So this happened on Sunday:

If you’re not sure what type of animal typically lives in this type of set up, it’s one of these:

That’s right. Barry brought that little booger home from work with him on Sunday evening. But let me back up a bit.

On Thursday afternoon I received a text from Barry asking if I minded if he brought a calf home from work (he works on a dairy farm). Long story short, a cow calved that wasn’t supposed to be pregnant, and they don’t keep the calves from that particular group of cows. So it’s finders, keepers on the farm and Barry found her. He said he wanted to bring her home and wanted to know if that was okay. My reply: “Seriously? Where are we going to keep a calf!? I’m all for it, though. 🙂 ”

So he said he would figure things out. She was born last Thursday, but was roughly 1 1/2 months early. Barry waited a few days to make sure she was going to live, and then brought her home on Sunday when she was three days old.

She’s a tiny little thing, and only weighs in around 35 pounds.

We let her walk around the backyard for a bit and gave her a bottle because she was hungry. Like all calves, she’s on a milk diet right now. Barry has plans for her to be bottle-fed three times per day.

Once she had a full belly on Sunday evening, we got her settled into her new digs. She seemed to be a fan of her new neighbors (the chickens) and her new hutch.

Once she was settled, we let Hank and Scout into the backyard to meet the new resident. Hank spent his puppy years on the dairy farm and is very used to cows and calves. He’s excited about the new calf, but it’s nothing new to him. Scout, on the other hand, is not as experienced with cows or calves. She’s been around them a bit, but every time the calf moved Scout would hide behind Barry or me.

So what’s the plan? I’m not sure. Initially we thought we would just raise her for meat, which means I made a conscious decision not to name her. But the second I saw her in our driveway, the name Annabelle popped into my head. So now there’s that.

Barry mentioned raising her and then breeding her and having more calves. I guess we will just play it by ear and see where we end up!

Have you ever raised or bottle-fed a calf?
What’s the strangest animal you’ve ever seen someone keep either in their yard or as a pet? My roommate in college had a pet hedgehog, which was definitely not the norm but was really cool!

I’ve got another update for you on how our injured chicken, Lady, is doing. She hurt her left leg back at the end of July and had to be removed from the flock. Initially she couldn’t walk at all and the other chickens were attacking her. We put her in a dog crate with food and water in the garage, and later moved that crate to the chicken coop. Chickens do better when they’re in a group. Even though she has to be separate for her own safety, we still wanted Lady to be around the other chickens.

When I last did an update, Lady was starting to put some weight back on and was able to walk a bit in the yard. However, it was more like stumbling and she would often step on her own feet (as if she couldn’t feel her left leg). Since then she has had a lot of improvement. She is back to a healthy weight and can now walk normally in the yard. We continue to let her out nearly every day so that she can get some exercise and build some strength.

In fact, she has been getting around so well that she found her way into our garage one evening! I went out to get her after she had spent some time in the yard exercising. As soon as I stepped into the garage, I could hear her somewhere in there. I found her behind the bikes, and she proceeded to walk around like she owned the place.

Since I lasted posted about Lady, we have also put a roosting pole in her crate so she can practice getting up on one and balancing on it. Currently, she won’t get up there on her own. But when we put her up there she has no problem staying on it and will often sleep there.

She looks like she’s posing for me in the above picture, but really she was yelling at me for taking her picture at night. I guess it was kind of rude of me to take pictures of her as she was nodding off to sleep.

The other great news is that she has started laying eggs again! Typically, she is laying an egg about every other day. When she first hurt her leg, she went about a month without laying an egg. This shows that she is definitely on the mend, since she is able to handle producing eggs again.

The last hurdles we have are getting her to where she will get up on the regular roosting poles and reintroducing her into the flock. The roosting poles in the coop are pretty high in the air, because this is what the chickens prefer (it makes them feel safe at night). We need to make sure she is strong enough to get up to the roosting poles, and down, without hurting herself.

As far as reintroducing her to the flock, it’s going to be tricky. The best strategy looks to be spraying all of the chickens with vinegar water, including Lady, and placing her on the roosting poles at night with them (it will have to be a warm night so I don’t freeze them!). The vinegar water will help mask individual smells, so they can’t tell one chicken from the other as well. They are also more accepting/calmer at night, so there is a better chance of them allowing her to assimilate back into the group. I’ll let you know how that goes.

This week was peak week of training!! Let me tell you – peak week is a bad time to be on week 3 of a never-ending cold. But that’s exactly what I was going through all week. Y’all are probably wondering why I hadn’t gone to the doctor, after being sick for so long. Even though I’d been pretty miserable at times, none of my symptoms seem like anything other than a nasty, common cold. At the end of the week I found out otherwise.

Monday- Rest day. I was supposed to do an easy 7 miler, but I was feeling awful. After suffering through 5 hours of work I threw in the towel, went home, and slept on and off the rest of the day. This would have been a good time to visit the doctor….

