Silly September

At the end of the month, I usually do some sort of month recap. I've missed some months along the way -- like last month, which ended with a race and I pretty much forgot about it -- but I usually like to take a look back on what has happened both positively and negatively.

If you have followed my blog, you already know that September was pretty much an off month for me. I did it for various reasons, but the No. 1 reason was to give myself a break by choice. Sure I've had some breaks in the past year, but they were mainly due to injury. I wanted a break by choice. It wasn't a complete break from running -- it was a break from doing things because of a race. My random runs were actually pretty good. I happily increased my dog's miles along the way as well. I also got back on the bike after a couple of months off it. I didn't get many miles, but it was enough to feel comfortable again on two wheels. The totals: 24.8 running miles (compared to more than 100 miles in August); 19.9 biking miles; and more than 20 walking miles. Surprisingly, when it comes to running, it wasn't my lowest total for the year -- that came in April when I was getting over an injury.

So now that September is over, I can finally answer the question of what's next. I have decided to run the Ntelos 8k in Richmond in November. It's the same day of the Richmond Marathon and the new Richmond Half Marathon. Simply put, it's a huge running day in Richmond. While it's not a "big" race when it comes to mileage, it's a "big" race with more than 2,000 people taking part in the 8k. That distance is what I'm comfortable with right now. It'll be nice over the next six weeks to have a few runs a week in the 3-4 mile range and "long" runs in the 5-6 mile range. It's a welcome break from what I've been used to for almost two years. I'll detail my goals sometime in the next few weeks.

I may do a 5k along the way, but honestly I just want to spend the next couple of weeks getting into a normal routine. My September normal is over and it's time to get refocused.