This evening Barry and I headed to the trail in town for a run. I ended up with 6.21 miles at just under 10 minute pace. Not too bad since I was planning on 3 miles. Sometimes not following a training plan has its benefits. Barry ran with me for the first half of the run and then took off for the second half of his run.

It was one of those days today…. you know what I’m talking about. All of us have been there at one point or another. Half a mile into the run I was fighting a losing battle. Finally at the halfway point I saw a beautiful sight:

Thank goodness and thank you to whoever decided to install a restroom at the head of the New River Trail! After that pit stop I was good to go the rest of the time and never had any more issues. The trail was really pretty today. We’ve had a lot of rain recently and everything is super green.

I’m so happy spring is finally truly here! I also saw some fresh hoof prints from a horse (and some fresh horse turds) but I never saw the horse. Maybe next time.

Now for some random stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with running. First, this is how Hank laid with Scout this afternoon while she chewed on a toy:

I think it’s safe to say he’s just a little possessive of her? And then there this:

There are two points to this picture. One: Hank likes to have his forearms rubbed. He will walk up and place his paw in your hand to ask for a rub. Two: Hank looks like a huge dog when he sits in front of Barry while Barry is on the couch. Maybe he really is that big and we just don’t notice because we’re used to him?

What was your run/workout today?

What other types of trail users do you see besides runners/walkers?
On the state park trail I see cyclists and horseback riders in addition to runners/walkers.

I mentioned at the end of my post last week that I was getting ready to move the chicks into a larger brooder because they continue to grow, and that’s exactly what I did last Sunday evening.

We also continue to have the chicken wire on top, since they are big enough to jump out of the box now.

Here is an up close picture I took of the chicks Monday morning before I left for Virginia Beach.

I show you this picture because I couldn’t believe my eyes when I got home from my work trip on Friday. I think my chicks nearly tripled in size while I was gone!

Those two pictures were taken just 5 days apart. When they get to growing they don’t kid around. They’re so big that it works better for a picture for me to just let her sit on my hand instead of hold her in my hands.

Week 4 chick

For comparison sake, here is a picture of me holing one of the chicks at week 2:

Week 2 chick

Pretty big difference over 2 weeks time, huh? Barry did more work on the chicken coop while I was gone and we are getting close to having it ready for the chickens. Good thing, because they will soon be ready to move outside! He put latches on the nesting box door (where we will collect eggs) and on the small coop door (where chickens will enter/exit the run area):

Hank thinks he can fit inside the chicken coop through the hatch door, but I don’t think that he does….

He is probably also making plans for how he will get inside to eat the chickens when they move out here. Little does he know, he will not be able to access this door (and hopefully predators won’t, either) once we get the chicken run area finished.

So far Barry has cut the large bushes with a chainsaw, so that they will fit under the overhead covering we will put on to protect the chickens from hawks. He has also gotten all of the posts in for the run area.

Later this week, we will work on getting the chain link wrapped around the posts. We also have to put a new roof on the coop, as the current one leaks. Luckily we had a new metal roof put on our house two weeks ago, and we have leftover materials that we are going to use for the coop.

Can you believe how much the chicks have grown??

I started out my weekend by sleeping for 10 hours last night. After a week of not sleeping well in the hotel and a long drive yesterday I was a little tired. I took it easy in the morning…. drank some coffee, ate breakfast, and caught up on blogs. Finally a little after noon I decided to head out for my long run. I got changed, but when I grabbed my Garmin off the charger and woke it up, it immediately said “low battery”. Apparently I did not get it on the charger properly last night.

I put my Garmin back on the charger so that it could charge, and grabbed my Timex stopwatch.

But then I realized that the loop I was planning to run was not one I had done before. I have done one similar, with an extra out and back, but not just this loop. I wanted to know how long this loop was, so I decided to chill on the couch with Scout, watch Dance Moms from this week, and let my Garmin charge up some.

She was happy to have someone to cuddle with.

After Dance Moms, I went back and checked my Garmin…. 56% charged! That will work! So I put on my shoes and headed out the door.

I was a little worried about my run today. First of all, it was day 5 in a row for running, which is pretty much unprecedented for me. Also, the past 4 days of running had elevation profiles like this:

Elevation from Wednesday’s run

Flat and at sea level. I wasn’t sure how my legs would handle the hills, but they ended up doing surprisingly well. Here is how the elevation for today’s long run panned out:

Definitely a lot different from the beach. I started out from our house and felt pretty good. It was kind of nice to be back running at home. I thought to myself “home sweet home” as I ran. The ocean is relaxing, but I enjoy the mountain view more I think.

I tried to just run at a comfortable pace and take the hills as they came. This worked out pretty well for most of the run.

A little before mile 3, I ran past this farm that serves as a bull test station. Basically it’s a place where they keep a lot of bulls and test their count to see how well they’ll do for breeding. This whole field is full of bulls…. not a field I’d want to go in.

