October: Not bad training through football, fall, a 5K, and more

Not a shabby breakdown for the month.

October had a bit of everything – family in town, football games, a 5K, sickness, and passing out candy for Halloween. The way the month was all over the place, I’m kind of impressed I kept up with any kind of training schedule at all.

I ended up with about 30 hours of training in 30 workouts, which makes me happy. I counted 8 (!) days off from training for the month for sickness, Halloween, or whatever, so that works out to about 1.4 workouts per days I did workouts. Not bad! Any time I can end up with about a workout per day and about an hour per day average for the month, I’m going to feel a-OK about that.

I did start off strong-ish for weight training and PT but petered out with both by the end of the month. I also didn’t do nearly as much yoga as I should have, especially since I increased my running mileage a bit and was a little tight and sore as a result. But I did do some good rides and runs, and it showed. I built up to 8 miles running in October, and did a fun 5K with my husband. Cycling was less exciting, as I had my first failed FTP test, but I got right back in the saddle and kept working. I watched a lot of Netflix this month.

October’s numbers worked out to be:

Monthly running mileage since December.

Run: 12 times, 10 on the road (including one race) and twice on the treadmill for 70.75 total miles (including my usual quarter-mile warmup and cooldown) in just longer than 12 hours. Wow! I am happy to have built slowly and steadily enough that I feel I can have a good month. I’m still running three times per week most weeks of one easy, one speedy, and one long-ish. I want to add one more easy run in there somewhere, but I feel there’s other, lower-hanging training fruit I need to look at first.

Monthly cycling mileage since December.

Bike: 9 times, all on the trainer, for 177.5 fake trainer miles in about 11 hours, 45 minutes. I was pleasantly surprised to see that my overall bike time and run time are so similar – I attribute that to doing a couple of 2-hour rides. No, it wasn't the greatest mileage month, but I still did a decent amount of work.

Weights: 4 times, 3 videos and 1 barre class, for about 4:15. I started the month off strong and petered out.

PT: 3 times for about 1:45. Again, the month started off strong and then PT got abandoned.

Yoga: 2 times for about 30 minutes total. These were two quick sessions Sunday evenings and not nearly enough for how tight my hips, hamstrings, quads, and calves are.

Total: 30 sessions in about 30:17.

I'm only 23 minutes short of what I did last month, even though I logged 3 fewer workouts this month. I am keeping up my routine most of the time, adding mileage where appropriate, and taking breaks when needed. Considering all that, I'm pretty pleased with how October shook out.

I know that I'll be out of town for a couple of days in November, and the holidays are on their way, so I don't know what this next month will bring. I am banking on all the good rides and runs from October to give me momentum into another good and productive training month.