1. Wednesday when I got home from work I did not feel like driving to the trail, nor did I feel like dodging cars while running on the roads around our house. So I settled on doing my 7 mile run with Sven (the treadmill). I chose to watch the movie ‘Pitch Perfect’ while I ran and guess what? I never got bored. And I knocked out 4 miles at marathon pace. Not too hard to do when all you have to do is set the speed and stick with it. I also found a safer way of keeping track of my splits instead of using the post it note: my Timex stop watch. Using a watch to keep track of splits while running… what a novelty.

Since I watched Pitch Perfect, I had to include this

2. Also on Wednesday, as I was heading out for work I observed kind of a funny scene. There were two old men on ride-on lawn mowers that had pulled up next to each other the way police officers do to talk to each other. They were both shirtless, wearing cut off jeans, straw cowboy hats, logger boots, and white socks pulled up. And they were just sitting there chatting with each other, and both waved as I drove by. I totally would have gotten a picture, but I’m just not that bold. And honestly, did you really want to see a picture in the first place? Didn’t think so.

3. Don’t you love it when you buy a treat at the grocery store and then you forget about it, and then rediscover it in your cabinet days or weeks later? Yea, that happened to me earlier this week.

Surprise!

4. I don’t usually talk much about my job on my blog, because I don’t feel like telling the people I work for that I have a blog in order to get the okay to do so. Without directly telling the internet what I do, I am going to talk about work-related things for a minute. This federal government shut down has not affected me directly… yet. But we got an email from our Deputy Commissioner earlier this week saying that programs that are mainly federally funded (like mine) are currently being funded by the Commonwealth’s general funds. This is with the understanding that the federal government will reimburse us retroactively once a budget gets approved. However, if they (the feds) don’t get their stuff together by the end of October, I will be furloughed along with my fellow employees until further notice. Not cool. But a good example of a real-life domino effect. Here’s to hoping the folks in charge of approving a budget quit acting like children, and sit down and come to an agreement like adults. Otherwise, come November 1, I will have a lot more time to devote to marathon training and blogging.

If you have read my blog for any length of time, you have probably deduced that I am a Virginia Tech alum. You have also probably learned that the Virginia Tech mascot is the Hokie Bird.

Recently, I ran the inaugural Hokie Half Marathon (with Deb & Co.!). As usual after a race, I wrote a race report. One of the comments was submitted by Holly:

Let us focus on that second paragraph there, shall we. I will admit, the Hokie Bird they used on the finisher’s shirt was the “fit” Hokie Bird and he is a little weird looking. However, I do think that the regular Hokie Bird mascot is cute. But obviously I am biased. So I am bringing it to a vote! You have seen Holly’s opinion above and you know my opinion. I get the extra advantage of submitting the following Hokie Bird pictures, because it’s my blog.

Exhibit A:

Hokie Bird leading the wedding party’s entrance to the reception while Enter, Sandman played in the background.

Exhibit B:

Hokie Bird finishing the Hokie Half

Exhibit C:

Hokie Birds over the years. Look how far we’ve come!

Exhibit D:

Hokie Bird posing with Barry and me at our wedding. Yes, we invited our school mascot to our wedding and yes, he was coo enough to accept.

I mean all of this lightheartedly and I am not asking folks to take sides (this is not me vs. Holly). But I am curious to see what people, especially those not affiliated with Virginia Tech, think of our mascot. Choose wisely.

Hokie Bird: Cute or Weird??

Yesterday was a rest day, which was a good thing because my legs were tired from Monday’s track workout. It was also good because I woke up in the morning with pink eye. I thought pink eye was something you only get when you’re 7 years old, which I’m pretty sure was the last time I had it. I went to the doctor and got some eye drops, so I should be back to normal in a few days. I was feeling kind of crummy yesterday, but better today so I’m planning to run my 7 miles this afternoon as scheduled.

It’s been awhile since the chickens made an appearance on the blog. All six (Agnes, Cecilia, Reba, Beatrice, Ophelia, and Lady) are still doing well. For the most part, we get six eggs per day. Every time I go down to the coop, they come running to the gate hoping for treats. It’s hard to get a picture of all of them because they hardly stand still, so I put some cracked corn on the ground to at least get them all in one spot.

