The Olympics are in full swing! I’m obsessed with men’s volleyball and women’s rugby for their TikTok presence alone, but I also love watching gymnastics and of course Track & Field.

Monday 7/26: Rest day for running. 20 minute Peloton ride, then 40 minutes of core/lower body strength from the Hardcore on the floor calendar. My glutes and hamstrings were on fire from all the lunges.

Tuesday 7/27: Easy 3 miles outside early AM. Difficult upper body workout at the gym after (seated cable rows, bicep curls, lat pull-downs, etc)

Wednesday 7/28: Rest day. So sore from the previous two days/cumulative fatigue of all the miles. I took Herbie to a friend’s farm and she got to herd the chickens a bit.

Thursday 7/29: 4.3 mile run in the rain. I timed the storms a bit after my meetings and thought I might be able to run back home and hop on the treadmill if I saw the rain coming my way. The next big wave of the cell hit about 1.3 miles in and I decided to just keep going with my planned loop. I ended up completely soaked but felt really great (once I was sure there was enough visibility for drivers to see me at crossings).

Friday 7/30: I didn’t run in the AM because I was watching Track & Field at the Olympics (finally!), so I did 3 easy miles on the apartment gym treadmill in the afternoon to some rolling hills. Anything over 5% grade was rough for me, but good practice for NYCM.

Saturday 7/31: I had a friend over and squandered my AM workout time by watching the Olympics then was too full/tired in the evening to work out. It’s a shame I missed such a cool morning, weather-wise. But we walked around town and went to the Farmers Market and got boba.

Sunday 8/1: Sunday long run due to necessity. I did 9 miles just under a 12 minute mile pace. I got lucky again with the weather since I waited until 9am to start (live Olympics coverage again) and chose a new-to-me route. I just had some UCAN in my water bottle but will bring Gu chews to anything longer than 2 hours (this was an hour and 40 minutes). This run made me feel more confident about my training overall, so I’m trying to write about it and bring that positive energy around. Perhaps I will try some tempo runs or speedwork in the coming weeks? I’ll also report back about the increase in long runs.

Total: 19.4 miles; slight dip from last week since I only ran 4 days and did shorter miles for a couple of those.