Tuesday- I was feeling better from Monday and ready to get back at it, aside from a throbbing headache. I planned to do 2 x 3 miles with a 1 mile recovery for 10 miles total and that’s what I did. However, I had not planned on doing this workout on the treadmill. I ended up working late and was forced to run with Sven, though, since I had my fill of running alone in the dark during Ragnar.

My goal for the 3 mile repeats was 30:24 and I split 30:29 on the first one (figuring out what speed to set the treadmill) and 30:24 on the second (got things figured out). Aside from my pounding headache, everything else felt good. Although I was surprised to find a bloody toe when I took off my running shoes after my run. Turns out I didn’t quite cut one of my toenails right on Sunday afternoon and there was a sharp edge. Oops.

Wednesday- Rest day. I was going to make up my Monday run, and just make Monday my one rest day for the week. But my cold was still hanging on, and I had a cough and pounding headache all day. So when I got home from work I decided to just take the rest day as scheduled and just let Monday be a lost day of training.

Let it go and move on. The goal was to complete my Thursday tempo run and my 16 mile long run on Sunday.

Thursday- 10 mile run, with 8 miles at tempo (marathon pace). I probably shouldn’t have done this run, but I didn’t want to miss it. I was still feeling pretty bad, and was coughing more than ever. This run felt so tough. My chest was very tight during the run, and I often couldn’t catch my breath due to the coughing. At times it felt like I was trying to breathe through a straw.

So probably not smart that I ran anyway, but I was hopeful that this cold that had lasted for three weeks must be on its way out. Even though running felt tough, I still managed to average 10:14/mile for my tempo miles (my goal pace is 10:18/mile). I really hope I’m not sick come marathon morning!

Friday- 6 mile easy run on the treadmill. I still wasn’t feeling better, I still ran. My cough was a lot better from Thursday, but in it’s place came an incredibly stuffy nose and aches all over. No fun.

Saturday- To my dismay, I found that I was still sick when I woke up. I took it easy in the morning and even surfed WebMD (always dangerous). It turns out when you have a cold for longer than 10 days it typically means you have a sinus infection. It’s recommended that you go to the doctor and get antibiotics. That probably would have been a good thing to figure out on Monday…

I had myself convinced that if I rested all day Saturday, and skipped my easy 6 miler, I would totally be able to gut it out for 16 miles on Sunday. Clearly I had moved out of Virginia and into the state of Delusion.

Sunday- This was supposed to be my third 16 miler (the Hansons version of a 20 miler during marathon training). ICYMI: My first 16 miler was awesome, and I missed the second due to right shin pain.

I’m probably surprising no one when I tell you that I did not run yesterday. Instead, I was up at 4:30 AM because I was just too uncomfortable to sleep anymore. I let Kim know that I wouldn’t be able to join her. She suggested I go to the urgent care. For some reason that hadn’t dawned on me! I was thinking my only option was to wait until the work week, and figure out how to squeeze a doctor visit into a very busy week.

Instead, I was able to go to the doctor late Sunday morning and guess what – I have sinusitis. Again, probably surprising no one but myself at this point. They prescribed some antibiotics and I should be feeling better in a few days. Had I gone to the doctor on Monday I may not have missed this key final long run in training. Lesson learned. Also fyi- be careful if you ever decide to be stupid like me and run through an untreated sinus infection. I was working my way down a dangerous path that ultimately would lead to pneumonia.

Total Miles: 26 miles
September Total: 156.08 miles

As a runner, I have a lot of strange habits and odd things I do. Some of it is probably just inherent to running itself, while others are most likely a product of my personality.

1. I like running all of my runs with my Garmin so that I can see how far I ran down to the hundredth of a mile. When it comes to the distance of my run, I always have to finish at the even mile or a little after it. But I can never stop my run if I am nearing the end of a mile.

2. If there’s a stop sign, mile post, etc. at my turnaround point during my run I have to hit it as a I loop around

3. I always put my left sock on first when I’m putting on my running socks. But with other socks it doesn’t matter and I alternate. It also doesn’t matter with my shoes (running, or otherwise), just my running socks.

4. When I’m training for a race and following a specific training plan I like to print out the plan so I can cross off the days. I also designate a pen to be used for the crossing off, and I wont use it for any other purpose during training.

5. Whenever I see a porta potty it makes me happy. I don’t even have to be running at the time

What quirks do you have related to exercise? One of Barry’s quirks is that he almost always showers before a run or a race.

 

Let me start by saying OMG it’s the first day of October!! You know what that means people. Marathon month is here!!

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I wasn’t sure if I would be running this race, after missing nearly an entire week of training the week before it. But things started to look up at the end of the weekend before this race and I was hopeful I may be able to participate. I don’t know what it is about the Virginia 10 Miler, but as soon as I crossed the finish line last year I knew I wanted to run it again.

Last year we stayed at a nearby campground for the weekend, but this year Barry and I chose to drive to and from the race. It’s a little over 2 hours each way, which meant we had to be out the door by 4:45 AM. I decided to give a new pre-race breakfast a try, as this was a good chance to practice for the Marine Corps Marathon since I’ll also have to leave really early for that race. I had a pancake with peanut butter about 4 hours prior to the 8 AM race start and then ate half of a Honey Stinger waffle about 45 minutes before the start. It worked well and I think that will be my game plan for MCM!

