Big News! Camo Running Skirts are now available in both running skirt & athletic skirt style. A lot of you have been looking to get your hands on one before the Army run in Ottawa and other summer marathons & races. Get yours today, before they are gone again!










For those of you Californian's - be sure to come out and see Christy this weekend at the San Francisco Marathon Expo. Swing by our booth wearing your RunningSkirts.com gear and get a free gift! (no purchase required). If you are running the half marathon in San Francisco, you get to choose which half of the full marathon course you'd like to run. The first half goes over the Golden Gate bridge and offers amazing scenery, yet more incline/hills. The second half is flatter, but doesn't go over the bridge. Aw - decisions, decisions. Christy is running the first (scenic) half as a training run. For those of you running the full marathon in San Francisco - you rock! I ran the first year of the SF Womens Marathon several years ago before they changed the course and oh my goodness those San Francisco hills knocked the wind out of me. The weather in the city is always perfect for running - hopefully you all get another perfect running day this Sunday. Good luck & have fun.

P.S. Christy - we'll be waiting for your SF Half Marathon post and review!

Yawn! Another all-nighter (no I'm not talking about one of those late girls nights out full of laughing, dancing and great girl times!) Actually...there was a little dancing or should I say waltzing with my favorite little man to the tune of mommy's froggy rendition of Rockabye Baby at midnight, 1:00 a.m, 2:00 a.m., 3:00 a.m. and then up at 5:00. I jokingly told the hubby yesterday, the last time I felt this tired was at Christy's bachelorette weekend in Vegas! The little guy now almost 9 months old is trying to sprout his two front top teeth - one of them is already poking through, but the other one is still hovering on the brink and driving him nutso. He already has two front bottom teeth and compared to the last few days - those were a piece of cake to get through. This time around, he's had a fever and has been absolutely miserable unless he's being held or within arms distance of mommy. Any of you running mommies have any tips or advice, please send comments?! I must sleep soon, especially now that I am ramping up the mileage for the fall marathon.

The long run on Saturday went well, other than being cut a bit short on time. Val and I planned to run our favorite woodsy trails in Midhurst for 2 hours at a comfortable pace. We headed out early at 6:00 a.m. and were almost an hour into the run when we heard a thunderstrom in the distance. For my California friends, thunderstorms out here are nothing like thunderstorms at home....the lightning here literally strikes the ground. Last year we saw an actual lightning bolt strike and split a big oak tree in half next to our car when we were driving. When a thunderstrom is coming here, people pretty much stay indoors until it is safely passed. With that said, there we were 1 hour into the wilderness from where we parked the car to start the run when we started to hear the first rumblings in the distance. We decided to head back to the starting point a bit early instead of waiting until we reach the one hour planned turnaround time.

We have been running these trails for a few months now, but it never fails, every week on our way back to the car, we seem to get lost. Wouldn't ya know it - we did it again! Took a wrong turn somewhere and nothing was looking familiar. Granted, this getting lost on the trails has been a bit of fun and adventure for us in previous weeks as we were always discovering new places...lakes, rivers, old wooden bridges, etc. that we had never seen before. Saturday, with the ligtning storm moving in quickly, being lost was not even slightly amusing. We immediatly turned on our Garmin 305 "return to start" feature to assist us in navigating back to our car. (This is a really cool feature btw). With each roll of thunder, we silently agreed to pick up the pace a bit in search of familiar landmarks and trails. After 20 or so minutes of strange trails and "didn't we already cross that log a few minutes ago?", our Garmin got us back to familiar territory. At this point it was raining pretty heavily and we got into the discussion of how being in a tall woodsy forest is the last place you are supposed to be during an electrical storm. Pace getting faster. The last 5k of trails to the car are full of some good steep hills and we normally save a little gas for that point in the run, but those hills on saturday were not even a concern as the thunderstorm was now practially on top of us and we were caught in the downpour. As we scrambled up last of the hills the lightning and thunder were very close & I started thinking about the metal car key in my running skirt pocket and whether the garmin on my arm would attract lightening....at this point we were running full speed toward the car. I'm not gonna lie, my panting mantra was "Please God, Get us to the Car, Please God Get us to the Car, Please God Get us to the Car". At about 800 meters out I missed the turn to the parking lot and somehow wound up running right back into Val - the look on her face was priceless. She must have been thinking why on earth is Cindy running back away from the car now? I laughed and turned myself around and followed Val back down to the trailhead. We both were cheering as we sprinted for the car. Whew! Post run Tim Hortons has never been better!

