This past weekend we headed up to the central part of Virginia to attend the first Saturday night summer rodeo of the season. The horse farm where my best friend rides plays host to the rodeo on the second Saturday of every month, from May through September. We always like to try to make it out to a few each year.

The main event at the rodeo is the bull riding. But they also have mutton busting and barrel racing. If you’re not familiar with rodeo, here is how the announcer described mutton busting this past weekend: “during the intermission, we will strap our children to livestock purely for our entertainment!” So there you go, it’s kids riding sheep and it’s hilarious. Barrel racing is women racing on horses around barrels in a clover leaf pattern, fastest time wins. But we go to the rodeo for the bull riding.

The rules of bull riding are fairly simple: stay on the bull for 8 seconds, hang on with one hand and keep your free hand in the air (no touching the bull with that hand). Oh, and run like hell the second he bucks you off, because he’s coming for you.

Cowboys receive a score up to 100 points for an 8 second ride. At this rodeo, two judges each have 50 points to award. The points are combined to give a final ride score, and the score is based on how the bull performed (how high did he kick, how did he spin) and how the cowboy controlled the bull (by sitting in the center of the bull, using his spurs to control the bull, etc.).

This rodeo has an initial round where all the riders go once, and then they hold a short round for the top six scorers. If you don’t have at least six cowboys score (meaning they stayed on at least 8 seconds), then the top six are determined by who stayed on the longest. But before things get started, they introduce all of the cowboys, say a prayer, and sing the National Anthem.

When Barry and I first got there, we wandered around a bit before deciding to sit in the stands. This was the first time I had sat in the stands, since we usually sit over in the VIP area where you can stand right up against the fence. We had a nice view, although it wasn’t a great spot for pictures.

The rodeo has a mix of professionals and amateurs (there was one boy, and a few cowboys in their teens).This year there were only two cowboys that had a successful ride during the first round. So they pulled another four who had the next longest rides for the short round.

During the intermission they had the previously mentioned mutton busting and barrel racing. As that was going on, Barry and I made our way over to the VIP area and met up with my best friend, who had gotten there about three-fourths of the way through the first round. We had a much better (i.e. closer) view from this side. Although, you have to make sure you’re always paying attention, because the bulls will occasionally go after anyone standing along the fence.

It’s really hard to get decent pictures once the sun goes down and the arena lights come on, but I tried. It also started raining steadily during the short round. I wasn’t worried about my camera, since it’s waterproof, but it added to the challenge of getting a good photo. The white blur in the center of the below photo is a bull with a cowboy on his back. Case in point.

Despite the rain, we had a great time. I meant to get a picture with Barry and with Laura, but I failed. Next time! We stayed at a campground for the weekend, and the dogs held down the fort there while we were at the rodeo.

On Sunday afternoon, we hit the road to head home. Hank entertained me on the way home by finding a position in the backseat of the truck that made him look as big as possible.

He succeeded. He even slept that way for a while, with his chin on the top of the head rest. Scout and Hank both have strange ways of sleeping in the truck when we travel, but they seem to think it’s comfortable.

Overall, it was a good weekend that flew by too fast, as fun weekends often do. Hopefully we will get back up to Oakland Heights for another rodeo later this season. We are also planning on checking out the rodeo at the New River Valley Fair again this summer.

Have you ever been to a rodeo? Would you ever ride a bull?
If you have pets, do they travel well?

Thank you for all of Hank’s birthday wishes yesterday! I promise I passed each one of them along to him. He loves when I talk to him, so there was a lot of tail wagging. Hank enjoyed an evening game of birthday fetch in the backyard, and then he and Scout got to have puppy ice creams on the back deck. Pretty rad birthday if I do say so myself.

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This past week was on the lighter side, mileage-wise. But I guess it’s a good idea to back off a bit after having two challenging races on back-to-back weekends. This week I am three weeks out from the Conquer the Cove 25K trail race. If all goes as planned, I will do two of my weekday runs on trails, and do a longer trail run on Saturday morning.

Monday- Rest day. This was a planned rest day, after racing on Saturday and running with Kim on Sunday. Then I also worked until 8 PM, so it was a definite rest day.

Tuesday- 5 mile treadmill run. Sven (the treadmill, if you’re new around here) and I got in a fight because he would not stop making a squeaking noise. Barry and I could not locate the noise, so Sven is in the doghouse until further notice.

Wednesday- Rest day.

Thursday- 3 mile run on the roads around our house. I didn’t feel all that great on this run. It was in the mid-80’s outside and I think the heat kind of zapped my energy.

Friday- 8 mile long run on trails at Pandaps Pond. I decided to get my long run in before the weekend, since we had weekend travel plans. It worked out well, since I had a short workday, although it was very hot since I was running mid-afternoon.

