My BreyerFest Virtual 5K Race

 

This is a very long post, covering 4 days (Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday), and having 28 pictures.  It was my husband's idea to run the BreyerFest 5K race virtually even though I was in Lexington.  This move was brilliant.  Not only did I ultimately turn in a swift time -- the third fastest of all my BFest races, only 1 second slower than my second fastest! -- but I found a lovely place to enjoy during a lovely hour of the day.  I went there four times and ran 3 5Ks over BreyerFest week; and each time was a great refreshment of the spirit.  Running gave me a chance to get out of the house (I was in a hotel room most of the time), and, hey presto, I didn't have to wear a mask.

The first time I saw the course in person was on Tuesday, the day after I arrived in Lexington.  I was very eager to walk it, and took lots of pictures.  This was during the middle of the day.  I was using my Fuji camera and not my smart phone, a choice of some import later.  Up to then all I'd had was the satellite printout:

 

 

 You can learn a lot from the satellite view, but there's nothing like really being there.  The next 11 shots are all from the very first time I saw it.  This first pic is at the Coldstream Park parking lot, on the east side of my course.

My chosen course utilized part of the Legacy Trail.  This is a bike trail which goes from the Kentucky Horse Park to downtown Lexington, a total of 12 miles.  It honors various Black jockeys, horse trainers and breeders of the area.  Despite this picture, it was not a canopy trail [trees did not meet overhead].

I was careful to document places where I'd have to choose the correct turns.  Here I needed to fork right.

 

There were 2 ponds along my way.  This was the larger, and it had cleaner water, plus a fountain.

 

It was also the one with the geese.

I was a bit worried about the geese.  However, my fears turned out to be groundless.  They would get out of the way,... and dodging their leavings was not as distracting as I'd thought.

 

There were three traffic crossings on my course.  This was one of them.  I had to go straight across this 2-lane road, not following the path's obvious curve here.  I was fortunate; cars were not a problem, mainly because I was there so early in the day.

 

There were some truly lovely stretches along my course.  The stone walls of Kentucky are famous.

 

Near this place was the grave of Bull Dog (Teddy x Plucky Liege).  The grave had many open acres to itself, amazing in so busy a city.

 

This place was a campus, Coldstream Research Campus of the University of Kentucky.  It had a mix of buildings:  hotels, businesses, research offices, corn fields, open pastures and the odd park.  There were also historical remains of earlier buildings.

Towards the middle of the course, I found a cool mansion-looking building.  I discovered later it was a business headquarters.

It was built in imitation of Kentucky colonial styles, I think.  For some reason I loved it.

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 WEDNESDAY

 Five kilometers is a bit over 3 miles.  I did not manage to walk the whole course on Tues.  On Wednesday, July 13, excited by my growing success in managing to do BreyerFest even in the face of a pandemic (this subject is too large to cover here.  Suffice to say, more than 2 years is time for a LOT of articles read, behaviour changed, spreadsheets kept, medical stuff & staff learned from, and atmospheric diffusion proven), I got out to the northern parking lot before sunrise.  I was using my cell phone camera.

This was my race's starting and stopping point.  This first run was intended to just get through the course.  Near the end, I found a third pond, with many impressive marsh flowers.

The sun had risen.

True to cell phone custom, I tried to take selfies.  Those who know me should be properly impressed that I've come this far in FB etiquette.   I had forgotten to take my glasses off when running (hilariously, I forgot to take them off for all three 5Ks) and my face was so hot I was fogging.

 

Below is the shot I posted on FB as my first selfie.  The sun rays around the head perfectly capture how proud I was of myself, yet still very shy.  Alas, my stopwatch, carried in my pocket, had been accidentally stopped during flight, and I had to rely on my wristwatch for this Wednesday run.  This time is an estimate:  minutes from the wristwatch, seconds from the stop watch.  45:15

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 FRIDAY

 Friday, July 15, I again got out to the parking lot while it was still dark, before 7am.  It was only a three-minute drive, literally across the street from the Clarion.  Most model horse people just don't get up early!  My poor camera struggled with the low light.

Incredibly, there was a full moon.

Even more incredibly, someone had painted a bright neon-orange starting-line on the trail paving!!  This was fantastically useful but made me worry that a real race would be held here,... A few bikers went by, but there never was a crowd, so I lucked out.

 

Friday my goal was to keep myself in shape.  I try to run every other day, usually varying between 2 1/2 and 5K.  But here at BreyerFest I was at peak form and felt that running the full 5K every other day (starting Weds.) was within my grasp.  Even so, when I started on Friday I did not say, This will be my race.  I just wanted to get around sound.  The air was deliciously cool and I felt quite safe.

Aristides, the first winner of the Kentucky Derby, was born near here.

 

This picture proves that I had my Fuji with me on Friday and recorded my run time.  It would have been immensely useful to've known that later!  In hindsight, I think what happened was that I forgot I had the download cord, and didn't realize I could get pictures off the camera and into my Chromebook, my BFest computer.  Error number one.

Tachyon the Racing Akhal Teke was always with me during BreyerFest runs.  :)

Instead, I contented myself with smartphone shots.  And here's error #2:  I hadn't yet figured out how to not make them come out backwards [flopped].

 Doesn't that look like a 45?....??....

Somehow, without looking at this picture too closely (nor the above Fuji shot!), I got it stuck in my head that I'd run 43:32.  All Friday morning I was chanting to myself: forty three, forty three!  It is written in my Notebook for Friday:  43:32.  Where did this come from?  Error number three:  The last time I'd run a 5K before I left for Kentucky, I'd gotten a 43, and I remembered.