We arrived at the race about an hour prior to the start. I hopped out of the car and picked up Barry’s and my packets while he found somewhere to park. The high school lot was already full, but he was able to park in an adjacent shopping center. I met him back at the car where we pinned our bibs on, dropped the race bag off at the car, and headed back over to the start. They have ample porta potties at this race, so it was easy to make a quick stop there on our way to the start.

This race has a 10 mile run, 4 mile run, and 4 mile walk and all three are unlimited. All three races also start together at the same time, so it’s very crowded! We listened to announcements and to the introductions of the elites (although we couldn’t see anything). Then there was the singing of the National Anthem, and then we were off at 8:00 on the dot!

The first mile and a half of the race course is all downhill, so I just let gravity carry me. I was aiming to use this race as a long run, which means my target pace was 11:05/mile. I wasn’t sure I would be able to meet that goal with the hills, but I was going to put in a good effort for the day. My first mile was sub-10, but I knew it would average out once we hit the hills. Plus it felt good to just let it roll!

After the first mile and a half we veered onto another street and were faced with our first tough climb of the day. Lynchburg is often referred to as “The Hill City” and for good reason. Not only is it hilly, but they are big, big hills! There are big rolling hills along most of the course, and just before mile 5 there is a short but very steep hill in the park. That one was especially tough!

Despite the hills, I continued to have mile splits below 11 minute pace. Most of my splits ranged from 10:20/mile to 10:50/mile. I definitely surprised myself! Barry kept asking me if we were running too fast, and I kept telling him yes, but that I was sure we would be slowed on the hills and it would all average out.

The race course is what I refer to as a “lollipop” course in that it’s an out and back with a small loop at the top before you head back. We headed out on the roads, did a small loop around a park (and up that dreaded hill!), and then head back the way we came.

One of the really neat things about this race is that is also serves as the RRCA National 10 Mile Championship, so there’s a lot of great runners. Since the race course is laid out the way it is, you get to see many of the elites on their way back while you’re still on your way out. It’s a lot of fun to cheer for them, and it always amazes me the way they run. There were several men under 5 minute pace for the 10 mile this year. So fast!

My right leg felt great the whole way, and I didn’t have any lower leg or shin pain during the race. During the last few miles of the race my calves and quads got really sore and tired, though. I knew I was definitely working hard on those hills!

Barry ended up running the entire race with me, which was a lot of fun. He had just gotten over a bad cold he had all week, so he decided to take it easy. It’s been awhile since we actually ran together and I really enjoyed it. I sometimes have a strange type of humor during races, and it’s often lost on the strangers around me who don’t understand my dry humor. Barry gets it, though, and he makes jokes back at me. 🙂

This race always has a lot of great spectator support as well. It’s not enough to overwhelm you – there are still a few quiet places along the course, which is nice. But there are plenty of spectators and volunteers who are all very excited to be out there. This one girl in particular had a sign that said “keep going” and she was interacting with all of the runners and jumping up and down and cheering everyone on. When we saw her on our way back she was just as enthusiastic and the sign was all crumpled from so much cheering. She yelled to Barry and me “you’re running so fast, I can’t even see you!” which was funny since we were running uphill 🙂 I saw this great sign, too:

Finally, we reached the final 1.5 miles of the race. Which was good because I was getting pretty tired at this point. If you’ll remember, the race course is out and back and the first 1.5 miles were downhill. That means if you want to get to the finish, you have to climb back up what they call “farm basket hill.” The first part of the hill is rather steep, and much to Barry’s dismay, I took a short walk break. I was really proud of myself for not taking one up to that point, though. Then I ran the entire final mile uphill and back to that darn finish line.

I chose to go with the classic “looking down at my watch” finish line pose rather than the “arms raised in victory” one.

Like last year, Katherine Switzer and Roger Robinson were at the race. We learned at the awards ceremony last year about Katherine Switzer’s ties to Lynchburg. This year she was at the finish line announcing names and she announced my name as I crossed the line! We’re basically old friends, now.

I finished in 1:47:29, for a 10:45/mile average. I really surprised myself by actually running too fast, as I thought it would be a struggle to maintain my long run pace on this course. Especially so since I jumped head first back into training last week, and didn’t rest at all for this race. I beat last year’s time by about 7 minutes (although I did run 6 miles prior to last year’s race to turn it into a 16 mile long run).

After the race, Barry and I hung out for a bit and had some post race food (standard fare- bagels, fruit, cookies, pizza, and Gatorade and water). Then we hit the road to make the two hour trip home.

Overall I had a great time at this race. We had perfect fall weather (mid-50’s by the finish) and it never felt too warm. The Virginia 10 Miler continues to be one of my favorite races and I will definitely be back to run it again sometime! The hills are challenging, but the race course is beautiful and they do such a great job in putting on this race, which is now in its 41st year.

Who else raced this past weekend?
Do you ever include other races as “training runs” when training for a goal race?
What kind of race do you prefer: out and back, point to point, or loop?