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.

**I commited a blog fail today by neglecting to actually get a picture of myself to document my race… you will have to make do with my other pictures :)**

This morning started with a wake up call shortly after 5:00 AM. I ate a piece of toast with peanut butter just to wake up my stomach, we took care of the dogs, and were on the road to make the hour and 15 minute drive to Roanoke a little after 6. I intended to eat a Power Bar (my typical pre-race/pre-long run breakfast) on the way up to Roanoke but I completely forgot. That led to me feeling very empty and hungry during the race.

The race had race day packet pickup from 6:30 to 7:30, prior to an 8 AM race start. It was nice not to have to make a trip up to Roanoke on Friday just to get our bibs. We parked in the race-designated parking garage, which was right next to the start/finish line and packet pick up. There was no wait to get our packets so we easily got those, made a quick porta potty trip, and then went back to the car to pin on our bibs and drop off our packets (which included a unisex-sized technical race shirt).

Once we were ready to go we headed back over to the start/finish line with about 15 minutes to go before the start. We made another porta potty trip (only 3 people in line… if you can call that a line), and lined up at the start. The race ended up starting about 20 minutes late. I may or may not have made a joke about that being typical for Appalachian Power, who is our electricity provider and has a reputation for not getting the power back on when they say they’re going to.

The race was an out and back course that was described as “flat and fast”. And it mostly was, except for the two bridges we ran over in the first and last mile. Guess they forgot about those when they wrote the description? We started with running a half mile through the downtown area (and over the two bridges) and then turned onto the greenway, where the majority of the race took place. There was also a 5K that started at the same time. The two races ran the first half mile together and then the 5K’ers went left on the greenway while the 10K’ers turned right. Here is the elevation profile, according to my Garmin.

Not exactly my definition of flat and fast, but I’m also not complaining. I didn’t exactly expect to run a flat course in Roanoke.

I felt pretty good for the first 3 miles (including my calves and Achilles!!) and got into a rhythym behind a lady who was running a steady pace. Miles 1-3 clocked in at 9:20, 9:21, and 9:16. A little before mile 3 I saw Barry speeding by on his way in and we high fived. Shortly after mile 3 we reached the turnaround point. I was surprised that there was no timing mat, since the race was chip timed, especially for an out and back course. Unfortunately I did witness one cheater and I guess that’s on her concience but I hate to see it.

Roanoke Greenway

Once I passsed the turn around I tried to pick it up on the way back, but I started to falter. There was a bit of a head wind on the way back and my legs started feeling really fatigued. I just took it one mile at a time and finally we were making the turn off of the greenway to go back through downtown (back over the two bridges) and to the finish line. Miles 4-6 clocked in at 9:18, 9:35, and 9:25. Positive splits… oops.

I saw Barry as I came down the final hill and he cheered me on as I made the turn for the final 0.2 miles to the finish. As per usual, I developed my tunnel vision and focused on the finish line arch. After I crossed the finish line I immediately had to clamp my hand over my mouth to keep from embarassing myself. That’s right. Apparently I ran hard enough to induce potential retching at the finish line. This has only ever happened to me one other time at a Thanksgiving 5K two years ago. As soon as I walked out of the finish chute area, I assumed the hands on knees position and proceeded to fight my body while making lovely “throwing up” noises. This happened 5 or 6 times and I speed walked over to a grassy area to get some privacy, but luckily I kept the water in my stomach where it was and did not actually throw up. Crisis averted. Barry thinks I nearly got sick at the finish from forgetting to eat my Power Bar on our way to Roanoke.

I finished in 57:27, a six second PR from my last 10K in March. I also placed 6th in my age group out of 16. Barry ran a great race, finishing in 43:52 and placed third in his age group.

The race was part of a festival called the Appalachian Power Festival (duh) so there were a bunch of craft and food vendors. We walked around after the awards ceremony and looked at each of the booths, but didn’t buy anything. That’s really saying something especially since there was a fruit smoothie vendor and a craft vendor selling homemade Hokie stuff. Call it self control or call it only having $5 on me… which was not enough to purchase any of the above mentioned items.

Overall it was a great day for a race. The weather was almost ideal for running with temperatures in the mid-50’s with a light amount of wind. It got a little warm running, but there were shady stretches on the greenway, which runs along the Roanoke River.  I chose to carry my handheld water bottle today, as I have gotten really used to having access to water whenever I want it versus only at water stops. I’ve also found that I can drink a lot easier without breaking stride from my waterbottle than I can when I am grabbing a cup of water.

Speaking of water stops, the race had at least 3 as far as I can remember. The water stops were pretty much the only places where there were people cheering the runners on. The only other spot I saw spectators was at the start/finish line. It was a smaller race, though, with 212 participants in the 10K and 228 in the 5K. With the race being an out and back you got to see lots of runners on the greenway and we cheered each other on as we passed.

After doing two 10K races I’m not sure how I feel about the distance. I’m not in love with it, but I also had a pretty good time today (except when I was hating life during miles 4-5). I’ve got a half marathon coming up and then I’m planning to hop into a couple of 5K’s before I start marathon training.

Does it bother you when a race starts late?
Not really, but today was the latest a race I’ve participated in has started.
What style of race course do you prefer: out and back, point to point, or loop?

Do you prefer smaller or larger races?
Smaller.
For those who have run a 10K before, how do you feel about the distance?