June becomes July....

Every summer I am caught off guard by how fast the off-season months fly by. In May I can't wait for it to snow again but by the beginning of July I'm already wondering what happened to June. Last month brought some wet weather to the County but we got through it and have been rewarded with nice (but really hot) sunny days. 

Training is going well. Nothing special to report on that front: bounding, shooting, roller skiing, running, road biking, mountain biking. This weekend we did a new race in Ashland, ME modeled after (but with a much more back-woods approach) the Spartan and Tough Mudder events that are so popular. Having done a Tough Mudder race back home this spring I was very curious how Ashland's event would compare. It didn't really...they were so very different on all fronts but I think I enjoyed this latest version more. There were no electrical obstacles, no barbed wire and only 70 participants compared to the crowds in the thousands at Tough Mudder. The Ashland organizers sent us out into the woods, guided only by occasional neon arrows and a little spray paint here and there. We had to climb sawdust piles, cross ponds on ropes and inner tubes, pull chains up hill and bushwhack through Moose swamps for 7 kilometers. I got dirty, I got really sweaty, I came away leech-free and I had a great time. Definitely going back next year! 

This next week Fort Kent will play host to the Maine Team camp for Maine athletes who qualified for Eastern High School or J2 Championships this past winter. As has been the trend since I've been up here, it's a big group with 42 kids coming. I have my own training plan but it lines up with their schedule in a few places so I'm looking forward to some additional company. 

For now, here are some of pictures from my last few weeks in the great buggy, hot, humid, sunny, far north of Maine. As always, click on a picture to view them all in slideshow format. 

Gorgeous sunsets predicting yet another hot, sunny day tomorrow. 

 

Baking between training sessions...mmmmmm, good!

My latest crafting discovery: my own photos hand-mounted on canvases.

Seth trying to befriend a wild bunny on a dirt road in town and Seth holding up dinner! 

Lush green views both from the road and mountain saddles. 

The flowers in the picture on the left are lupines! 

Lupine season here reminds me of reading The Lupine Lady book as a kid....it's just like that here. 

Looking out over St. Agatha and Long Lake from my mountain bike saddle. Long training hours allow me to explore a little further than I usually get to! 

Jalbert and MWSC devo kids jumping for joy in June!

MWSC deco camp: (L) girlies rollerskiing with Annelies and I, and (R) one of the teams captures their "Planking" photo during an evening town scavenger hunt I put together. 

The same team poses for their "I can't believe we all fit" picture...good one! 

Up next: tomorrow's off-day after a long and hot week of training!

Fairy Houses and Electric Fencing

With team training not scheduled to really ramp up until mid-June I took advantage and went home to Gilford, NH for two weeks. It was a packed 14 days but I enjoyed most of it....maybe not the part where I got sick or the part where I crawled through water while getting zapped by electric fencing, but more on that later. 

The first weekend I was home I put on a fairy house event at Beans & Greens. My mom and I had been collecting "stuff" (anything and everything a fairy might use to build a house....sticks, rocks, feathers, reeds, pinecones, shells, etc) for close to a month and thought we had a good-sized heap together. We were soooo wrong. Without much feedback online or from pre-registrants through the store, it didn't seem like there would be much interest. After several days of rain, the day of the event came and brought sunny, clear weather and a herd of families to the stand. I had a shipping crate-sized bin full of dried gourds for the kids to use as houses to decorate. We flew through them and most of the exciting "stuff" (feathers, shells, marbles, etc) we had found and were forced to really get creative with those who came later in the day. I'm guessing I had over 100 kids come through to build a fairy house. It was great fun and now that we know how much interest is out there we're hoping to have another fairy house day in August and we're planning on collecting a lot more "stuff"! As I'm sure you can guess, I was right in my element: arts and crafts all day long with a captive audience. What could be better?

Just a few of the amazing fairy houses that were created...

The pavilion where we made the fairy houses sits right next to the animal pen at Beans & Greens so we got to watch these cute spring babies all day. The pig likes having his belly rubbed and will roll over and stretch out to make it easier for you. Too cute. 

This pig pile (there are actually four piggies somewhere in there) lives on the farm that I grew up at (Beans & Greens is down the road from the farm where my parents live) as well as the chickens that laid all these eggs. One of these eggs doesn't belong...can you tell which one? 

We had some intense rain/thunderstorms while I was home. When the storms left, Mother Nature showed us some amazing double rainbows and beautiful sunsets.  

I got to enjoy some pretty flowers at Beans & Greens...I think I came home with a full memory stick of just flower pictures. I can't help it. 

While I was "south"(when you live in The County, "south" can pretty much mean anything south of Bangor) Seth and I went to Cape Cod to help out at a USBA fundraiser. This huge barge was coming out of the canal that separates the Cape from mainland Massachusetts when we went to explore a bit before heading back to Gilford. 

 

May brings the return of "real" training so I brought all my gear home with me (rifle, rollerskis, bikes, poles, etc) and took on the hilly terrain that is Gilford. The picture on the left (might be better viewed if you click on it) is the view from the top of the hill that I grew up on looking north. On a clear day, especially in winter, you can see all the way to Mt. Washington. The photo on the right is from the Tough Mudder event that was just held at Gunstock, the ski area in Gilford. Seth and I volunteered along with my brother, Alex and his girlfriend, Emily on Saturday, and friend Nick, and  his girlfriend. On Sunday we (Nick, Alex, Seth and I) ran the event: 11 miles of running plus 20 obstacles. I didn't think it would be that hard, given the broad demographic of people I watched start it on Saturday. Turns out that it can be quite hard if you run instead of walk and try to keep up with three guys who are all in decent shape. The obstacles vary in difficulty. Some, like the hay bale climb, were too easy, and others, such as the electric eel, brought me quickly to the verge of tears. I will just say that there is nothing fun about crawling through water while dodging lines of electric cattle fencing that are hanging all around you. 10,000 volts hurts a lot when you're in six inches of water, tired and soaking wet. It took us just under three hours to finish but it sounds like 4.5 hours + was about average for the weekend. 

I'm back in The County now, fending off the last of a head cold and trying to get back into a regular rhythm with training. I'm really excited to have lots of new and old teammates joining me....between different age groups and teams we might have up to 14 people at practices on any given day this summer!