August has been a super busy month with work starting and changes in my household. Due to a storm one of my races was postponed and rescheduled to August which gave me 3 races in a month--not at all unheard of for me and these weren't too long so it was all good.
The first race I ran in August was the first of the Marathon Readiness Series. Although I completed the series last year today was the first year I signed up for the whole series in one swoop. I haven't been training very week for a marathon because I have fallen in love with xfit and surfing and so my long runs have been sporadic and my eating, sleeping, and exercise schedule a little NUTS!
I ended up racing the Boca really strong and got a PR and 4th place finish. I del physically strong on the hills and was able to keep to my goal of staying beneath a 9 minute mile pace. I was happy that I was able to finish very strong and pass many runners up and down Diamond Head in the last 2 miles of the race.
Just 6 days later I had the Hickam Half Marathon. Historically this has never been a good course for me. It's hot, has many twists and turns, and is flat. I tend to cruise way too much on flat courses. Although I PRd the course by more than 5 minutes, my 2:04 time was a little disappointing. I did surf the day before though and it was quite a shock to my body to run 13 miles a day after being int he sun and ocean all day long. As I ran the race I told myself no more surfing before race day.
A week later I ran the Coconut Chase 8k. Once again my race prep was nuts. I did a RIPPED class, 3 xfit classes and surfed the week before the race and then had 2 beers the night before. I wasn't sure how I would perform but since it was only an 8K I wasn't too worried. When the gun went off I decided to just run as hard as I could. I was able to keep a sub 8 pace for the 1st mile but the 2nd mile was a huge challenge. Aside from the heat and turns I had to run quite a bit on "trail" and that has never been easy for me. Nonetheless I fought through and was able to earn my first 1st place finish for my Age Group. STOKED!
All in all it was a great August :)
