West Virginia's Hatfield and McCoy Marathon

This is a wonderful race. It starts in Kentucky and finishes in West Virginia, crossing back and forth between the states several times. We hit the expo where we picked up our race packet, had a nice prerace meal , and saw a presentation on the Hatfield-McCoy feud....each runner was assigned a side...I was a Hatfield and Kim was a McCoy......

The Hatfield

The McCoy

Race morning was not that warm but it was extremely muggy. There had been a lot of flooding in the area over the last few weeks and the air was saturated. I decided before the race that it was going to be a "fartin' around" marathon. We brought a disposable camera and just covered the distance.....

Only one section of the course was muddy and it reminded me a lot of the tank trail in Anchorage.

...lots of "squalor in the hollar" along the course.

...lots of rivers and bridges along the course.

.....a bridge on the course connecting two sides of a golf course, one side in Kentucky and one side in West Virginia.

No caption really needed....


Our medals and overall finisher trophies...notice that mine is for 183rd and Kim's is for 184th....someone started some McCoy trash talking about a 100 yards from the finish line and got smoked.....also notice that we got a fly swatter in the our packet.

Hatfield and McCoy Marathon.....

We head off for West Virginia this weekend for the Hatfield and McCoy Marathon, which if all goes well will be marathon #76 and state #36. This is a marathon I have been eyeing for quite a while. It is a smaller sized field but seems to get great reviews from its runners. You are designated a Hatfield or McCoy....not sure which one I am yet.

Making a copper rain chain......

I decided to replace one of our downspouts with a copper rain chain. After shopping for them, I decided they were much too expensive to buy, so me being me, I decided to make one. I priced several of the style that I ended up making and they ranged from about 13-16 dollars a linear foot. My chain is about 18 feet long so it would have been at least 234 dollars. I ended up spending 50 on copper and I had a soldering iron and solder on hand. I purchased 1/4 inch copper tubing (the same stuff used to run a water line to your ice maker) in 5 packages of 20 feet. I carefully uncoiled it into a straight line....be careful not to make any kinks in the copper. I used a spray paint can to coil the tubing to my desired ring size. I just held one end and rolled the can along the tubing until it is all tightly coiled around the can.


Slide the coil off of the can and cut the coil in to chain lengths. Make sure you make your cuts parallel with each other and it will make soldering easy later. Snip down the length of the whole coil.
Solder the links together. I found it easier to use the soldering iron over a torch and made my chain in an alternating double and single link pattern. Copper is an excellent conductor of heat and electricity......the electrical conductivity hopefully will not be a problem, but its ability to conduct heat certainly will....wear thick gloves! Add links until you reach your desired length. I removed my downspout and pushed the top link up through the hole where the downspout attached to the gutter. I had a one foot piece of 1/2 inch copper pipe (it was scrap and just about anything will work) that I used to anchor the chain. I slid the pipe in the gutter and through the top link of the chain to hang it in place.
I purchased a copper pot used to coil a garden hose. I picked this because it has a hole for the hose to exit the pot. I pointed the hole away from the house and filled it with landscape rock.
Done....it has already started to patina to the traditional green but I am experimenting with some leftover copper to try some different acids to see what color of patina I can get. Now I am just waiting for the next rain to see how it sounds.....

Green Bay Marathon

Marathon #75, State #35....here is a collection of pictures.

Kim and her finisher's medal

My medal and number.....

After packet pick-up and pasta....

The Bay of Green....

Fried cheese curds from Titletown brewery.....mmmmm.

Titletown Brewery....a must....good food and good beer.

Cheese head...available in the Lambeau Gift shop...along with about anything else.

Lambeau Field....the start and finish of the marathon.

Next up......West Virginia.

Green Bay Weekend

This weekend, we will be driving up to run the Cellcom Green Bay Marathon.....finally a new state. I have been running too many races that are repeat states, so it will be nice to be able to cross another one of the list. If all goes well this will be Marathon #75 and state #35......

The Lincoln Marathon

I ran this marathon 10 years ago as my first marathon and it has not changed a bit. The course was the same and it was fun to remember covering it that first time. We partied it up a bit too much the day before, so it was a rough morning....way too much good food and a bit more alcohol than I am used to consuming the day before a race....I was so stuffed I could not sleep and was parched and constantly getting up to drink water.
The race started and we just settled into a nice slow pace. I actually think I felt better the back half of the race than the first half, despite the temps creeping up. We finished at about 5:30 and marathon number 74 is in the books.....
mile 9 or so....

Lincoln is this weekend....

May 2, 1999....I ran 26.2 miles at the Lincoln marathon in 5:03:00.....It was my first marathon and this weekend, I will run this event 10 years later and, assuming everything goes well,
it will be marathon #74.....It will be fun to retrace my steps.

Frisco Highline Trail Marathon

Craig, Kim and I headed down to Bolivar, Mo to run the Frisco Highline Trail Marathon Saturday morning.....a 2 am alarm clock and hitting the road by 3 am. This was the inaugural race for this event, with about 30 marathoners. There was a 50K and a 10 mile race that had a lot more runners, so there were over 100 people for the three races. We parked at the finish and grabbed a bus to the 50K start and then grabbed a second bus to the marathon start, which was at an intersection of the trail and a gravel road. The race started at 8:30 and it was already getting warm and humid and after 2 miles, I was soaked. The combination of the humidity and the soft trail really took it out of me, but I was expecting that to happen, so I just ran at my pavement pace until my legs started to burn out.....then it was just run-walk to the finish....5:30:12. I waited around for Kim and Craig to come in so I could get some pictures for Craig's first marathon finish. Congratulations! That was a tough marathon for a first one and I am sure he is suffering today....

This was a nice race...they had a few problems, but nothing that can't be fixed for next year. The race shirt was a dry fit and the medal was very nice also. It is a trail race, so don't expect manned water stops....I would also recommend a carrying a water bottle, because some of the waterstops seemed like they were spaced 3 or so miles apart. It is an easy drive down to the finish area and most of the course was crushed gravel. Tough but fun.

Century Babe....

Miss Molly went over the 100 mile mark for leashed walks in 2009 earlier this month...and now well on her way to 200 miles. Kim took her on a 2 mile walk and she was still wired all evening....so we had to get the frisbee out. She slept well......

Kitchen Cabinet Refinish....

The remodel of the living room is getting close to being finished, but the kitchen which is part of one big room along with the living room is just getting started. We just completed the first section of cabinet refinishing (the left side is refinished). We love the way it turned out....it matches the crown molding pretty well and the method we used was pretty easy. We start the next section tomorrow.....Kim is roughing up and deglossing the cabinet surfaces and hopefully we get some staining done too. We will be putting in all new appliances and I am going to pour concrete countertops....we will see how that goes.

Spanish Cock Fighting Chair.....

I bought this old chair today. It is very small and I am not sure what we will use it for.....but for 90 bucks, it is unique enough that we will figure something out for it. The shop owner said it is a stool that was used in Spain to watch cock fighting....who knows if that is true but it still makes for something different. One thing we have thought about was a place to put folded bath towels in our bathroom once it is remodeled.....any other ideas????

Stained glass windows are done!

The glass color was not captured well on the camera.....it is bleached out a ton so I will take another shot later when the lighting is not so bright....new and improved picture is now up...the colors look more accurate now.