August in Review: Big Biking Month!

August was a good month of training!!

What stands out is the big, consistent weeks of biking. The 5 weeks of August had weeks of 68, 90, 77, 78, and 93 miles. NICE! That led to another huge month in the saddle! July of 2023 was my post-Ironman PR with 323 biking miles. I came came close to that in May with 310 miles, I broke that in July with 370 miles, and then I broke that again in August with 400 miles!! So 3 out of the last 4 months have been 3 of my 4 biggest months in the last 15+ years! (Part of that is due to ACTUALLY getting outside as opposed to having just indoor trainer time counting as 0 miles.)

That being said, I had a lot of mountain biking on the 19th-21st that padded my totals, and 69 (nice) of my total 400 miles were commuting: biking to the pool, to meetings, to the State Fair, etc. So taking out that mountain biking and commuting miles, I have around 304 actual "training" miles. But I think I gain a LITTLE something from these extra miles!

AUGUST 2024 TOTALS:
• SWIM: 11,693 yards
• BIKE: 400.70 miles
• RUN: 107.65 miles
• STRENGTH: 53 hrs and 9 mins
• "SPORTS:" 1 hour and 10 mins (the purple on the calendar: a soccer game and some kayaking)

SWIMMING was OK. Nothing special. Actually a little weak compared to the last 12 months.

BIKING was amazing! I knew at the start of last week that I was already over 400 miles, but I SWEAR I didn't know exactly where I was at before my Saturday ride - I wasn't simply trying to break 400 miles, but I'm happy I (just barely) did once I looked back at the numbers! (It's also so big because my actual bike training days are Thurs and Sat, and Aug started on Thurs with a nice ride and ended on a Saturday with an even better ride. So had there been the same 31 days but just shifted a day earlier or later, I'd be 31 miles or 39 miles shy of 400 miles. So the "layout" of the month helped it to be a big biking month for me.)

RUNNING was great. I've been doing Coach Jen's old TC 10 Mile workouts from 2010 since August 9th, and that's made me push the miles (as I noted in my bigger week in Tuesday's post). My long runs (on Mondays) haven't been huge, but my Wednesday runs have been a bit bigger, and my Friday runs have been quite a bit longer. My monthly running total of 107+ miles was only out-done by this past January with 109 miles. I have to go back to January of 2016 (which was 116 miles) to find anything anything above 107 and 109 miles.

And STRENGTH time was the 2nd most ever, just behind May's 54 hrs and 3 mins (the boys were in school but I was done).

But notice on the 19th and the 28th, I have "injury" notes - I had some calf/achilles pain sneak in after doing lots of Jen's hard workouts. I'm trying to work hard but keep my body functional!!

And I hit all my Garmin goals, including the ones I don't always hit like the "time to ride," "time to swim," and the "tour" that takes lots of bike miles (and the "ride to 200" which is hitting 125 miles over 2 weeks):

Also, notice the final 3 "stage 3" badges: those are badges for distances for 3 months (July, Aug, and Sept) that I all completed by the end of August. The walking one I finished in July (walking over 91 miles in July alone), and the biking one I finished just a few days into August. It actually took me the longest to get the running one!