This weekend we had the pleasure of visiting Kincardine for the Womens Tri there. For those of you who've never been, Kincardine is a beautiful little town on the shores of Lake Huron. This all women event is a very well organized triathlon event and I highly recommend it to any ladies in Ontario that are thinking about trying a tri. There are competitors of all levels in the race...from the first-timer to ironman/world competition athletes. We were blessed with a rain free day this year....it was a little iffy at first as the swim was delayed due to fog over the lake preventing the view of the buoy.

I loved watching all the participants cross the finish line - especially the 78 year old....that's what I want to be doing when I'm 78 - thank you for the inspiration. Wow!

As for my training program - I have realized my fall marathon is quickly approaching and I need to start looking at building my distance in my training program. That, and I read Gloribelle's blog and wow - the mileage she is already doing! (You are my inspiration....have I mentioned that I tried to do handstand pushups? it wasn't pretty btw - talk about headrush) So, I downloaded a training program (ok I'm saying it out loud now...it's official) for a 3:10-3:15 marathon and what to my surprise do I see??? my long run last weekend should have already been up to 16 miles. uh-oh. Reality has set in. The longest run I have done since having the baby is the half marathons I've been running after working the expos. There's a big gap between 13.1 and 16 miles in a week. So- I gave it a go on Sunday and managed to get in 15 miles nice and easy. I don't know if it's my tired legs from the races, or the humidity up here, but my legs felt so heavy and stiff. At about mile 14, I was seriously contemplating my decision for the fall marathon (maybe I should stick to halfs?). Of course I'm going through with it - God willing - after all, I even talked Christy, Val and my long lost running buddy Teresa into it too. I am altering the schedule slightly - it has us running mileage every day, but I know that I do better with a rest day or two tucked between the long run and speed work day. I am joining a local gym this week also - one with a great daycare so that I have NO excuse to not get in my strength training. I have found post baby with all the recent weight loss, I have lost a lot of muscle and strength. I am quite sore after harder workouts still and I think with a little strengthening and more muscle mass - this will correct itself. Here's Hoping!

Nissan 10 Miler & 5k event - Distillery District Toronto, Canada Running Series
(Our "speedy" skirt Josiane is so fast, she had time to go to the car and change before we finished!)

After running the half marathon in Calgary with the rolling hills course & altitude, my legs were feeling pretty heavy last week. I had a workout with Val and coach Ken on Thursday - some form and hill work, a rest day on Friday, and then a 40 minute easy run on the waterfront trail on Saturday. I'd never run a 10 mile race distance before and wasn't too sure on how to pace it, what shoes to wear for the 10 mile race, etc. Since my average pace for the half marathon was 6:55 miles, I thought I could probably manage at list 6:45 splits for the 10 mile distance, especially since it was supposed to be a fairly flat course. The only challenge would be the heat and humidity of the Toronto waterfront. After my rest day and easy run on Saturday, I took an ice bath to help flush the legs. I woke up yesterday feeling pretty fresh and energetic, so I decided to try out my Brooks Racer ST3s for the 10 mile race. I have worn them for a few track workouts, but never raced in them. I also have the Brooks T5 racers which are really super light - I wore those for the Canada Day 10k. The ST3's have a bit of a post in them and offer more support & Brooks advertises them great for distances of 5k races up to the full marathon.

It was overcast and slightly raining as we toed the starting line. Team RunningSkirts.com was represented by our "speedy" skirt Josiane Aboungono, Val Gates, Arma Afsar and myself sporting the new aquatreuse Running Skirts, aqua strappy tops and chartreuse performance tank tops. The course had a few gradual inclines, mostly road and a little gravel terrain and a footbridge to cross. There was some headwinds around the Leslie Spit area and again on the return back to the distillery district. Here are my splits: 6:21, 6:30, 6:38, 6:49, 6:37, 6:35, 6:29, 6:29, 6:43, & 6:41.