Saturday- Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred, level 1 workout. I snuck this workout in when I got up in the morning, before we hit the road for the rodeo. The dogs were very tired from watching me work out, and had to sleep the whole way to the campground.

They have odd ways of sleeping in the truck…

Sunday- Rest.

Total Miles: 16 miles

My weekly workout round up is coming tomorrow, because I have something more important for today.

Today Hank turns 4 years old! I cannot believe we have had him that long. We got him on July 4, 2010 when he was just a 7 week old puppy. He was 19 pounds, which is actually kind of big in general for a puppy, but was tiny compared to the 125 pounds of dog he is today. (Barry had no idea how big he was going to get, but I knew 🙂 )

Hank had a big third year. He went camping approximately seven times, where he did basically the same thing each time.

He also got skunked…. twice.

Hank experienced his first loss, when we had to say goodbye to Toby. Toby was Hank’s first buddy.

He helped raise chicks, keeping a close eye on them in their brooding box in the garage and helping to build their coop.

Once they moved outside, he plotted how to get up close and personal with them again. He finally got into the chicken coop. Luckily no chickens were harmed.

Hank found a buddy (Nana) to hang out with on the couch at Thanksgiving.

He also demonstrated his ability to scratch his chin like a cow. He’s pretty sure he actually is a cow and not a dog.

Hank encouraged me while I did sit up’s and other various ab/core moves by standing over me and breathing heavily. When he wasn’t enthusiastically standing over me, he was sleeping because apparently watching someone else work out is really tough.

Hank played in the snow numerous times. Our first snow was mid-October 2013 and the last snow of this winter was mid-April 2014.

He visited Santa Clause for the third time.

He attempted to reassert himself as the dominant dog in the house, but Scout held on to that role.

Hank rode around in the truck, one of his most favorite things to do. He also went on walks in the woods, another one of this favorite things.

He committed murder of a duck, but luckily they don’t put dogs in jail for killing innocent stuffed dog toys.

He cheered on the Hokies, even though we had a rough football season.

He took a vacation at Myrtle Beach and played in the ocean.

He also played in a flood, when excessive amounts of rain created a river through our backyard.

He got tied up in a barbed wire fence after going under both our chain link fence and the barbed wire fence into the cattle field, and then trying to get back.

Finally, he attempted to set a world record for most naps in a calendar year. Unfortunately, he fell a bit short. But he plans to make another attempt at the record this year.

After all the things he did during year 3, I cannot wait to see what he gets into this year. I’m hoping for some more camping trips, another family beach vacation, and hopefully no more skunks!

If you have pets, do you have a ridiculous number of pictures of them?
I realized I did when I put this post together.

This weekend we are headed to the rodeo! We are going to stay at the same campground that we did last year. For those of you who’ve been around since last spring, you’ll remember this is the campground where I nearly lost my mind. I had 10 miles to do, and only a quarter-mile loop to do it on. In the spirit of not going crazy, I decided to do my long run this afternoon. It worked out well, since I had a short workday today.

I decided to head over to Pandapas Pond to run on the Poverty Creek Trail System. I’m planning to focus more on trails for the next month, in order to prepare for the Conquer the Cove 25K. Plus I finally decided to invest in a pair of trail shoes, and I wanted to take them for their maiden voyage!

Aren’t they pretty? I ended up deciding to go with the Hoka One One Stinson Trail, which are the trail counterpart to the Stinson Tarmacs I already run in. I didn’t notice a big difference in how the two feel, but overall I felt like I had better traction in the trail shoes. Kind of the point, right? I’m really happy with them so far.

Today I planned to run an out and back on Horse Nettle Trail, which is roughly 3 miles long and goes up Brush Mountain. The Conquer the Cove has a 3 mile climb from miles 7-10 and I need to be as ready as I can be for that.

Horse Nettle Trail starts very gently, on a wide, smooth path, and lulls you into a false sense of security. Then you start climbing for about a mile and a half before coming out onto a gravel road, which I think may have been a fire service road.

The gravel road had rolling hills, but they were pretty big rolling hills! I had to take frequent walk breaks on this road, as well as on the climb up Brush Mountain. It actually took me about 45 minutes to cover the first 3 miles. I’m hoping to improve on my climbing abilities on trails before my race in June.

Just before I got to the top of Brush Mountain, I passed the fire communications tower. There was a nice view from there, but it was a bit hard to capture.

I finally reached the top, and then the trail dipped back down on the other side of the mountain. I had to do a short out and back on the Jacob’s Ladder Trail in order to hit 3 miles before turning around to head back the way I came.

On the way back it was mainly all downhill and I was significantly faster (relatively speaking) on the way back. One thing I am really proud of is that I never walked during the last five miles. There weren’t any really tough climbs, but there were still a number of hills.

