And I break at the bend

August has been a challenging month. I've spent much of it in maintenance mode, with slightly lower activity levels and less hardcore adherence to dieting. It's been good for me health-wise, and I've still managed to improve my fitness level - even if the progress is somewhat marginal when compared to the previous months.

I've finally relented to my wife's request that I replace my now ill-fitting wardrobe. Goodbye 48 waisted pants, hello 36s as of this weekend. Shirts will be getting replaced in the coming weeks, I suppose... Well, most of them, anyway.

I was under the weather to end last week, and missed 3 days of workouts for the first time since I began this all in February. Truth be told, I probably shouldn't have run Friday - it felt like it set my recovery from whatever I had back at least a couple days. Running again this morning and keeping up the pace as though I hadn't missed a beat was fantastic, and reaffirms that slacking off a bit this month is better for my long-term health and fitness goals than if I'd burned myself out trying to push through, knowing I needed to recharge.

Next week I'll begin a new weightlifting routine. I'm excited, but I'll miss my current program at the same time.  One thing that I can say about this month though is that I've probably had the best musculature gains of any so far this year.  While I attribute a lot of it to the workouts of the past 4 weeks, the extra calories and relaxed cardio program definitely played their parts, too.

I'm really ready for the fall weather to arrive... Assuming that it does, that is.