Virtual Race Report and Strange Sightings

To celebrate 10/10/10 and in honor of Neil's birthday, I signed up to run the 10/10 virtual race. My contribution was to run 10 miles by 10/10/10. I went a little over, so maybe I get extra entries.

Sun - 3.1mi.   Firehouse 5K
Wed - 3.3mi. New hills training route.
Fri. -3.4 mi. New hills training route with a small detour.
Sat. 2.5 mi. Short run with the doggy.
I ran my 10 miles plus two 1.0 milers. Woohoo! And a big Happy Birthday Neil Z!!!

Congratulations to all of you runners who ran races this weekend! It was a gorgeous fall weekend to race or get out and do stuff with the family.

We headed out to the trails again today.  The scenery looked a little different than a few weeks ago. Instead of roller skating on fallen acorns, we walked on red carpet. 

 Looking up, we were surrounded by sunny yellow and happy, happy orange.

We weren't just sightseeing today though. We were on a mission. Knucklehead wanted to go back to look for this:

It 's going to become rustic decor for the new fort he's been working on all week. We found it, cleaned all the dirt off of it (please, please let that be dirt that was clinging to the eye sockets) and went on our merry way.

Mr. Run Hard's favorite trail activity is to run way ahead, hide and just as we approach his hiding spot, jump out and scare the begeezus out of us.  Only today it went a little differently. Today as the kids and I walked along, we heard this strange thumpity thump sound and when we found the Mr. he was standing in the middle of the trail in front of a ginormous fallen tree (perfect for hiding behind) and looking at us very strangely.

"Did you not just see that deer with the car seat on its head?"

"What? Did you say something about a deer with a car seat on its head." (I ran this image through my mind and when it proved to be totally illogical, I thought maybe "car seat" was some kind of new slang for giant rack).

"What are you talking about?"

"A deer just ran right by you and Smiley and it had a car seat stuck to its head. I can't believe you didn't see it or hear it. I jumped over this log to hide and almost landed on top of it. It scared the sh*t out of me."

"What do you mean by a car seat?" (At this point I was certain he had hit his head on a tree and knocked himself delirious.)

"I mean a car seat!"

As those final words came out of his mouth I heard something in the woods and turned to catch a glimpse of what looked like red plastic bobbing along behind some trees. As I moved closer, the bobbing stopped and I adjusted my eyes to separate the forest from the trees and saw this:

The poor guy had a baby swing wrapped around his antlers. Doesn't he look so sad? Now what? Smiley's freaking out. "We've got to get it off! Oh, mommy look at the poor thing!" I'm at a loss here. Look, I'm all for helping animals in need, but I've seen the video.Wild animals are one thing, but one in distress is another thing entirely.

When we got home, I sent an email to our local DNR with the picture and all. Hopefully they can find him and get that contraption off his head. Deer season will be here soon, and with a target like that, he has a snowball's chance in hell.