I survived my first run of 9 miles. I ended up running a little faster than planned: average 7:32/mile for 9 miles. Hopefully I won’t regret that later. I did get 11 kills (overtaking another runner).
Vote for our team by texting to 53535:
Farout Icky Kitty 90
Van Icky Kitty 90
Nom Icky Kitty 90
That is for best fashion, van decorations, and team name.
A couple of months ago, some running friends asked me to join their Ragnar Relay Team. From the Ragnar website:
“Ragnar is the overnight running relay race that makes testing your limits a team sport. A team is made up of 6-12 individuals; each individual runs 3 legs. The legs of the race vary in difficulty and distance, from 3-8 miles, allowing elite and novice runners to run together. Over 2 days and 1 night, teams run across 200 miles of the country’s most scenic terrain. Pair that with crazy costumes, inside jokes, a great finish line party and unforgettable stories. Some call it a slumber party without sleep, pillows or deodorant. We call it Ragnar.”
So today, I will join a large number of people who have decided to pay people for the privilege of running a lot. We are running Cape Cod, from Plymouth, MA to Provincetown, MA for about 186 miles.
I am runner #7 on our team and my total is 24 miles. Hopefully I will still be able to walk when this is over.
Literally. I stopped at Tractor Supply this afternoon to pick up about 1000lbs of feed. As I was parking, the brakes went soft and felt odd. I backed up and drove forward again, and heard a metal noise under the truck. I hopped out to to find brake pads laying under the right rear wheel.
I decided not to load a bunch of feed into the truck, and instead limped home.
Tomorrow morning I will finish replacing the pads, rotors, and calipers. Then I might check the front brakes…
Benji & Rebekah had already decided that if Thomas was not going to be able to survive, the best case of the worst case options would be for Thomas to be an organ donor. The organ donor team is now preparing for the Monday morning official report. The donor testing and matching process will begin today, however, we are not sure how long it will take for the nation-wide recipient matching. Thomas will remain on life support until this process is completed. After that, Benji & Rebekah have decided they will have Thomas cremated and have a memorial service. The timing of the service will likely not be decided until after transplant phase has been completed.
Our prayers now are for continued peace and comfort for our family as the grieving process continues. Also, please pray the doctors and families who will be the recipients of the life that Thomas will not be able to experience, but that Benji, Rebekah and Thomas are so loving giving.
contributed by Liz Sawyer
Tonight, we re-watched Food, Inc. If you haven’t seen it, you should watch it. It is enlightening about life in general. For us, it reinforces our choices about how we raise food and what we choose to eat.
Anna now offers riding lessons for kids! We will be taking a limited number of students for lessons during the week and on Saturdays. For details, including pricing, please see our horse page.
How do you know farming has a new role in life? 2 words – tax exempt. That’s right, today in the mail we received our tax exempt approval from the State of CT. And it was just in time, because I had a 10% off coupon for Tractor Supply that expired tomorrow. Well I grabbed that new money-saving sheet and the coupon and an hour later I was home with a truck full of fencing supplies and about 700lbs of feed. Now if only I had the time to put the fencing up…
This morning I ran my 3rd half marathon in Colchester, CT. The weather was nice in the low 40s, but there were winds of 25-30mph. On the first half of the course, the winds were not too bad. However, the last 2.5 miles was completely exposed, uphill, with a head wind the whole way. Did I mention the hills? Despite the challenge, I finished in 1:43:12 for an average 7:52 min/mile (my previous best was 1:49).
Along the way I burned about 1800 calories and my average heart rate was 188. I think the HR was a little skewed because of a poor connection (not enough sweat) for the first few miles.
Regardless, I’m extremely pleased with the result since I was hoping to run a half marathon in under 1:45 by the end of 2012.
Over the past week, Anna and I have been working hard on the farm and making lots of improvements. Not investing a lot of money, just tweaking things to make the operations more efficient. Along the way, we added 11 more hens and 2 more roosters (one is still arriving Tues or Wed), bringing our main flocks up to 47 layers and 6 roosters. The rabbits are now at 12, but we have some excess bucks that will be dinner shortly, taking us back down to 10.
As I have been working on all the projects, it is difficult to stop and ride my bike, go on long runs, or even ride the horses. I am definitely still getting plenty of exercise, because I lost 2lbs last week. I know I can’t do it all, but I want to. However, I think the time has come to be a little more realistic in some of my personal goals. I think the half-iron distance triathlon is coming off the schedule for 2012. I will still race some shorter sprint and olympic races, but I don’t have the 14hrs a week my training plan recommends and I don’t want to just complete the race, I want to race it. So for now, I think I will continue to focus on horse riding and the farm, and keep the longer triathlons as a bucket list item.