTUAL outdoor bike riding. I'm not bummed about this at all - it's being balanced with swimming!

Running was great: I NEARLY cracked 100 miles for the 3rd time all year (my 5th highest since 2019 I believe). And that's even better noting that there were two big races in October as well: the TC 10 Mile and the Minneapolis Halloween Half. And I even felt good enough to get in a quick speed workout between those 2 races.

And strength work was great as well. I noted that in September (the month before this), I had my 3rd biggest strength month. Well October was 4 minutes longer. I think my 5 biggest months of strength time have all come in 2022.

(SIDENOTE: it's not that I'm getting super jacked this year. That happened over 2020 where I starting doing more upper body lifts and put on some muscle. It's not that I've LOST much muscle, but it's just that my time doing strength work has went away from long UPPER body days and went to longer CORE and LEG days. [Maybe that's why I'm running so injury-free lately...] On days I do upper body, I have a limited amount of time, so they aren't as long as they have been over the last few years. But it's easy for me to do another 20 mins of core later in the day after doing a decent core workout already that day. So core and legs end up being "easier" LONG days.)