Weekly Review April 17 - 23

First off, thanks for everyone's support and enthusiasm with my big Triathlon Announcement. (ICYMI- READ HERE!) I can't reiterate enough how awesome it makes me feel to know I have such support out there!! You all know how to make a girl feel great!

Now, let's take a big picture look at how the week went in fitness, farm, and life.

Our cows were all lined up along the fence when I went out for a recent evening walk.

Fitness
I really wasn't feeling well last weekend, and my fitness took a little hit going into the week. I was able to scrape together a few short, or slow-paced runs, but everything else got pushed on the back burner due to being busy with track and seeding. I did get a lot of steps on my pedometer this week, but I didn't record them here, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

Heading in to the last week of my fitness challenges, I've got to do three runs that total 12 miles and are each a different route than I've done so far this month in order to reach both my MillionMileMonth goal and my @Oisellefullhalf goal. I'm about 20 points away from hitting my Shape Up Montana goal of 600 or more total points.

I also picked up an easy yoga challenge last week that started on Thursday that I'm really loving. It's specifically for runners, through @runnersloveyoga on Instagram. A new pose each day focusing on IT band stretching. I am really loving it. It doesn't take much time, but the benefits have already been great!

Image source: @runnersloveyoga on Instagram.
Snapshot of each of the poses in the series.

This Week's Shenanigans:
Sunday- 4 mile run on flat, easy terrain, and a short pasture hike with family.

Nice to see our cows on grass that's turning greener by the second!
We walked through ths pasture on our hike.

We also spied this rare pincushion cactus on our hike. They are hard to find!

Monday- rest/nothing
Tuesday- early morning 2.2 mile hill run. First outside early morning run of the year!, 15 min yoga
Wednesday- rest/nothing
Thursday- rest/nothing
Friday- 4 mile easy run before leaving for track weekend trip.

I paused on my run for a photo op with this old pickup. 

Saturday- 30 min yoga

Year To Date, through April 23
Running: 170.5 miles
Walking/Hiking: 65.7 miles <-- Really pumped up this one this week, again!
Yoga: 790 min 
CC-Ski: 500 min / 14.1 miles *Done for the season
Alpine Ski: 3 days *Done for the season
Mountain bike: 34 miles - Watch for this to pick up as Tri Training continues!

Farm
After we dried out from the RAIN, Jeff and Tom were spraying and seeding this week. We finished seeding our barley and moved on to spring wheat. Whoever wasn't running the air drill, which is the implement we use to seed our crops, was spraying our crop land in preparation to being seeded.

Seeding barley at sunset last week.

The guys worked some really long days, trying to get as much seeding and work in as possible because we were set for another spring storm today/tomorrow. As such, we had to get a little creative with meals and food, as far as timing of when we ate, and all that. I even brought one meal out to the field because they were seeding at the farthest away field from the house and everyone agreed that we didn't want to eat dinner at the end of the work day- at 10:00 p.m. or later. Meals in the field are a more common occurrence for us during harvest, but the weather was good and it was just as easy to bring it out there. Tom said he wasn't sure if he could remember ever eating in the field at seeding time. I was out of practice for this, so I didn't have every little detail thought out, but we all got fed and got back to work, so I'd call it a success.

Jeff takes a break to eat during seeding. 

Life
We are at the busiest part of the season for track meets. Last week, this week, and next week, we are slammed with both High School and Junior High meets. It's hard at times for me to balance farm, track, and my own fitness and well-being. Hoping to continue to stay healthy. Thanks to my family members who continue to be understanding about my track coaching during this busy time, and are willing to make sacrifices and adjustments of their own.

Along the track and field theme, each year our team takes one overnight trip to an out of town meet. I've never gone on this trip before, but this year I went along. Our meet was Saturday in Missoula (a 5-6 hour bus ride from school). We left on Friday and took our team to a Carroll College track meet in Helena, where one of our former athletes was competing, then drove on to Missoula for our meet on Saturday. Our athletes really loved seeing college-level competition, and definitely seeing their former teammate competing at that level. It was really cool to see the team gather around her and soak it all up. I'm glad we could give them this opportunity.

Some of our athletes, in white, gather around for some wisdom from our former athlete, in center, wearing gray.

 HAVE A GREAT WEEK, EVERYONE!