It's been a quiet month...

...for road races in New Hampshire, at least with towns where I've yet to run. But after a drought for most of June, the end of the month brings a spate of races that continues all the way into the fall, with something like two dozen new communities in the cards. The list includes obvious ones you'd think I'd have gotten by now, such as Goffstown and Laconia, and also tiny towns that usual don't host races, such as Richmond and Marlow.

Though I haven't been running any official races, I've been keeping limbered up by taking one of our dogs, an eight-year-old German Shepard named Zahnna, up several more of New Hampshire's 4,000-footers. There are 48 in all, and as of now, Zahnna has been to the summit of 25 of them, which is slightly more than half. (About the same as my running quest!) Most recently, we completed the southern Presidentials, tagging Mount Pierce and Mount Jackson on Friday, June 16.

I've also been running with the other dogs, Abby and Inca, who make a good two-dog crew to patrol the neighborhood. We've been getting out every other day or so, doing three miles or so.

But the big news is that I've bought a new road bike, which means I can once again add this joint-friendly activity to my roster again. And as always, I have some goals for this as well: namely, to ride from York, Maine home to Bedford, N.H. (about 60 miles) and to bike the Kancamaugus Highway in the White Mountains. I'm aiming to do both later this summer, once I've built up my mileage and gotten my biking legs (and other parts) back.

The key, of course, is to not get injured. Keep your fingers crossed, and see you on Saturday, June 25, when I tackle a road race either in Goffstown (probably) or or Northfield, and then on Sunday, June 26, when I do a 7-miler in Enfield.