The Bovine Bugle

The farmer runs the marathon

On May 30, I ran with a team in the 16th annual Vermont City Marathon in Burlington, Vermont with my son, Ben. Our family took care of things on the farm for us.

Ben and I left Franklin around 5:15 AM. Dad, my brother, Steve, brother-in-law
Marty, and Karen and the boys were doing the morning milking and barn chores. It was about 28 degrees with a little frost on the windshield! We picked up other members of the team--my niece and her boyfriend--and then on to Burlington to meet our final relay team member. It was an awesome day. The weather was great and the race was intense. It was the largest race any of us had ever participated in, with close to 4,000 runners at the start and over 5,500 runners in total competing.

Derek started the race running the shortest leg, 3.1 miles. He handed off to Ben who ran 5.8 miles. Ben passed the relay bracelet to me and I did the longest leg, 6.2 miles. Jeremy took over for me and did a 5.5 mile leg and he handed off to his sweetheart, Jamie, who ran the final 5.6 miles to the finish. We completed the race in 3 hours 21 minutes. This was good enough to finish 29th out of 326 mixed relay teams. My niece, who was the driving force behind getting us to enter and compete in the marathon, was ecstatic. We all had a great sense of accomplishment after the race.

Another farmer in Franklin, who also serves of the with me on the elementary school board, sees me out running quite often. He comments that he should exercise more, but with the demands of his large farm he can't find the time. With the slower pace of our farm, and with the decreased time demand on us during the summer when the cows are out on grass, we have the time to take care of ourselves maybe a little better. I like to think our quality of life is just a little better because of the way we have chosen to operate our farm.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

Posted by Blogger Chris at June 23, 2004 10:45 AM