When I hit mile 4 my legs started to get pretty tired, but I knew it was only a little over a mile back to the house. I snapped this picture after I made it up the long climb from mile 3 to 4. Then I hung a right turn and continued to climb some more.

In the last mile of my run, I passed this one farm that always makes me laugh. In this one field they keep 3 horses, a bull, and a goat.

Sometimes when I drive by all 5 animals will be eating hay at the feeder at the same time. The bull and 3 horses stand around the feeder to eat and the goat will actually stand on top of the hay so that he can get some, too. It cracks me up every time I see them like this, but of course they’re always just spread out in the field when I’m running by.

I finished up my run with just a little over 5 miles for the day at 9:56 pace. Not too bad in my book, considering it was day 5 in a row for running and it was a lot hillier than all of my other runs this week. I think it’s kind of funny how I think of today’s run as a “long run” even though I ran further on Thursday this week. I guess since it’s a run that took place on the weekend, but wasn’t actually a race, it’s automatically a long run.

Garmin users: What do you do when you’re ready to head out for a run but your Garmin flashes the dreaded “low battery” on the screen?

Do you consider weekend runs “long runs”, even when they’re not all that long?

Anyone else watch Dance Moms??

This morning I hit the boardwalk for one last run before it’s time to head home. I only had time for a quick 2 mile run, since I was a little slow getting out of bed this morning. It was really pretty out today… clear skies and 47 degrees.

I forgot to mention yesterday, but I wussed out and did not challenge the sign at the boardwalk like I said I was going to do in Wednesday’s post. I’m just too much of a rule follower. Where did the rebel side of me go???

Even though the concrete is making my shins sore and my calves tight, I ran where that silly sign said to run.

Now it’s time for me to make my way back to the mountains. It’s been fun, old friend.


View from my balcony on the sixth floor.

I think it’s cool how the sky in this picture kind of matches the sky on the background of my blog.

How do you keep yourself entertained on a long car trip?

Do your legs get sore when you switch from pavement to concrete/trails to pavement?

Are you a rule follower or a rebel?

After we finished up in our meeting today, I headed out for a run. I ended up running 6 miles at 10:05 pace. My legs are feeling good and already feel like they are recovered from Blue Ridge. I think it helps that it is so flat here, not to mention the weather was really nice this afternoon. It was in the upper 50’s and breezy… pretty much perfect for running.

For some reason I had this idea in my head that the boardwalk was 6 miles long. I had already been to one end, and it was roughly 1.2 miles from my hotel. So I thought by heading in the other direction today, I would still be on the boardwalk when I hit my turn around. Well it turns out that the boardwalk is only 3 miles long and ends at 40th street. It surprised me to get to the end after only 1.8 miles or so of running. But I just continued on by cutting over to Atlantic Ave. for a bit, where it becomes closer to a 4 lane highway than a beachfront road (the part going out towards Fort Story). This was not very fun with all the cars zooming by, but then I found a little road called Ocean Front Avenue.

I didn’t mean for the sun to be like this and I’m not sure if it’s poor photography or a neat shot.

This road was very peaceful to run along. On my way out the beach was to my right, past the ocean front houses, and on my left there was a fair amount of distance to the busy Atlantic Avenue.



There were some beautiful and impressive houses along this road as well. Most of them looked more like actual residences than beach rentals. There were a few “for sale” signs. I can only imagine how much those cost.

I made my way back to the boardwalk and continued running past our hotel. I had plans to meet up with some coworkers at a place called Chix for happy hour and dinner. I rolled in just in time to catch the tail end of happy hour and had some delicious shrimp tacos with mango salsa and cabbage.

Yum. I’ve never met a shrimp taco I didn’t like.

After dinner we walked the 13 or so blocks back up to the hotel and then got some fro-yo. It was inevitable that I would get fro-yo at some point this week, because there was a Sweet Frog in the bottom of our hotel.

There is also a candy store across the street from our hotel (that I have yet to visit). Beach, bug free, fro-yo, candy store…. yep, pretty much the perfect hotel. Except for the fire alarm we had earlier today. They said it was a false alarm, but made everyone go outside while the fire department checked it out. It wasn’t too big of a deal… we hung out on the boardwalk for about 10 minutes and then were allowed back inside. The firemen were finishing up their check of the fitness room/indoor pool area when we came back in.

Tomorrow is my final day here. Our meeting is supposed to wrap up around noon, and then I will make the 6 hour drive back home. The beach has been nice, but I’m definitely ready to get back home. I haven’t slept well all week, with the jet planes that fly over and the way the doors rattle from the wind. Plus I miss Barry and my puppy dogs 🙂

How long does it typically take you to recover from a race?

Do you like shrimp tacos? What is your favorite seafood dish?

Have you ever gotten fro-yo before? What types of toppings do you like to get?