july by the numbers

Each month I reflect back and look at some of the data I collect around my health and wellness. This practice helps me make adjustments, spot trends and hopefully inspires some of you to do the same. Let’s dive in.

Steps: 433,142 for a daily average of 13,972.

This was about 60k more steps than in June, and all of that has to do with my increased running volume (more on that below). Highest step day was 26,058, my long run from last Sunday. All in all, about what I expected.

Sleep: 8 Hours 15 minutes average per night

Yes! I’ve been tracking my sleep with my Garmin since September of 2019. I started doing these monthly recaps in an effort to up my average sleep in October 2023, and this is the first time in 5 years that I have averaged over 8 hours for a month. I hit 8 hours or more on 20 days out of the last 31, and even hit 9 hours a couple times while on vacation. In May I only got 8 hours twice, and 12 times in June. It’s nice to see this trending in the right direction.

What changed this month? With the heat wave in early July, instead of reading on the couch and then making my way to bed, I basically have been just getting into bed (because of the air conditioning in our room) right after we put the boys to bed around 7. One caveat, I think this old watch would log reading time as sleeping time, giving me some extra nightly Z’s and padding the stats. Regardless, I’ve been spending more time in bed.

Workouts: 40

This was been quite the month. I’ve never done a running streak for more than 10 days or so and at the beginning of the month I thought I should give it a go - to see if I could run every day in July. I managed to get 31/31 days.

Most of those workouts were runs, or workouts that involved running - for example one day Hannah and I ran to the stop sign and at the bottom of the hill and back and while one of us ran, the other did dumbbell bench press and kb swings. One day I built to a heavy trapbar deadlift and I did one session of Olympic weightlifting as well.

One the days I doubled up on runs, it was typically a short run in the morning (my shortest and minimum for the streak was 2000m or 1.25 miles, to the end of our street and back) followed by a track workout, trail run with Clementine or some easy stroller miles in the afternoon. It was great to return to the track after two or three years away from it. My top end isn’t where it used to be, but I think it’s coming back.

All in all, it was 27 hours of running, 138.5 miles (4.5 daily average) and 18,737ft (though I think my watch is drastically overestimating that). I’ve got an ultra coming up in 10 days and I’m feeling ready. If the streak will continue is to be determined. As I’m writing this now everyone is still sleeping and I could sneak in a couple miles before having to make breakfast. My body is feeling really good, better than I thought it would actually. And even on days that I wake up feeling stiff, as soon as I get moving I feel better.

Thanks for reading, if you have a wearable fitness device, take some time today to look back and reflect on any trends you notice and try to make some adjustments heading this month.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain