2015 Missouri State Fair

Ahhh...the Missouri State Fair.  I have SO many wonderful memories of showing hogs and cattle at the state fair growing up.  This year was the first year my girls were able to show and I have to say, I was pretty darn excited!

We went down with our gilts (young, single lady pigs) Wednesday night and unloaded them, along with our friends daughter's gilt.  Our friends had to leave, but we got to stay and camp! 

My sister and youngest niece came to the fair on Thursday to hang out and help out.  We started off by feeding the pigs, checking them in, weighing in Kale's gilt (ours were purebred and didn't need to weigh).  We spent time at the carnival, but poor Bg was too little to ride any of the fun rides!

Friday was SHOW DAY!!!!!  I was a bit nervous, as pigs today don't quite look the pigs I showed.  We went for long and lean; today you want thick and big bellied.  My pigs were still somewhat lean in comparison to some other gilts.  Chloe showed first.  And....she got 5th out of 18!  She was in a tough class as well, as 3 pigs from her class got selected to go to the breed sale (out of a small # of eligible hogs).  Bg didn't do quite as well, but she still place 7 out of 13.  I was a happy mama!

 

 

 

We went to a small circus Friday night and they needed a volunteer.  Guess whose hand shot up first???

I was great.  Best circus volunteer EVER!  A checkmark on my bucket list.  If I disappear, you know where to find me.

Here is a goofy picture of my sister and me:

And this is running blog, so I should post about running except, I haven't run in over a week!  Last week was so crazy with the state fair.  I was in the camper alone with the girls for 3 days, so I had no one to watch them to run and I was exhausted Saturday and Sunday.  I play a double header in softball the next two nights and we have tickets to see the Royals on Wednesday night. 

First Day of School!

The girls started school last week on Wednesday the 19th.  Then they were slackers and skipped the next two days as we were at the state fair!

Bg has a new teacher this year in her preschool class.  I have known this lady for YEARS (grew up with her boys) and am so excited that she gets to be Bg's teacher.  However, Bg was being VERY grumpy on the first day of school and refused to let me take a picture of her.  I snapped on while at school before she had a chance to run away.  Bg will be attending full time this year!

Chloe meanwhile is moving onto 1st grade and has one of her daddy's old teachers for her teacher.  How exciting!  Chloe was very excited to start school!

The first day was a pretty simple day.  They got out early (before lunch) and they had chapel, so they spent little time in the classroom.

Shaving pigs and new shoes

Yes, you read that right!  I shaved pigs last night.  I didn't get a picture of it, but picture me in the front of a stock trailer with two 250 pound hogs and an electric razor. It was a lot of fun.  I didn't finish, as my razor drained power pretty quickly.  I need to finish on Saturday in preparation for the fair next week. 

Speaking of the State Fair, I found this meme yesterday and thought it was very appropriate for the Missouri State Fair!

 

I got a new pair of running shoes today too!  I know, I just bought a new pair of Asics a few weeks that I love, but these Brooks Ghost 7 were on sale for a great price and I have been wanting to try Brooks for a while.  I am wearing them around the office today to see if I like the fit.  So far so good!
I need to do a long run tomorrow, so I may wait for a short run next week before I hit the road with them.  Ignore my crab socks.

Have you ever had one of those moments where you order something off the menu because it looks delicious but then it looks less than awesome when you get that?  I had that experience at Sonic earlier this week.  What I ordered versus what I got:

It has been a busy week (aren't all weeks busy?).  Chloe's kindergarten teacher came over for supper Monday night.  Tuesday was softball and I actually had good hits and decent fielding.  Softball sure uses different muscles and my quads are SORE!  We had Back to School night on Wednesday and I worked the PTL table.  We had cookies at our table to encourage parents to stop by and I may have eaten a couple parents share of cookies. 

I did a 3.75 mile run on Wednesday evening.  I started off slow as my legs were very sore from softball.  However, I didn't turn on my tracker correctly and didn't realize my mistake until 1.25 miles, so I have no clue how fast the first mile was.  I realized I was going way too slow and sped it up but it wasn't the best pace:
Mile 1.25: no idea
1.25-2.25: 10:02
2.25-3.25: 9:36 ( I ran the first half mile in over 10 minutes, so I trucked it the 2nd half)
3.25-3.75: 8:53 pace

I will be at the State Fair most of next week and not sure when or how I will get my running in.  I have a half in a little over 3 weeks, so I really need the miles!!!

