Weight Goal

Over 7 years ago I started losing weight. When I weighted in Friday morning, I weighted 174. YEA !!!!!! I finally reached my goal. It has been a long tough road, but well worth it. I wish that I had before and after pics, but I really don't have any good before pics.

Hatfield And McCoy Marathon And Half Marathon

My brother-in-law Tom and his friend Darren signed up for this marathon several weeks ago. (these two run a lot of marathons together). Well my running has been going pretty well, so I thought it would be a hoot to go down to Williamson, WV and run the half, while they run the full. We had a great time. Here is a pic of Tom finishing (Darren finished before Tom, but went back to run in with him) Tom is in the gray shirt and Darren is in the yellow. http://www.hatfieldmccoymarathon.com/










Here is a pic of the whole gang. Hatfield, Tom, Michelle,Me,Manon,Laura,Darren and McCoy.

Here is a pic of Michelle snacking on some ribs. They look really good, don't they. (she is sooo going to kill me) Be sure to click on the pic.

7th Annual Lewis McManus 5K

Barbara this was her 1st 5K

My friend Lori eating a well deservered banana

William and the winner

The crowd !!!!!

As most of you know this is my aniversary race. I snuck off on a Saturday morning 7 years ago to see if I could run some 5K race I had heard about. I thought you would have to be crazy to run any farther than 3 mile. he he he.....little did I know......you do have to be crazy, but a good crazy.

Wonderful Weekend

Manon and I went to Lynchburg to visit Randy, Kristin and the kids. We had a great visit, Randy and I got to run on Liberty Mountain Saturday evening. Then we had a guy get saved at church Sunday morning. After church me and Mark got to run. It had been a while since we had been able to run together. Sunday night after church we had Friends and family to the house for a bonfire. Then to cap off a GREAT weekend I got to run with my daughter Johnna. She is a few weeks into a couch to 5K program. Her 1st 5K will be July 2. I am so proud of her. She has been through a lot in the last year or so.

WOW !!! Thank God I Can Run

All day today, I thought I would come home, get the grass mowed, eat supper and then go for a 6 mile run. Well I did get the grass mowed, then I had about a half hour before supper would be ready, so I decided to go up to Mom and Dads to unload a set of RV steps that I cut off of a customers camper the other day. Dad came out to help and I told him to be very careful, because these steps was very sharp and awkward to handle. Shore enough I managed to stick a piece of metal about an inch into my hand. When I am stupid enough to actually damage myself all the way to the meat, it makes me a little queasy. I sat down for a few minutes then got up and finished what I was doing. All in a days work for me. The older I get the more accident prone I seem to get.
I got home and ate, but really didn't fill very good. But I really wanted to go run, so just before dark I said I was going to quit being such a sissy and go run.
I am sooooo glad I did. I had such a good run. It was like I was being carried by an angel. It was dark, but I never turned my flashlight on. I just enjoyed the dark and thanked God for allowing me to run.

Open Season

A couple of weeks ago we planted our sweet corn. It had all come up, and was looking beautiful, till yesterday. The dern crows pulled up every singe corn shoot and ate the seed kernel off the bottom of the corn plant. 7 rows of corn gone.
It is now crow season at my house. I am going to go "dirty Harry" on them.

Dirty Dog 15K

This was the biggest test thus far for the VFFs. This was a pretty rough race, a lot of mud and rocks. Rocks up hill are no problem. The downhills are a little slower, because it is really hard for me to run on my forefoot going downhill. As you can see in the pic, I made a modification to the shoes. I had hoped the strings would keep my pinky toes in the toe pockets where they belong. It worked great till about the half way. There was a pretty long uphill. I had problems with both feet, with toes coming out. When I got to the top I fixed the left foot and it stayed, but the right one never cooperated after that.

The Day Before

Its Friday, the day before The Dirty Dog 15K Race. This will be my longest race since January. It has been a long way back from this last injury (hopefully my last injury). I will try to remember the camera so I can get some pics. More later.....

