May 2017 Grade

bmaygrade17

The toll of three halfs in as many months began to make itself known in May. I am in awe of people who run marathons every month or a gazillion halfs a month. That’s not me.

Let’s get into it.

Getting in scheduled runs
Cold, rainy long runs. Sudden 90 degree heat. Windy. May wasn’t a run/walk in the park (see what I did there?). Every once in a while we caught a beautiful day to run, but they were few and far between.

I was able to run recovery runs the week following my half at the end of April (read about it here), but I had to skip one tempo run when my hamstring complained. Which was the right call.

Grade Earned: A-

Recording my runs
I’m doing pretty good journaling. Which is a good thing, as I needed that journal to see what I ran the last time I was forced to do a tempo run on my treadmill. But there were definitely a few times where it took a few days to get around to recording a run.

Grade Earned: A-

Dynamic Warmup
I won’t lie, some days my dynamic warmup was very abbreviated. And some days I added in a few extra exercises to keep my glutes and hamstrings happy.

Grade Earned: A

Foam Rolling
I was “rolling” right along, until one night after a long run when I just chose rest over getting my foam rolling in. I really need to make more of an effort to do it as soon after a run as possible!

Grade Earned: A-

Respecting my body
I skipped a run when it became clear that my body was rebelling for whatever reason. I was tired much of this month, but I actually felt more recovered than I did after NOLA.

Grade Earned: A

Nutrition
I made a few poor choices food-wise in May, but usually each time I did so, I learned something from it. Buttered popcorn at the movies and an Auntie Anne’s Pretzel for dinner one night in the same week really wasn’t the best idea. I don’t get Auntie Anne’s often at all, though, and I’d been craving one for long time. Sometimes it’s a good idea to get those cravings out of the way.

I was getting into the sweets a bit too much — even healthy sweets aren’t healthy when eaten all the time.

I began to slowly clean up my eating (although you’d never know it from my weekly wrap a little while ago which you can drool over here!), and my pants began to fit a little better.

Grade Earned: B

Support
I made my chiropractor appointment ahead of time. Although my left hip was really bothering after my last appointment — and continued to bother me afterward, too. Sometimes I’ll be a little sore after an adjustment and then it goes away. This was weird.

In fact, I runfess (see more runfessions here, if you missed them) that it was really killing me right before the Mud & Chocolate Half — but I knew I’d be okay to race, and I was.

I should have gotten back in there, but life was busy. Eventually it calmed down.

Grade Earned: A-

Cross Training
I fell off the stationary bike but back into the pool. And the sauna was fixed, which made me so happy. But swimming was only once a week.

Grade Earned: B

May 2017 gets . . .
. . . a B. Or maybe a B+. I did meet most of my May goals, except the meeting up with friends to run. My schedule just doesn’t seem to jive with my friends’ lately. I did run with Jan once.

Goals for June:

Continue keeping my journal up to date.
Swim.
Listen carefully to my body again after my next half.
Hopefully Rachel @ Runningonhappy will be dialing back my mileage now that my next half isn’t until October. I’m ready for a small break.
Get back into the stationary bike habit.
Get new trail shoes so I can hopefully run trails again occasionally before it gets too buggy!

I’m linking up with with MCM Mama Runs, Marcia’s Healthy Slice, and My No Guilt Life for the Tuesdays on the Run linkup.

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