I want to do this after my next half to help me increase speed for some 5K's I am doing:

Back pain and lofty goals

I have been dealing with pretty frequent back pain since the beginning of the year.  Multiple chiro visits, a massage and even a couple doctors visits (with X-Rays) with no help.  All they can tell me is that my muscles are really inflamed and not sure why.  After my back disaster on Saturday, my friend Somer told me I need to find a chiro that specializes in sports injuries.  I like my current chiro, but he is pretty basic- I go in, he pops me and I leave.

I did some research and found a place in the city and got an appointment.  They did a consult where we talked quite a bit, then they examined me and basically said that they didn't see anything major, but my body is completely lopsided.  His x-ray machine was unfortunately down, but we went ahead and started therapy.  I laid on this massaging type table awhile (it was BLISS!) and then did this electroc shocky therapy type thing, where they put these patches on me and sent shocks into my back.  It was all warm and again, very blissful.  He then adjusted me and gave me an insert for my shoe to elevate one side of my body.  He said that my muscles were used to being out of alignment, so after they adjust me, my muscles pull back into the unevenness.  I go back next week for more fun.

So...I hesitate to even write these goals down for my upcoming half marathons.  But I need goals to push myself.  These aren't very fast goals compared to others, but they work for me.

For my half on Sept 6- my goal is simply to finish faster than Branson.  I would like to finish in around 2:20-2:25.  It will be less hills, but will also be about 30 degrees hotter and about a gazillion times more humid.

My half marathon goals are really more for my races in October, when the weather is more optimal.

I want to try to do 9- 9:30 minute miles for the first 6 miles.  I am almost that fast in practice, but think with adrenaline and competition, it will be no problem.  However, keeping that pace for that long wont work, so I am hoping to finish the last 7.1 miles at a 10:30-11 minute pace.  If I go the slowest at my goal time, my finish should be 2 hours 16 minutes.  If I go the fastest, it would be 2 hours 9 minutes.  This is factoring in 2 minutes for the final .1 miles or any extra the course may be.

I think I can obtain those goals. 

Busy Weekend

I had a long list of things I wanted to accomplish this weekend and got MOST of them done, which is a rare occurrence.

My Friday goals were to take the girls school shopping.  It was tax free weekend, so I was worried the city would be a mad house, but it actually went way better than expected.  We got almost everything needed.

Saturday's to-do list:
Run
Mow
Can tomatoes
Library
Grocery Store

I needed to get a loooong run in Saturday, as it was only 4 weeks until my next half.  The morning was actually somewhat cool, with a thunderstorm rolling in.  Perfect running weather.  I started off strong, planning to get 10 miles in.  My first 4 miles were a decent pace:
1: 8:40
2: 9:16
3: 9:05
4: 9:58
5: 11:02- At mile 5, I ran into my friend Somer and stopped to chat a minute.  I told her I wanted to run at least 2 more miles and then I would walk with her.  I took off again and my back started to hurt, which is normal and I can usually run my way out of the pain.  But not this time.  Oh my gosh, my back hurt SO bad.  I didn't want to cause further injury, so I stopped to walk a minute and tried to run again.  OUCH.  Nope, wasn't happening.  I was beyond frustrated and walked the 3/4 mile back to my car.  Somer happened to be by the car and encouraged me to try to walk.  So, I finished walking another 5 miles, which I am SO glad I did, as walking did not bother my back and seemed to help the pain diminish some.  But I am not kidding when I said we walked SLOW.
6: 16:54
7: 18:34
8: 18:11
9: 17:46
10: 18:22

At least I got the miles in.  I tried a GU energy gel at mile 4.  The flavor was okay, but I do not like the texture. 

 I had bought these honey stinger bars a few weeks ago and keep forgetting to try one.  I ate this after my run/walk and it was good.  Definitely will buy more to eat before races for energy.

 

After I got home I tackled my tomatoes.  Boiled, skinned, blended, cooked, canned and processed.  I made 8 pints of spaghetti sauce, which doesn't seem like much, but it was about 36 tomatoes.

 

It wasn't on my too do list, but my car was covered in fresh oil from my road, so I decided I really needed to clean that off.  I scrubbed and rubbed and got all the oil off one side of the car before deciding to move on to my to-do list.  The white stuff is the cleaner.

