September Came and Went!

Well, did that ever fly by. I had a super busy running month, by far my heaviest month since competing at UWO in 2001/2003. All in all, I'm very satisfied with my month, here's my quick breakdown of what went down:

• I ran a total of 226km, up from 160km the previous month (40% increase in mileage, that sounds rather dangerous!). I consistently did two hard workouts per week and threw in some easy miles to round things out.
• I ran my first XC race in 7 years and it felt AMAZING! I also broke 4:00/km over a 7.5km distance, something I never would have thought I was capable of doing yet. Looks like my 2011 goals will have to be re-adjusted come the new year, and I predict some great times as I finish up the xc and road racing series.
• My knee pain that I was battling in August, and had physio for, returned to haunt me this month.  It all started happening after a 5 day week that saw me log 65km. I wasn't ready and I was still trying to perfect my posture/form/stride some as I ran.  I immediately took the next week easy (40km) and returned to my physio exercises.  Since then I've been cautious but the knee is definitely on the mend as I think I've finally cracked the root of my knee problem, more on this later.
• My mileage increased by 40%, but my overall pace slowed by about 2 seconds per km.  Considering the fact that I increase my mileage by such a large margin, I'm surprised to see that my performance didn't really drop much, as I would expect to see as mileage increases.
• I keep shedding fat all over my body, but the damn scale isn't dropping much. I have a personal goal to weigh 165lbs by November 1st and it's looking harder and harder to get to that goal. I'm currently at 167lbs and have been for the last 6 weeks (ranging from 165.6 to 168.6 lately). I know I've got some fat that I don't need to carry around with me while I run, so I'm hoping to lose some more, with an ultimate goal of losing another 10lbs so I can be in the 10% body fat range.  I hear a 5% drop in weight results in a 5% increase in performance. I'm curious to test that out...
• I've had some great speed workouts this past month and the weather has me in such a good mood. Heck, I ran 16km in a steady downpour today and was grinning most of the time. I had the trails all to myself! I love running, it's my therapy. Well that and red wine. Yum.

It was a great month of running and the weather was damn near perfect nearly almost every day. I ran 18 days out of a possible 30 this month and racked up 226km in just over 18 hours. Heck, I burned up 18000 calories, or the equivalent of  5lbs in calories.  Here's my nikeplus overview for the month, just so you know I'm 100% legit:

 

So what does October bring? Other than amazing weather, and for certain, too much rain, here's what I'm hoping to accomplish this month:

• Race a smart 8.5km race in Sudbury Thanksgiving weekend. Hoping for something in the vicinity of 34 minutes.
• Run 250km in October, including two heavy weeks of 65km. I will need to be on my best behavior on those weeks, I can't let my knees suffer again.
• Race a blazing fast 10km on Halloween.
• Lose 2lbs and KEEP IT OFF FOREVER. I think this is attainable, we'll see.
• Try out a pair of CEP Compression socks and find out first hand what all the hype is about.
• Do 4 physio related plyo sessions per week. Looks like I should get the ball going today then.

Until next time, stay healthy, smile and just keep running!