Weekly Review through July 23

Apparently, for the summer I'm adopting an every-other week schedule to post a weekly review... no matter! Enjoy the happenings in fitness, farm, and life!!


Fitness
The biggest fitness accomplishment of the past two weeks (and the summer, and the year...) is the completion of my first traithlon, on the 17th. The week leading up to the race was a taper week, and I took it easy for a few days after the race, too, before starting to ease gently into running. Even so, I kept it pretty light with just some short runs at an easy pace. I'm planning on a 10K at the end of August, so I'll be ramping up a bit again, soon.

Also, even though the triathlon training is done, I don't want to completely forego my swimming and biking. Swimming especially is something I really love and didn't realize how much I missed it until I started doing it again with my tri training. I'd like to continue to sneak over to the pool when I can, although I probably wouldn't go completely out of my way for it. Hard to justify the drive. Anyway, check out how the weeks went and how the year is adding up!

July 10-16
Sunday- complete rest.
Monday- 2000 yards swimming in Havre
Tuesday- 4.2 mile easy run.

Harvey after our run on Tuesday. 

Wednesday- 8.2 mile bike, 2 mile hike
Thursday- rest.
Friday- 3 mile easy run.
Saturday- Complete rest. Day before triathlon!

July 17-23
Sunday- Montana Women's Triathlon! 500 meter swim, 12 mile bike, 3 mile run. Read Full Race Review HERE!

Monday- Rest. Obviously.
Tuesday- 4.4 mile hike with Jeff most of the way up Mount Helena.

Wednesday- Rest.
Thursday- 3.2 mile run.
Friday- 30 minutes HIIT and elliptical machine
Saturday- 3.1 mile easy run.

Year to Date:
Running: 329.65
Walking/Hiking: 93.6 miles 
Yoga: 1190 min 
CC-Ski: 500 min / 14.1 miles *Done for the season
Alpine Ski: 3 days *Done for the season
Mountain bike: 174.6
Swimming: 11500 yards

Our Golden Retriever, Abby, out in the pasture. 

Farm-
We continue to be very busy on the farm. It is summer, to that's sort of how this works! The biggest projects have been baling hay, and a mix of weed control methods in our farm fields including both spray and cultivating. Wheat prices are terrible right now, so it's hard to justify spraying weeds when the product doesn't work anyway. We've been doing a lot more summer-fallowing this year, which is basically just plowing our fallow fields. That's not completely ideal either because we lose moisture when we break ground, and in this high plains desert, we can't always recoup that moisture.

A few days ago, we also brought our cow herd in from pasture and separated the bulls out from the cows. Party's over, men! ;) We also treated them all for flies, and then we drove them back out to pasture. I helped with this process when we worked them in the corrals. I'm happy to report that there were no incidents with gates this time! The cows and calves look really good. Validation of this came yesterday, actually, when our cows sold in a video auction. Cattle prices aren't great, either, but our calves sold for higher than many other groups in the sale and they looked great in the video. The sale is an auction, but the buyer was the same person who bought our calves last year. Repeat business is as pretty good sign that you're raising your calves right, so that felt pretty good.

The herd returns to pasture after the bulls were separated and they were treated for flies.

You can see the video of our calves that was used in the sale by CLICKING HERE. We will continue to keep and feed the calves, in other words they'll stay with their mamas, until mid October when they are shipped.

Lastly, harvest is nearing closer and closer on our farm. Jeff and Tom are helping some of our neighbors cut their winter wheat right now because we don't have anything ripe yet. Soon we will, though, and the craziness will begin!

Life- 
I have been working a bit on starting to promote the race we hold on our farm, called 5K On The Farm. You can find more info on the website, on our RunSignUp page, and on our Facebook Page.

Otherwise, I stay busy with keeping the garden alive in this dry heat! haha. Right now our raspberries are on, so I've been out to pick raspberries every other day or every third day or so. Such a fun summer treat! I've also been prepping some freezer meals for the busy days of harvest.

Chicken enchiladas, white chicken lasagna, and beef and cheese manicotti. It's a start, anyway!

How has your summer been going?! I can't believe it's almost August...