It's Hot in the Desert - Who Knew?

Hey Running World - I'm still alive!  Still running.  Still Zumba-ing.  Still eating way too many cookies.

The summer is hard.  I should probably live in a place where the temperature doesn't get above 82º and the morning lows are in the 50's.  Because then I would like to tell about the awesome runs that I've been doing this summer.
But since I live in the middle of a mountain desert, it's 75º before the sun even comes up and it just gets worse from there.  And as I've told you many, many, MANY times before (the previous post as an example): I am a horrible runner in the heat.

Long runs are dreaded and the average pace goal is to try to keep it below 11:00/mile (factoring all of the walking that I MUST do when it is hot).  Sometimes I make it and sometimes, like on Saturday, I don't.

I'm "training" for a half marathon on September 8th.  And out on the horizon, another half in October (this is a maybe - we're still trying to figure out vacation time to Disneyland for Katie's 2nd (!!) birthday), and another half and a 5K in November.

In other news: Katie enjoys bacon.

And stripes are NOT flattering to a muffin top.

Race Report: Riverton Country Mile 10K

In case you can't tell from the title of this post, I "raced" in a 10K on the 4th.  This was my third year running this course, and I'm happy to say that I ran my best time yet.  Not that it is anything special.  It was freaking hot.  Like everywhere else.  Because, you know, it's summer.

And like I've said many, many times before, I am horrible in the heat.  Now, if the temperature for this race would have been in the 40's, I would have rocked.  But since it was in the 80's, I did just fine.  For me.

I finished in 58:33, which means an average pace of 9:25 per mile.  And that's with walking through both water stops and getting slower and slower.  All that I wanted/expected out of this race was to get under an hour.  And not puke.  It was pretty close at the finish line, but I accomplished both.

We spent the rest of the holiday at the pool and BBQ-ing with family.