 

After I mowed and picked MORE tomatoes from my garden.  I got about another 40 tomatoes.  Sigh...

 

I didn't make the library or grocery store.

 

Sunday goals:

Can more tomatoes

Make and deliver casserole to coworker

Shave hogs

Send off the girls hair

Print 4-H report forms

Fill out princess pageant form for Chloe

 

It doesn't look like I accomplished much on Sunday, but I really did.  I had nursery at church Sunday morning and then I had to run to Wal-Mart to get more car cleaner and go to the grocery store that I missed on Saturday.  I got home, cooked chicken, canned 5 pints of chili base and made lunch.  While the chili base was simmering, I finished cleaning all the oil off the paint and wheels.  There is still oil on the plastic base on the door, but it wasn't coming off easily.

 

I delivered the casserole and came home to shave pigs.  It took a bit longer than I expected to coax the hogs into the trailer where I planned to wash them before shaving them.  After like 45 minutes, they were in the trailer and washed off.  I cleaned out their water tank while they ate and put my chili base in the pressure canner.  It was around 6:45 and I realized the girls needed baths and supper, I needed to clean up my kitchen and I forgot to charge the electric shaver, so I let the pigs out and will try to shave Thursday night.

Hair Chops

I knew my girls needed trims before school started so I scheduled them about 2 weeks ago.  When I told Chloe, she said she wanted SHORT hair.  Yikes, I love my girls long hair.  Their hair is so different than mine that I think I was kind of living out my hair dreams through them.  Long, straight and thinner than mine.  And grows fast.  But I also don't want to dictate how they wear their hair, so I told her that was fine.  And then Bg chimed in that she wanted short hair too.  Yikes.

Chloe donated her hair about a year and half ago and said she wanted to donate again.  I did some research and I think we are going to donate to Children With Hair Loss, which makes wigs for kids.  http://www.childrenwithhairloss.us/

Here is the before:

Bg's hair was wavy because it had been in a braid.

Chloe after (quite a bit shorter than the last time she donated):

Bg after:

The girls love their shorter hair.  Chloe was so silly last night and kept saying things like, "This is the first time I have worn pajamas with short hair!"  "This is the first time I have eaten pizza with short hair!"  "This is my first time sitting in this chair with short hair!"  She also had several imaginary conversations that she was going to have with family/friends that are going to be totally SHOCKED by her new appearance.

I got a FB message last night that the dog that tried to attack me a few weeks ago and ran over and killed.  I know this sounds heartless but I am glad that I can now run in town without fear of this dog (or let my girls ride their bikes too!).  I was NOT the first person this dog has tried to bite, yet the night it came after me, the owner swore he didn't know how the dog got loosed and acted like it was an isolated incident, but obviously it was loose yet again last night to get ran over.

I did do a 4 mile run.  I have been reading The Hungry Runner Girl blog and am always amazed at her speed.  But then I realized after reading her blog that she isn't afraid to really push herself and is uncomfortable after some practices.  I don't like to push myself but realize I am not going to get faster if I just half do it in practice.  It wasn't as fast as my 5K race speed, but I did try to push myself more.  I thought I was flying my 1st mile, but it was slower than I thought. 

Mile 1: 8:39
Mile 2: 9:18
Mile 3: 9:55
Mile 4: 9:55

I know I can do a 5K with less than 9 minute miles, so I really need to push myself while practicing to keep my miles around 8:45.  I changed my fitbit frequency on announcing miles to every half mile, so I know if I need to speed up or slow down in order to reach my goal mile time.

Lake fun!

I got a wonderful text from a friend wondering if we wanted to do a kids free couples weekend last week.  YES!  However, we couldn't find baby sitters, so it ended up being a family weekend.  I met these 3 girls at 4-H camp YEARS ago (we were probably 8 or 9).  They had all grown up together and have been friends since they were babies.  I lived in a different town, but we still saw each other several times a year at camp, fairs and livestock shows.  I am so glad we are still friends and the best part...our kids are all friends!!!

Naked tomatoes!  I skinned more tomatoes last night in preparation for more salsa and pizza sauce tonight.

 

One of the favorite things I have about working next to the high school- listening to the marching band practice!  They are small though!

 

I walked about 5 miles with my friend Meghan last night.  Meghan is one of the gals from church that got me into this running things.  Meghan walks about as fast as I run, so we walked our 5 miles.  I don't know why, but it kills me to walk.  My legs were on fire when we finished!