As you may remember, we can only tell three of the chickens apart. Agnes is the white one, Reba is the dark red one, and Cecilia has a broken beak. The other three pretty much look identical. We have names for them (as mentioned above) but I have no clue who is who. Reba also happens to be our most voluptuous chicken.

We let them wander the backyard while Barry worked on some electrical stuff in the chicken coop and they happily munched on grass clippings, worms, and caterpillars. It was getting close to 7 o’clock and some of the chickens decided it was time to go back inside and get up on the roosting poles in preparation for bedtime, even though they still had access to the backyard.

And for fun, here’s a picture of them the day we got them, when they were 4 days old. That was back when they lived in a box in our garage and needed a heat lamp to keep the temperature at 100 degrees. They grow up so fast.

I meant to share this yesterday, but forgot. On Monday I worked in a very small community called Fancy Gap (population 237 at the 2010 census). The welcome sign always makes me smile.

There are two main things I love about this sign. First the hillbilly/mountain people on top of the sign. Second, the “Frank Beamer Country” at the bottom of the sign. Frank Beamer is the head coach of the Hokie football team and he grew up in Carroll County, where Fancy Gap is located. Just like most towns nestled in the Appalachian Mountains, Fancy Gap has some amazing views.

Do you live in a rural, suburban, or urban area?

Tell me something random from your week!

If you’ve ever had pink eye, can you remember the last time?

Last night I was back at the high school track to tack on one more repeat for my Yasso 800s I’ve been working on. I did 8 x 800m for a total of 7 miles. I stayed at last week’s goal of 4:25. This week was going to be interesting, because it was my first time doing a track workout after a long long run (long long run= over 13 miles). I don’t know why I went out so hard on the first two, but I spent the remaining 6 hanging on for dear life.

2- 4:11             6- 4:15
3- 4:22             7- 4:11
4- 4:19             8- 4:02

At certain points the wind would catch Scout’s lips and they would fly out and you could see all of her teeth, which was pretty funny. After about 2 minutes of looking out the window both dogs proceeded to do what they do best and slept the rest of the way home.

I’m not superstitious, but for unlucky week #13 of training, things went pretty well. I had a solid week of training and my long run went really well. That doesn’t mean I was running on clouds all week and my runs were without effort, because there were some tough moments during each of them. But I finished this week with a new personal distance record and a new weekly mileage record. And I’m not even that sore!

Monday- Solid 7 mile track workout, in the form of 7 x 800. I dropped my Yasso 800s goal time down to 4:25 and was able to meet my goal on each interval: 4:23/4:25/4:22/4:22/4:20/4:18/4:09. I was really happy with how this workout went, and finished feeling accomplished and strong. I love that feeling you get from a well-executed track workout. It also felt great to be outside breathing fresh air after that morning’s skunk incident.

Tuesday- Rest.

Wednesday- 7 miles with 4 at marathon pace. My legs were feeling really tired, so I used that opportunity to pretend I was in the later miles of my marathon and practice pushing through. I had a tough time hitting my 10:18/mile marathon pace goal, but I did get in some good practice mentally dealing with tired legs. My marathon pace miles came in at: 10:21, 11:01 (no idea what happened there), 10:43, 10:04.

Thursday- 7 miles at Bisset Park in Radford. I decided to move my Friday run to Thursday to give me a rest day before Saturday’s long run/10 mile race. The first mile I was feeling as rough as I did on Wednesday, but then I started feeling a lot better and ended up having a pretty good run.

Friday- Rest.

Saturday- 16 mile long run, a new personal distance record! Barry and I traveled to the Lynchburg area for the weekend and ran the Virginia 10 miler. We tacked on 6 pre-race miles for a total of 16. This was the furthest I have ever run, and probably one of the hilliest runs I have ever done (hello “hill city!”).

Total elevation gain: 2,189 feet

Overall I had a great day and a solid long run. It was much needed after last week’s less-than-solid 11 miler. I still had a smile on my face at the end, which says it all.

Holding up 6 fingers for 16 miles.

Sunday- Rest.

Total miles: 37 (new weekly mileage record)

This week’s schedule:
Monday: 7 miles
Tuesday: rest/XT
Wednesday: 7 miles w/ 4 @ MP
Thursday: rest
Friday: 7 miles
Saturday: 18 miles
Sunday: rest