The Bovine Bugle

Don't you get enough exercise working on the farm??!!

Left to right: Team members Jonathan, Ben, Derek, Jamie, and Jeremy.

Today was race day as our relay team headed to the Key Bank Vermont City Marathon. This was the second year in a row that we managed to get a team entry in the race. Our five-member team competed in the mixed-team open relay, with each member of the team running a leg of the race ranging in distance from 3.1 miles to 6.5 miles.

I was up at 4:15 AM to get the next grazing paddock ready for the cows and to do a few odd jobs in the barn before Ben and I headed out. We left the house a little before 6, picked up my niece, Jamie, and her boyfriend, Jeremy, in Highgate, and headed down the interstate to Burlington. We met our 5th team member, Derek, at Battery Park where the race started. The race went great. About 3500 runners were at the start, and almost 7000 total runners participated in the full marathon or on a relay team. Our team finished in 3:21:37, good enough for 33 place out of 421 mixed-relay teams.

The funniest moment for me was on the way to the park for the start of the race. As we waited to cross a street, I looked over and saw a man that looked exactly like someone who comes to the farm to buy milk. I knew it wasn't Ricki, so it had to be his identical twin, Randy, whom I had never met. I introduced myself, and we chatted on our way to the park. Randy, who is also a dairy farmer, was there with his son who was running on a youth team. Out of the thousands of people who were there for the race that day, it was amazing that I would run into someone like Randy.

Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

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Posted by Blogger Chris at June 2, 2005 08:27 PM