The sun is up past 8pm, peaches are plentiful at the grocery store, and baseball is our current dinner-time entertainment…..it must be summer.
: )

Summer is a huge part of cross country training – it’s where all the mileage builds up our aerobic base for the competition season in the fall. So I thought I would start a Sunday “Summary” series of the week’s schedule. (I’ll post them all to the Fitness Page.) Here we go! This covers the week of June 17th. The top row of each day is at 5am before work; the bottom row is after work, usually around 6pm. Let me tell you, working out every 12 hours gets confusing and makes the days fly by faster than vacation!

As the miles are multiplying, I thrive on a schedule and organization. It’s helpful to have a clear plan for fitting in the day’s training (remember last summer”s Peak Week Schedule?)

Knowing I’d be spending about 8 hours running this week, I just downloaded a dozen new songs to keep me entertained. You know what that means…..new playlist in your future ;) The most important part about double-day workouts is hydration and sleep, to me. I find myself guzzling water at work, finishing about 48 oz at my desk each day. Another huge part of sustaining energy through the week is getting a minimum of 7 hours of sleep at night. Otherwise, it’s hard to summon the motivation to pound some pavement after a sleepy shift and trafficky car ride. H2O + ZZzzz = happy runner

Despite a hectic schedule, I gotta say I honestly LOVE summer training. The more miles the better, right?! This is my 7^th summer of cross country training, and it’s shaping up to be my best yet. Summer before freshman year of college, I had a serious hip injury that prevented me from running July through September. Similarly, last year I underwent the first of a series of facial surgeries that took months to heal and consequently resulted in my forfeiting yet another cross country season. This year – nothing is going to stop me from finishing the season. Heck, just starting the season would be an improvement. I’m already pumped for some competition and ready to see what this summer’s efforts will turn into.

Sunday afternoon means I can erase the schedule of workouts after completing the whole list and start to plan out the coming week. Now I’ll enjoy the rest of this Father’s Day watching some good ole’ baseball with my dad! (He’s for the Yankees, I’m for the Angels….so far it’s not looking too good for me.)

Happy Father’s Day!