This morning I met up with my running buddy, Kim, for a long run on the Dora and New River Trails. We did 6 miles and I really struggled today. I think a big part of that was that I did speedwork last night, and I’ve never done speedwork the night before a long run. I guess it’s good to learn to run on tired legs before my first full marathon this November. Fortunately, but unfortunately, Kim was also having a rough day. Fortunately because that means I wasn’t slowing us down. Unfortunately because it’s no fun that she was also having a tough time today. Either way we got it done.

My car, whom I call “Hey Car”, claimed it was 60 degrees at the start of our run. It felt much warmer than this, most likely because of the humidity. At the end of our run it had already warmed up to 79 degrees! Hot hot hot.

Shortly after I got cleaned up from my long run and had some breakfast, I headed up to Blacksburg to visit my best friend, Laura, who was in town visiting for the weekend. It was great to see her!

Funny story about the matching sunglasses: I bought mine yesterday on a whim while I was out shopping. She bought hers 5 days ago. Neither of us knew the other one had a pair until we saw each other today. That’s the norm for us. I like them because I feel like a state trooper while wearing them 🙂

Our friend Jackie was also down visiting for the weekend. We decided she needed to get a pair of aviator sunglasses, too, so we hit up Wal-Mart after having lunch at Macado’s. Here is our “Top Gun” pose:

Say hello to Goose, Maverick, and Ice Man! Once the picture-taking shenanigans were over we hung out for a bit, watched the movie “No Strings Attached” (which by the way is a very funny and cute movie in my opinion), and then headed downtown for some drinks.

We hung out at a bar called Hokie House with a bunch of other friends for a few hours and then I hit the road for home, about 20 minutes past my bedtime. It was a great day with old friends, though, and I’m so glad I got to visit with them all day!

If you ran or worked out today, how did it go?

Have you ever seen the movie “No Strings Attached”?

Do you keep in touch with college friends? How often do you get to see “old” friends?

Did anyone see the one million dollar winner on Wheel of Fortune last night?? I randomly turned on the TV just in time to see the end of the show. The girl solved the final puzzle “Tough Workout” and won!

She had “T_ _ G _     _ _ R _ _ _ T” to work with. During the celebration Pat said “how did you solve that puzzle?” she said “I dunno… cause I workout!”. See… workout and you can win $1,000,000!

Tonight I headed back to the track, only it was a different track than my usual spot. As I rolled down the road to the high school I hit traffic and then as I topped the hill it clicked: graduation. I’m pretty sure at least a few people would be upset if I ran repeats on the track while they held graduation on the football field, so I headed over to the nearby middle school track instead.

This was the strangest track I have ever run on. The straight aways were all of 50 meters and the curves were around 150 meters. I felt like I was turning the whole time, because I pretty much was. I did a total of 6 miles, with 4 x 800 and then 4 x 400. Here’s the breakdown:

800’s: 4:06 / 4:15 / 4:05 / 4:09
400’s: 1:49 / 1:54 / 1:55 / 1:52

As you can see, I continue to have a problem with going out too fast on the first one for both sets. I think I’ll get better about this as I get more comfortable with the speedwork. Right now I go out on the first one freaking out about hitting the goal time, and then spend the rest of the repeats just hanging on for dear life.

One nice thing about this track is it that 3/5th of it was shaded. The sun started dipping behind the trees about midway through my run and even though it was still 75 degrees outside it didn’t feel that bad. I am still getting over my cold, but definitely feeling better than I did earlier in the week.

Do you watch Wheel of Fortune and/or Jeopardy? Did you see the $1,000,000 winner yesterday?

What do you think: would they really have minded if I ran repeats on track during graduation?? 🙂

If you do speedwork are you good about running even splits?

Sorry for the silence over the past 2 days, I’ve been sick and I have not been running. My plan for this week was to do a track workout Tuesday and then do low key runs Wednesday and Thursday. But then I woke up with a bad sore throat Tuesday morning. When I got home from work that evening I was feeling awful and chose not to run. Wednesday morning I woke up feeling even worse and stayed home sick from work and also did not run. I have been catching a lot of colds lately- at least one per month for the past 3 months. I don’t know what’s up with that.