Team RunningSkirts rocked the race - see the results below:



Overall Female-10 Miler Run Awards-Top 6 receive awards

Place Time      Number Lname        
===== ========= ====== ===========
1   58:34.2 30 STEVENSON,NICOLE
2   59:40.7 31 ABOUNGONO,JOSIANE 
3 1:02:28.7 1136 PATTEN,BECKY
4 1:03:02.0 1243 ROBINSON,SEANNA
5 1:04:56.2 1599 YAREMCZUK,NATASHA
 6 1:06:01. 895 LYNCH, CINDY       
7 1:06:50.2 444 DORRI,SEPANTA
8 1:07:03.4 143 AUGAITIS,RASA
9 1:07:21.6  35 BOULTBEE,APRIL
10 1:08:10.7 848 LESNOWSKI,SUZANNE

























Val Claiming her victory prize money

Women 30 - 34 - 10 Miler Run
Place Time      Number Lname
===== ========= ====== =======
1 1:08:40.01042 MORRISVANESSA
2 1:09:48.61725 GATES,VAL   
3 1:11:36.11283 SARA,ZIPPIN
4 1:13:53.1111 ALDANA,KELLY
5 1:14:29.21594 WOODWARD,YAEL


















Women 35 - 39 - 10 Miler Run

Place Time      Number Lname  
===== ========= ====== =========
1 1:06:50.2 444 DORRI, SEPANTA
2 1:07:21.6 35 BOULTBEE, APRIL
3 1:08:10.7 848 LESNOWSKI, SUZANNE
4 1:13:52.0 34 BOULTBEE, MELANIE
5 1:14:27.1 1648 AFSAR, ARMA     

Little Buddies - We had a nice post-race bbq at Arma & Andrews place. For those of you who don't remember, Arma is my friend who I ran with during our pregnancies.
We ran several 5k and 10k races throughout our pregnancies and we both continued running within weeks of our deliveries. She had her baby boy about one month after mine.
Here's a few pic's of the two little ones from yesterday. Hard to believe my baby is 8 months old now & Arma's baby boy is 7 months old.

We have received a lot of press for our Running Skirts over the last 3 years, but after reading this months skirt feature in Runners World magazine and seeing our own products in full page print, I have to say I feel like we have finally arrived and we are truly honored to be published the world's leading running magazine.

If you haven't checked out the latest copy of Runners World (August), you've missed the feature on running skirts! As one of the original creators of a skirt designed specifically for running, we were thrilled to participate in the running skirt review and photo shoot. Our ruby snow is the skirt featured in the cool full page shot accompanying Kristen Armstrong's cute story about her running skirts experience.

Also in the product review section, our red and white polka dot "mini skirt" running skirt is featured. You can also see the Runners World Running Skirt Review here.

Also our ultra skirt Beverly Anderson Abbs was featured in the skirt timeline at the bottom of the page. She was the first ultra skirt (she won Miwok 100k back in 2005 in our running skirt, and has since won many ultras in our running skirts and strappy tops).

We have known that running skirts are not simply a fad or fashion statement, but a new performance running option for female athletes. This issue of Runners World proves that Running Skirts are here to stay.

We take pride in our high quality products and will continue to develop and improve our designs however possible. We couldn't do this without our valuable customers and feedback, so thanks to you all!

Yeehaw! Greetings from Calgary, Alberta!



















The Calgary Marathon takes place during the kick off of the Calgary Stampede (one of the worlds largest rodeos). The festivities are opened with a grand parade through downtown Calgary.













This is a really cool marathon, half marathon, 10k event and they even have a "timbits" kids run on race day! Get this - the marathon finishers are awarded with a belt buckle in lieu of the traditional medal too (similar to the western states 100 mile finisher buckle). We had a great time at the marathon expo, the people out here are always so upbeat and friendly!

