Month end

So at the start of August I decided on a few goals and its time to put these out in the public domain and see how I'm going against them

• Enter GNW : done but that was pretty easy!
• Try and sort out dodgy back : still work in progress but Pilates is certainly making a difference and the witch doctor is helping keep things on track
• Adopt concepts from the book "Sweet Poison" by dramatically reducing my intake of sugar, particulary sucrose : For the 31 days of August I managed 17 complete sugar free days, much better than my old habit of 1-2 cokes per day but can still do a little better!
• Try to reduce alcohol intake : not very successful there, needs more focus
• Return to some consistency in training : done pretty well on this front, especially with a mind on not over doing it off a low base, 21 days of running from 31
• Re introduce speed training : LSD and tempo are not enough so back to the treadmill and can already see an improvement, first benchmark test is the Striders 10km on Saturday at North Head
• Reduce weight, based upon the cumulative effort of all the above : well on track at the start of the month I was 85.1kg, this morning before my run I weighed in at 81.3 so just under 4kg gone, but a noticeable difference around the waist so I think some weight has been redistributed from fat to muscle....

So the real positive point for August was my totals, knocking out 310km at an average of 5:15 min/km. For perspective as stated above I was mindful of coming off a low base (my previous 3 months combined totaled 312km) and also taking into account the sore back so I am stoked to have done this total. Amazingly enough in looking through my training logs the last time I broke 300km was way back in 2006! (even with prep for 6 ft this year).

The aim for September is to keep the momentum going, will not taper that much for the Sydney Marathon as it is really a stepping stone for GNW prep, which is actually also a stepping stone for Six Foot 2011 as I attack a BHAG for my buckle run....