The Olivia Farm

Well it is hunting season here in Texas, and you know that means; the dove are flying. This weekend I was invited to a friend's, Todd and Jill Griffith, family farm house down near Port Lavaca, Texas. It was about 2.5 hours drive from our house and well worth it. Their land consisted of about 400 acres on the main farm and about another 400 acres at a separate field that had about a mile of shoreline that bordered a protected bay. How awesome it that?

The weekend began with us driving to the farm on Friday night. Then Todd and I woke up at about 7:15 or so; well it was more like Todd woke up and I kinda rolled out of bed too. I am not a morning person. We grabbed the shotguns, some shells, put on the camo and headed out the side door for a day of hunting. It wasn't 5 minutes before we saw the first flock of dove scatter when we approached them. They scattered quickly and we did our best to bring bring home dinner. Since I had not fired a shotgun in about 2 years I was a bit rusty when it came to leading the dove, and it really showed through the remainder of the day, but the important thing was that I was outdoors and enjoying some great weather. All in all we ended up bringing home 4 birds between the two of us, 2 dove, 2 quail. Not a feast, but the thrill is not necessarily in the meal, rather in the harvest.

We went fishing that night as well. The tide report said low tide would be at 2 am and high tide at 7am, meaning the best times to fish were between those hours. All four of us: Daicia, Jill, Todd and I grabbed some quick sleep from about 10 pm to 1:15am and awoke to head to the beach to try our hand at fishing. Again, not a feast of fish, but we caught a few, I probably caught my largest fish ever, an 18'' redfish! Daicia caught a similar sized one and Todd caught a nice gaftop catfish.

All in all the weekend was great. I enjoyed hanging out with a new set of friends, and getting to just be outdoors and hunt and fish. It can't get any better than that.

Half Marathon

It has been a while since my last post and I was wanting to get caught up.

Last weekend I ran my first long distance with one of my long-time friends, Leo. Leo is such a powerhouse. Not only is the guy a monster in the weightroom, he can still hold his own in the aerobic rhelm as well. I finished a couple of minutes before him, but Leo also has about 40-50lbs more muscle on his frame ro run with.

The worst part of this race for me was around mile 10. I was not used to running on concrete and my legs were taking a beating from the impact dispite the new shoes.

My goal before the race was to finish under 2 hours and I did accomplish the goal, 1:51 was my final time.

We will have to see about a full marathon, doing two halfs would sure be difficult and really puts a marathon in perspective after running this event. My hat is off to all the guys that have run marathons in their life, great accomplishments.

My Triathlon

Finally, I have completed my first triathlon and think that I did pretty descently for a first timer. I had a final time of 1:21:58 with an average on the bike of 22.5 miles/hour and 6:43 min/mile; I won't mention the swimming time since I am not too proud of it, but was happy with my overall performance. I got 7th in my age group.

What I loved most about the event was all the preperation that converged to one day of performance. I had been running all summer and up to the race, then began riding my bike and swimming more and more to really hone the necessary skills.

While the race was ony a "sprint triathlon," meaning probably some of the shortest distances available in the triathlon race, it was a lot of fun and lots of hard work.

The guy that is guilty of getting me involved in doing the triathlon is the guy here in the photo with me before the race, Joe. A great guy from my church and small church group that meets on Sunday nights. He was training for a tri and I was getting a little jealous of all the fun he was having, so I finally got signed up.