Today I’m feeling a bit better, so I went back to being a productive member of society (and by that I mean I went to work). After work I headed out for an easy 3 mile run. I actually debated whether or not to hit the track, since I hadn’t run since Saturday’s race (oh my gosh!). But a mile into my run I knew I had made the right decision. My legs felt fine, but my body was already out of energy. Not to mention I was not enjoying the pounding headache / 85 degree heat combination. It was hot enough that the cows, who happen to live across the road from the fainting goats, decided to hang with the ducks in the pond today.

Are you dealing with hot and humid weather this week?

Were you a productive member of society today?

Do you ever cool off in a pond like the cows were doing today?

Yesterday Barry and I spent the majority of the day outside working on the chicken coop and chicken run area. You will have to wait until next week for the specifics, but I have decided that activities involving digging in the ground with a shovel fall into the cross training category. It may be a bit unconventional, but judging by my full body soreness this morning I know I got a good workout. After a hard day of work we enjoyed a Memorial Day barbecue just the two of us on the deck. It was a nice, cool evening and there weren’t any bugs out.

I had the day off of work today, but Barry had to work, so I spent the day doing some stuff around the house. Look at what I found when I went to water my hanging flower baskets this morning

click to see larger

One of the eggs has hatched! The baby bird is so tiny and fragile-looking right now. I skipped watering that basket because I don’t want to hurt him and the flowers seem to be doing fine. Then I did a bit more unconventional cross training in the form of giving all 3 dogs baths. Definitely not a cardio workout, but it’s got to be some kind of strength training on my back.

I spent the afternoon finishing the trim on the windows that my Dad helped us install last Thanksgiving. I had to wait until now to let the pressure treated wood dry out. Here is the before:

And here is the after:

I think I will put one more coat of paint on tomorrow or later this week and then the front 4 will be done. That will leave two other side windows, which my Dad helped us install in April, that need the outside trim painted, and then they will all be finished! The house has nine windows total on the main level, but the previous owners had already done three before we bought the house. So that left us with six to finish the project. The end is in sight.

Once Barry got home from work this evening we took the dogs on a walk at a local park. One last hurrah for Memorial Day weekend. It’s another gorgeous day outside and the dogs really enjoyed themselves.

Sorry for the blurriness

I hope everyone is having a great Memorial Day weekend!

Do you ever do “unconventional cross training”?

What did you do for Memorial Day weekend?

Do you have any Memorial Day weekend traditions?

Last weekend we got around to installing the hog wire along the bottom of the chicken coop and burying it in the ground. This doesn’t have much to do with the chickens and more to do with the fact that our puppy, Scout, liked to go under the coop. It will keep both Hank and Scout, our digger dogs, out from under the building.

On Friday we tried something new with the chickens. I read that that they really like table scraps and that most foods are safe for them. There are some big no no’s like avocados and uncooked beans. I found a good article HERE about what is okay and what is not okay to feed them. You shouldn’t feed them certain foods because it will cause an off flavor in the eggs, but other foods are actually toxic. That being said, I had a bunch of scraps from cutting up fruit that we decided to give them.

I gave them flesh and seeds from cantaloupe, flesh/seeds from honey dew, some bits of apple, and tops of strawberries. At first they were a little skeptical about the new food.

But once one brave soul discovered there was some good stuff in the bowl everyone had to get in on the action. The fruit was a hit!

Also on Friday (as well as other days during the week) they had some outside time in the chicken run. It was really windy on Friday which made things kind of funny. Every time there was a big gust of wind all of the chickens would run back into the coop. Then they would slowly come back out again. This happened over and over.

Once we get the chicken wire covering put on the top of the chicken run (to protect from hawks, coons, etc.) and the chicken wire attached to the fence and buried in the ground (to protect from the dogs), the chickens will have free access to the run area during the day. It’ll be fun to look out the kitchen window and watch them running around out there. The weather is nice today and the wind has finally died down, so I’m hoping to put the finishing touch on the chicken run today.