Four weeks of marathon training have been completed, three more months to go.

My achy quads continued to have their say during this week’s long run and the rest of my body wasn’t thrilled that I stayed up late to watch the Olympic opening ceremony but I ignored their complaints and got this run completed. Ideally, I should have started earlier in the day but I just couldn’t wake up. I’m not sure what the actual temperature was but I do remember WeatherBug clearly saying the humidity was 90%.

I guess I wore right shirt. There was one tiny spot on the short not as sweaty as the rest. I guess I didn’t run hard enough. (c) Stacey Cooper

I felt that almost right away as I started to sweat before I even started running. There was a chance of rain during the day and at one point I thought it had started to rain but turns it out it was just the sweat dripping off my hat. That was about half way through the run. Everything was dripping my the time I got through with that run.

My quads made the first few miles feel really tough and I’m still having a hard time trying to find my long run pace. For the most part my splits were pretty consistent. My first mile was 11:54 and my last mile was 11:58. Everything else was in the low 12s except for two miles that went into the low 13s. I think that was when I was trying to slow myself down because I was worried I would run out of gas at the end. Next week will be my first double digit long run of the marathon season and I can’t wait for it.

August is when a lot of people hit the hardest part of training. For first timers, the excitement of training for the marathon wears off. The routine starts to feel tedious and depending on where you are training it’s also the hottest time of year. I remember having such a horrible time during the month of August when I was training for my first marathon. I do not remember having a single good run. I really felt like a slug on every run. Apparently that is normal.

Recovery is key. Good thing for the ice packs and compression sleeves but Rocco the cat does not appear to approve of this method. (c) Stacey Cooper

Last year was so much better. I knew what to expect and knew where I had to fine tune my training. I learned how to recover better. Part of that involves remembering to stretch after the run. Doing so after the cool down actually helps. Then heading into the dreaded ice bath is ideal. I recommend that you Google this. People LOVE posting pictures of themselves in the ice bath. I forgot to make ice for an ice bath this weekend so I did the next best thing and used the ice packs I had and donned my compression sleeves.

It is amazing how much this helps. My quads that were bothering me all week have finally stopped screaming. The ice packs helped kick start the healing process and then following that up with some foam rolling and I’m good to go.

Of course, there is also the bit about rest. Today was a cross-training day which meant I slept in and watched the Olympics. Yeah, I hardly ever cross-train. I don’t know too many runners who do this either, although we do have good intentions. I did actually do some light stretching before I did my laundry. Tomorrow is supposed to be a real rest day so that means not doing laundry for me. But seriously, when your training plan calls for rest you should do that and then maybe try to do some real cross-training on cross-training days.

It’s a long slog to marathon day, don’t kill yourself during a tough hot month. August is going to suck but in four weeks it will be September. Promise.