Can't believe it's been a month!

I have been a negligent blogger, bad girl! It's been a busy month of running since I last updated, with lots more to come.

I completed my summer series with not only multiple first, second and third place finishes in my age group, but I won third overall in my group as well! I was quite surprised. I suppose my triumph is a testament solely to perseverance, because I most certainly wasn't fast. I was a little disappointed that I only met my goal of under 30 minutes once; it was in the middle of the summer, and on the coolest day of the summer. I will have to run a 5K sometime this fall to see how the cooler weather affects my pace.

The new RB (running buddy) and I are making some progress! Speaking of cooler weather, we had a great six mile run a few weekends ago early while it was still cool. It felt great outside, and we really improved our pace. I'm hopeful that when it really cools off, we will be going gangbusters. It helps that I finally got my hands on a Garmin wristwatch. If you're looking for a running GPS, the small Garmins are great. They have a lot of useful functions, including keeping your pace and heartrate for a more accurate calories-burned calculation. I have mine set to sing at me every mile, which is a morale booster on long runs. When we get into running a more consistent pace, I may set it so that it beeps if we fall under a certain pace.

This past weekend I got a little ahead of myself. I signed up for a Labor Day 15K - and it was brutal. It was almost all on the trail, which means no shade, and it was quite steamy and sunny that morning. I kept an average pace of 12:05, but it felt a lot slower than that. The three mile jump from six to nine miles was more than I was ready for.

I'm going to be on vacation for the next few weeks, so I won't be running or posting much. I have made some decisions about races, though: I'm thinking pretty seriously about going to Phoenix for the PF Chang's Rock'n'Roll in January. I will do the Cowtown in February, and Rock'n'Roll Dallas in March. I am looking at a race in Nashville (with my cousin Kate!) in April.

Happy Running!