June 2010 in Review

I’m sure I’ve driven most of you away with the lack of updates on my blog.  I think my less than stellar showing at the Rhode Races marathon put me into a bit of a blog depression that I’ve been unable to get out of, probably due to the extremely hot and humid weather we’ve had all summer, which has continued to hamper my running performance.  Now, I’ve decided it is time to start blogging again.  We are right in the middle of triathlon season, and I’m in the early stages of training for the Chicago Marathon, and I’ve got big plans over the next 6 months.  I need something to hold me accountable, and I think this blog may just be the place 🙂

June was a rough month for me.  I started the month on a business trip to Nairobi, Kenya.  The trip was great, but while I was there, I wasn’t feeling so great.  Shortly after I got back to the US, I noticed a rash that turned out to be Shingles.  Ouch!  I actually was very lucky.  My Shingles was very uncomfortable for about 2 weeks, but I never experienced the kind of nerve pain you hear so much about.  Sometimes that nerve pain takes months to go away, and sometimes it never goes away, so I’m lucky I didn’t have it.  In fact, when I saw my doctor, she said I was 7-8 on a scale of 1-10, 10 being a bad case, and was very surprised I was in such little pain, based on how I looked, and attributed it to my active lifestyle.   Boo-ya!

Anyway, on with the update:

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Running – 76 miles over 16 runs.  I ran on June 1, felt like crap the rest of the week, then found I had Shingles.  Didn’t run again until June 15.  So, how does one get 16 runs in a month with taking 2 weeks off?  That’s right, by running 15 days straight!  Which I somehow managed to do!  Ran every day, usually in the early morning, and my shortest run was 4 miles.  I was so frustrated at my extended time off that I resolved to run every day for as long as possible.  I made it to the end of June, and then ended up with several toe blisters, one of which was really bad and sidelined me for a few days in early July.  Anyway, super happy with the overall effort considering I had 2 weeks off.  As of the end of June, I had 522.6 miles for the month, on course for 1000 for the year!  Those miles are more than I had in 5 entire years over the last 11 years of record keeping!

Races – 0 (I had to skip the Harriman State Park tri as my rash hadn’t quite healed before race day)

Biking – 47.6 miles over 3 rides.  With time off, and focus on running, didn’t ride enough, but these were quality rides.

Swims – 0 – yikes.  That is not good when you are training for triathlons!

Gym workouts – none

Softball – 1 loss

Injuries – Developed nasty blister at the end of the month that kept me from running for a few days, and took more than a week to heal up.

Sicknesses – 1 (Shingles)