August Running Goals

So today begins my fifteen week marathon training program.  I'm planning on joining up with a local women's running group on Monday's for easy fun runs (although I had to get today's Monday run in this morning because our ABF truck is supposed to come later today - yay!), so I decided to build a weekly fun run and a bit of cross training into my plan.  I envision cross training days as being for long walks with Bailey, yoga, biking, or 30 day shred.  I wish I had another month before this race, but July was a very full month with the honeymoon and the move.  I was up to an eight mile run before we left so I'm hoping that my base is strong enough to handle the time crunch.  I'm planning my long runs for Saturdays, but, luckily, I have the ability to be flexible most weeks, so if I need to switch a long run to a Friday or a Sunday here and there I can.  Depending on my level of soreness on Sundays, I'll do either a short recovery run and a vinyasa practice or a restorative practice and meditation or something in between the two.

The schedule:

Week    Mon      Tue       Wed    Thur   Fri     Sat           Sun
1    casual run    x train    3 m    3 m    rest     6 m      yoga and/or recovery
2    casual run    x train    3 m    3 m    rest     7 m      yoga and/or recovery
3    casual run    x train    4 m    3 m    rest     9m       yoga and/or recovery
4    casual run    x train    4 m    3 m    rest     12 m    yoga and/or recovery
5    casual run    x train    5 m    3 m    rest     13 m    yoga and/or recovery
6    casual run    x train    5 m    3 m    rest     12 m    yoga and/or recovery
7    casual run    x train    6 m    3 m    rest     15 m    yoga and/or recovery
8    casual run    x train    6 m    3 m    rest     16 m    yoga and/or recovery
9    casual run    x train    7 m    4 m    rest     18 m    yoga and/or recovery
10  casual run    x train    7 m    4 m    rest     20 m    yoga and/or recovery
11  casual run    x train    8 m    4 m    rest     16 m    yoga and/or recovery
12  casual run    x train    8 m    5 m    rest     rest      1/2 Marathon
13  rest              x train    9 m    5 m    rest     14 m   yoga and/or recovery
14  casual run    x train    9 m    5 m    rest     8 m     yoga and/or recovery
15  casual run    rest        4 m    5 m    rest     rest      Marathon

I kicked off the month of August not with a run but with a yoga practice on my deck yesterday evening.  M. kindly came out and snapped a few shots of me as I did a Vinyasa Flow mp4 that I downloaded from yogadownload.com.    

A vast improvement over how I was practicing yoga at home before the move....

For the month of August my running and fitness goals are to just log all the miles on the schedule and to do some yoga (it can be restorative) at least twice a week and stretch after runs.  I am often guilty of not stretching when I get back from hitting the pavement, and I am going to be focusing on improving in that category.

What are your exercise-related goals for this month?