Barn Estimate

Last week we had a contractor out to give us an estimate on building our barn; the cement floor, the upright posts and the roof. This will be connected to the existing arena, a 10 foot aisle and five 12X12 stalls with  2 foot of cement outside the stalls doors into the runs, like our old barn had. The roof will be metal that is screwed down under the arena metal.
We will add the outside and dividing stall walls ourselves, much of it over time but just having an estimate is so exciting.
$13,450 covers it all and that's a lot less than we thought it might be.
For the inside stall dividing walls we have all those Longacres boards that will be perfect, each one of those has history already and now we will use them for our horses. There will be hay storage above the stalls, water in the aisle and at the ends of the runs for the automatic waterers I've been saving for so long. We aren't sure where the tack room will go as of yet but if I was to turn the extra stall in to a tack room I could sell the shed tack room I brought here and that would reduce the costs of the barn.

The horses have been in the front pasture all week, eating down the 4-5 foot tall grass so that Lan can mow it in 3 weeks. By then, the back pasture will be ready for them again.

At work, bids came out for summer and I got a 35 hours per week shift, perfect for me. Mostly days, one midnight to 10am shift. It will be nice to be bringing home more than $1,300 every two weeks.

I'll be getting estimates for the new hardwood flooring this week. I really like the looks of the stone look tiles too but real hardwood, not laminate, is the way to go. The value of this place will go sky high. Lol, ok, it already is. We've done so many awesome upgrades and have so many more planned.

RUNNING NEWS
I've been reading some running books from 1995 and 96, can't believe how much things have changed. One is a book written by a woman, for women and she said if you're a beginner runner you should be running 8 minute miles. That made me laugh, but she sounds very arrogant when she's bragging that she ran marathons with 5 minute miles. That's not how you're going to make women want to respect you, it makes slow women hate you. You're supposed to be encouraging the slow ones and the beginners, not making them feel totally inadequate.  I was planning on passing this book on to one of the newbies at TriBabes but now I'll just drop it off at the post office. I'd feel bad if one of the new triathletes got it and felt slow.

I've got Harstine Island Half Marathon this weekend, should be a teensy bit faster than last year since I've been working on the hills for a month now but I have no idea what my time was last year. I just know it hurt like hell for 3 days afterward.

MCM training is progressing very well. I've got a plan and so far am ahead of schedule. I've got injury and illness time built in, as I did for Ironman, and I shouldn't have any body pain I the days following. Well, as long as I remain jnjury free and am able to train all summer. And I can since I know my days will have a great schedule. This will be a first for me.