I registered for the half marathon a few weeks ago, not realizing it was only 5 days after the Canada Day 10k race. After my 10k on Tuesday, which ended with a sprint about 800 meters out from the finish, I was quite sore. I decided to take a few rest days on Wednesday and Thursday. With the marathon expo taking place, I never found the time to run again on Friday or Saturday and by the time Saturday night rolled around, I was starting to second guess the decision to run the half on Sunday morning. It's always a bit challenging to run on race day after working the expo skirt booth on your feet for 2-3 days straight, not to mention I was pretty sore after the 10k race on Tuesday. After my traditional post-expo ice bath torture session to help flush the legs, I was feeling pretty rested and I decided to toe the line on Sunday - if nothing else, as a training run to make up for not running over the last few days. The weather was perfect - clear and cool, but not cold at the 7:00 a.m. start. I wasn't sure what I was going to run, but I was hopefully optimistic that if everything went well and my legs were ok, I'd be able to take a few minutes off my last half marathon time and run a 1:30 or better. My race plan was to go out and try to hold a 7:00 minute per mile pace and pick it up on the last 10k if I was still feeling strong.

It was a hillier course than I was expecting, but it was very scenic. The course started downtown and ran through the Stampede Grounds and the runners were greeted by a lineup of cowboys & cowgirls on horseback and spectators that were enjoying their traditional stampede pancake breakfast. It was funny - their wasn't a lot of applause, but mostly people standing with blank stares at us runners as we cruised by. I can only imagine they were thinking "what on earth are these crazy people doing running?!?". I did appreciate the occasional "go girl!" or "go skirt!" as I passed by. The course than ran through the Calgary zoo. I recall seeing a flock of pink flamingos as we entered the park and I was looking out for the Tiger (we were told we might see) cage, but as we started winding up a slight incline out of the zoo my mind switched gears and I tried to get back into concentration mode. On a side note - one thing I really enjoyed about running while pregnant was the nice mellow pace of the races and actually being able to take in the scenery and race spectators, etc. I remember last year when I was here I ran the 10k while about 5 months pregnant and I actually carried a digital camera and snapped photos along the route. After leaving the zoo there was a portion of the course on a small gravel/dirt road and then back to the streets heading back toward downtown. We ran along across and along the beautiful Bow river. I remember seeing a great one man country band, and a few other bands along the route. Once I reached the halfway or probably 12-13k point in the race, I recognized the 10k course from last year. With about 4-5 km left to go I was feeling pretty strong so I picked up the pace a bit. I remember there were a few good hills before the finished and tried to talk myself through them one at a time. Before I knew it, the finish line was within eye shot and I gave it one last push to finish in 1:30:40. Here are my splits: 6:27, 6:50, 6:54, 6:51, 7:02, 7:02, 7:05, 7:01, 6:48, 6:45, 7:06, 6:41, 6:46 finish time 1:30:40. I was surprised to finish as 3rd woman and 1st place age group! I was expecting a lot of speedy ladies to run today, but I'm not complaining - it was great fun to win another prize this week!
















We won shiny prize medals & big arse white cowboy hats too! Yahoo!

Results:           10k    gun       chip
1/242 F 30-34 3645  40:20  1:24:33  1:24:31  4:01  Maggie Finlayson  Calgary AB                 
1/141 F 20-24 3529  40:06  1:27:11  1:27:10  4:08  Erin Sask         Calgary AB                       
1/205 F 35-39 3480  42:58  1:30:40  1:30:38  4:18  Cindy Lynch       Barrie ON 

Happy Canada Day!



















Team "RunningSkirts.com" Cindy, Arma & Val

Today was the HBC Run for Canada event(s) across the country. Team Running Skirts was out at the Toronto Waterfront event in full red & white glory. We were lucky to get a wonderful sunny day.

Here are my splits:
mile 1 6:22
mile 2 6:30
mile 3 6:34
5k time 19:26
mile 4 6:32
mile 5 6:31
mile 6 6:12
finish 39:51:06





Our "speedy skirt" Josiane won the 10k event, I came in 3rd woman and Val was 6th woman. We were awarded with HBC Gift Cards - woohoo! $1000 for Josiane, $100 for me & $25 for Val. Let's go shopping! For those American readers, HBC stands for Hudson Bay Company or "The Bay" similar to "Macy's" department store in the US. I think this was the first race that I've ever won prize money. I've run for a team before that won team money rewards before, but never been lucky to be handed a check myself. It's pretty cool!