Honorable Mentions

Because yesterday's Akron Marathon post was already overlong, I didn't want to tack on even more information, but wait there is actually more.

Two additional runners participated in the race who deserve some mention: my sister and my friend Martini.

My sister ran the second leg of the marathon relay (4.8 miles), after being conned into it at the last minute with 10 days until race day. She sent me a frantic text message to ask for training advice. My sister is a bit of a gym rat, but not much of a runner. This was her first race, and she finished much faster than she expected.

Once a frequent training partner, Martini has left me in his dust. He ran this year's marathon in 3:16 and change and was disappointed. Yeah.

At any rate, kudos to them even though they're not readers here.

Guess what, it's October now. Can you believe it? For the first time in a while, we can discuss some improvements in relation to my running in September. Here's last month's statistical rundown:

• Total Miles: 17 miles (4 runs)
• Total Time: N/A
• Highest Weekly: 10 miles
• Average Weekly: 4.25 miles
• Average Pace: N/A
• The Monthly Dif: +11 miles (6 miles in August)

Time was still a non-factor, and it may remain so until whenever speed seems relevant again. Despite an almost three-week break, my monthly mileage was almost triple August's paltry number. All but one of those runs was barefoot, which means that 12 percent of my total mileage this year has been completed without shoes.

Considering how woefully short I am of my 1,000-mile goal this year, I've revised my target to 533 miles -- one more mile than last year's total. A little bit of the maths tells me I'll need to average more than 63 miles per month and almost 16 miles per week to reach that height.

That'll be tough, but more doable than 219 per month and 54.75 miles per week to reach 1,000.

Plans for the remainder of the year are still in discussion. There's a Halloween race Mrs. Viper and I are considering, as well as a Thanksgiving Day race. We're trying to motivate ourselves to remain active with rewards, such as a new backpack for short hikes, running shoes and other items we usually deem too expensive.

How was your September, teammates? Any plans for the last quarter of the year? Cheers!