As I made my way down the mountain, there were a few spots that provided me an opportunity to make my trail shoes look like real trail shoes. A little mud and dirt and wet 🙂

Once I got back down to the bottom of Horse Nettle, 6 miles in, I headed towards the pond and wetlands area to do a loop. It was really hot running around the pond, though, because there was hardly any shade and it was 90 degrees.

I ran with my (somewhat) new Nathan hydration vest today. I think it was my fourth of fifth time running with it and so far I really like it. It can hold two liters of water, and I think I drank about three-fourths of it during my run today due to the heat.

If you want to read more about the hydration vest, check out Logan’s great review! After I finished my loop around the pond and wetlands area, I headed over to the Poverty Creek Trail.

I had less than a mile to go and was ready to wrap things up. My legs were feeling very heavy and tired, but luckily the first part of Poverty Creek just has very gentle rolling hills.

I finished back at the parking lot with a little over 8 miles for today’s long run. The elevation profile for this run looks pretty neat. Going up Brush Mountain and back down kind of makes a heart shape. 🙂

So now my long run is in the books and I won’t have to worry about it while we’re at the campground. My sanity will remain intact!

What are your weekend plans?
If you run/walk/hike trails, do you have trail-specific shoes?

This past Saturday I drove up to Falling Creek Park in Bedford for my second ever trail race. My experience at this race was a lot different than my first trail race.

I arrived at the park about 30 minutes before the start of the race and was directed to park in a grass field, which was being used for overflow parking. It’s a good thing I got there when I did! Just after I parked, the girl directing cars said “two more and then shut the gate because we’ll be full.”

I hit the restrooms, and then headed down to the main pavilion to catch the tail end of the pre-race briefing. I have been through two of these meetings for trail races now, and they always confuse me and make me worry I am going to get lost. I’m pretty sure they’re supposed to have the opposite effect, though.

Once the meeting wrapped up, we all headed down the hill from the pavilion to the start line. I bumped into my friend Jessie, who was running the half marathon, and hung out with her before the start. We failed to get a picture together at any point during the day, but it was great to see her! At 9 o’clock the half marathoners were off, and then we waited for our turn (10K started 10 minutes later). A few minutes later it was our turn to run!

The race started up a grass hill, did a brief stint on a paved path, and then we plunged down into the woods to take to the trails. It’s amazing how my heart rate can skyrocket just minutes after the start of a trail race. I think my average heart rate on trails stays higher than it does during most road races.

The course had rolling hills through the woods for the first mile and a half or so. We came out of the woods and ran on a paved road for a short distance before going back into the woods just before mile two. At this point, I couldn’t see anyone in front of me, and as I ran down the winding trail I worried I was off course. This was the only time this happened the whole race. But then I saw a pink streamer with polka dots and knew I was on course. They had the race course really well marked!

Around mile 3.5 we passed through a water stop. It was kind of hot/humid out, so I chose to fill up my handheld from a pitcher. I quickly ate a Salted Caramel Gu (yum!) so that I could toss it in the trash bin, and then headed back into the woods. Some of the trails were technical with roots and rocks through the woods, while others were smooth dirt through fields.

There were a few times that we popped up out of the woods to a clearing and had some really gorgeous views. I really enjoyed running in Falling Creek Park. If I lived in that area, I’d be visiting that place often.

I had to walk on some of the hills, especially later in the race, but I think my legs are still recovering from last weekend’s Blue Ridge Half Marathon. I think as I get stronger on trails I will be able to run a course like this in it’s entirety. I finished the race in 1:19:54.

My Garmin was off, but the race ended up being roughly 6.4 miles long. The race director had warned us of this beforehand. I think it’s kind of the norm for trail races to claim “10K” or “half marathon” and that really just means they’re in the ballpark of that distance. And I’m cool with that. I know one thing – they have good post race food spreads.

After the race I hung out with Jessie and watched the awards ceremonies and raffle (I didn’t win anything, boo). The pavilion was a great gathering place. Then it was time to hit the road home. My throat was bothering me a bit on the way home, so I stopped at McD’s to get my favorite – a mango pineapple smoothie.

That way I would have brain freeze in addition to my sore throat. But it was yummy! And don’t worry, I’m wasn’t driving in the above picture. My right foot is on the brake and I was at a stop light.

Overall, I had a great time at this race. This was my first Mountain Junkies LLC race, and they do a great job! The course was so pretty and I wish they were holding the race again next month so that I could run it again! Instead I have about a month break before I tackle my next race, which also happens to be a Mountain Junkies race – Conquer the Cove 25K. Fifteen miles on trails, better start training!

Who else raced this weekend?
Have you ever gotten lost during a race?
What’s your favorite “special treat” beverage?