Bluestone Trail

As most of you know, I have been running in my VFFs shoes for a while now. I have been easing into them. I started very slowly, the way you are supposed to start something new. It is working out great. I have been running in them exclusive now for several weeks. On trails too. I love the forefoot running stile. I believe it will allow me to continue to run for a long time.
I finally got to run on a tougher trail today. This is by no means a technical trail, but it has more real world stuff than the Fayetteville trails that I have been running. Mud, tall grass and weeds, water. Today was the most trouble that I have had with the Vibrams. The model that I have, the Treks which are made from kangaroo leather. Apparently kangaroos must expand a lot when they get wet, because those shoes got huge when they get wet. I purposely walked slowly through a creek, because I wanted to see what would happen when they got wet. After they got wet, they would not stay on properly. My toes kept coming out of the toe pockets and the shoes would slide around on my feet.
The real problem is that now I can't run in regular shoes. When I run in regular shoes, they hurt the top of my feet and my right ankle hurts also. I have been thinking about getting a more minimalist type of shoe for trail running and just wear the Vibrams on the road and the more tame trails.
I wish that I had my camera today, because there was this really cool thing that kept happening today. The trail is getting really over grown with grass and weeds and wild flowers. I kept getting grass and little flowers and stuff stuck between my toes. It looked cool running with flowers between my toes.

Not Sick

Well, Manon and I are both getting over this cold or what ever we had. I am finally starting to fell normal again.
I finally got to run in the woods in my VFFs shoes yesterday. It went very well. I stepped on a few things bad, but all in all, wasn't too bad. I ran on Fayetteville Trails. They are really nice, not too technical. It is always nice to run over there, because you will actually see people using the trails. Most of the other trails I run, you never see anyone.

Sick

I shouldn't have said I was just cruising along the other day. I never get sick, but I am sick now. Yuck !!!!!! I will be better. I have only run 1 time this week, but I will be going to Marlington in the morning to run for team "whazz up" or something like that. Should be a good time. The race is "The Great Greenbrier River Race".

Not Much Going On Here

It is hard to blog when it seems like your life is on cruise control. Things are going along pretty well. The kids and grand kids are well (except for the occasional sniffle or bloody knee). The RV business is picking up (it is that time of year). The running is going ok. Listening to my body (run when I feel like it, don't when I don't feel like it). The only excitement we have had is my son-in-law graduated from the WV State Police Academy last Friday. He is a fine young man, we are very proud of him.

Just Pluging Along

The weather is warming, the grass is growing, the campers are breaking down, the garden is starting to pop out of the ground, the running is going well, the kids and grandkids are all healthy. Life is good.

Happy Easter Everybody

Jesus is risen. Hope everbody went to church somewhere today, if not, you can always go next week.
We got some our garden in yesterday. Potatoes, onions, lettuce and carrots. Hope God blesses are little garden, like last year.
The running is going well. I found out that if I am going to run on the road, I have to run in my VFFs. I still haven't tried them on a trail yet. Soon....

Happy Easter Everybody

Jesus is risen. Hope everbody went to church somewhere today, if not, you can always go next week.
We got some our garden in yesterday. Potatoes, onions, lettuce and carrots. Hope God blesses are little garden, like last year.
The running is going well. I found out that if I am going to run on the road, I have to run in my VFFs. I still haven't tried them on a trail yet. Soon....

The Last 16 Pounds

If you know me or have read my profile you will know that I lost 100 lbs. Well, I had put 25 lbs back on over the last couple of years. I was back up to 210. I really started trying to lose that extra weight again in January. I have done pretty well, I think, but I seemed to be stuck. Yesterday I weighted 191, also yesterday I started doing something that I have never done before, count calories. I found an app for my phone called "Lose It". My goal is to weight 175 by July.

Great Day In The Mountains

It is hard to imagine a more perfect day than being in the Blueridge Mountains with friends. It was an absolutely perfect day for a race. Congratulations to all the finishers.

Watching Another Race

I will be spectating and helping at another race tomorrow. The Terrapin Mountain 50K starts at 7:00 am in the morning. I will be helping with aid station 3 at Goff Mountain in the morning till about 9:30, then I will probably go up to Camping Gap and hang out. I will have my running stuff, so maybe I will get to run with Mark, maybe Whiteoak Loop. That would be cool.

Gorge Ride

Pics from the New River Gorge

YMCA Triathlon

There was an indoor tri at the Y this morning. My wife did the swim. I did the 18 mile bike and the 4 mile run. It was a blast. After the race 6 people from Princeton wanted to go to Fayettville to ride road bikes, so I went with them. What a beautiful day to ride through the gorge. WOW !!! Here are the charts everybody had to use for the race.