 

I struggled over whether to submit the 43 as my official race time.  Virtual runners are allowed to submit any time during the week, up to the noon Sunday deadline.  I was bound and determined (as determined as I was to get in my reservations for 2023, dang it!!!) to make that deadline, preferably by a wide mile.   Sometime during Friday I argued myself into submitting.  The 43 was pretty good under the circumstances, I was desperate to submit early, and I half-hoped, half-gambled I'd be able to change it later if I did better on Sunday.  And how did I know I'd even be able to do as good again?!  BreyerFest is not the best place to keep oneself in top shape, especially as the week goes by... !  and the spectre of Covid was always hanging overhead.

So I went through the steps of submission.  In the process I discovered that my time had been, not 43:32, but what looked like 45:32.

 

Oh, no...

 

Gritting my teeth, I submitted anyway.  This race time was only 27 seconds slower than my 2017 BreyerFest race.  Thoroughly flustered and taken aback, I yet clung to my dream, to run in all the BreyerFest races and turn in decent times for my age group.  I had some consolation when I looked up race results later online and discovered I was in fourth place among all virtual runners [at that time of the week].  That was cool. 

 

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SUNDAY

July 17 was the Strudel Sprint for everyone in person.  I heard they had a good race.  (I saw that Stephanie Macejko placed well.  No wonder Breyer holds a 5K!  Go Steph!)  In a burst of happiness from my largely successful BreyerFest week, I was out running early again.  This time I clocked 43:07.  The Friday time had, indeed, been my race.

After running on Sunday, I comfortably walked back over part of the course to take a picture of a unique feature, the decorative medallion in the middle of the trail.  It is a little past the Citation Boulevard bridge:

which is the only place on my course where I go under a 4-lane highway.  (Discovering this underpass had a lot to do with my choice of course.)  Just beyond it was a surprise.

I can't think of anywhere I've been where painted medallions appear on sidewalks.  The edge was grooved into the surface.

So cool!

 

My last Coldstream photo shows one of the two groups of flags on this portion of the Legacy Trail as well as an information sign about it.  This feature has been in the background of my selfies and can be seen in the photo of the orange starting line.

It was somewhere on Sunday morning that I tumbled to the truth.  Somehow, I'm not sure when, I had gone through many (unnecessarily complicated!) jumps to get a copy of that 'win photo' onto my Chromebook.  That photo was backwards, therefore the 45 was backwards too.  It hadn't been 45:32, it had been 42:32.  I had a few hours to email the guys at 3 Way Racing and correct my error.   I did so in smooth desperate efficiency, attaching the photo and emailing them using two different places on their website.  I'd been a fool, but an honest one.  I was so relieved to get a reply from one of them that my error had been corrected.  Thank you 3 Way!!!

 

Not only that, but I'd done amazingly well.  I'd placed first in my age group.  That had never happened before!

 

I look forward to a time and place where I can finally run with the crowd again.

I Do Collect Pins

 

My claim of not collecting pins has been well and truly busted.  Gone is my restraint.  My ability to stand aside from these lovely little miniature horse models, the very essence of jewelry, has eroded to nonfunction over the past few months.  2D?  3D!!  I draw some comfort from the fact that Edward Bohlin, the famous silver saddle maker and artist, was involved with enamels during the last decade of his life.  While much of the hobby turns to Stablemates as a way to save money,  my ventures into such small scale horses means indulging in luscious rich colors and glorious textures of smooth hardness with the added durability of metal.  Some of these aspects drew me to the Decorators, all those years ago.  Is not tackmaking descended, in part, from jewelry-making?

The day after BreyerFest, my pin collection looked like this:

Compare to this, blogged about last fall (thank you Lynn!), November of 2021:
Here's the link to that post:  I don't collect pins.

You can see I've rearranged them so as to concentrate on equines,... and taken the Mink Unicorns off their cards.  Alas for the card manufacturers and packagers.  I no more collect those than I do horse boxes.

When I got home from BreyerFest, the Cave Pony Dulmener pin arrived.  I had decided to allow myself just one Cave Pony, (shall we dance angels on pinheads over the strength of my restraint?  I think Cave Ponies are obese!) and this one had to be it, given his color and historical connections.  I had acquired this year's 3 Special Run pins, Landler, Nicolas and Brahms, with scary ease.  I merely stood around the exit lawn of the All Access tent and asked people for the 2 pins I'd missed.  Ah, the open-air stock market!  This trick worked after about 6 inquiries and cost very little.

It is actually pretty hard to photograph these babies.  Low light is needed and then some serious Photo-Shopping so they're not washed out.  I shot this upside down (due to lamp position), auto-sharpened, and used Healing brush and Saturation increase, among others.  The top 2 photos are the most true-to-life color.

No collection is complete without oddballs.  The homemade cartoon Saddlebred is neither metal nor enamel, but I thought he was cute.  He came from a room open in the Marriott Griffin resort (next to the CHIN), proving that creativity is alive and well in all sorts of places!  BreyerFest could well spread to adjacent hotels in the future, just like the Tucson Gem Show...  oohhhh, what an idea...  

Thank you Helen B., my generous friend, for the Stein and his friends,--  the only Stein I'm likely to possess.

 

Note:  I would pay good money for a Mink Sayida, the chtnt Appaloosa Mare sold in April, as well as for a Zigmund.   Also in search of a Bastian, Zigby or a Manchado.  Alas, I am somewhat overdosed on Xanthian and don't want one... now how could that have happened... [see Dec 2021]

My Virtual 5K Race plan

It has been a tough decision, making this year's BreyerFest 5K a virtual one.  I suspect I would not have run at all if George had not had a brilliant idea.  He said, with the elegant simplicity we value:  Why not run virtually right there in Lexington?  And I was instantly charmed.  Yes, that solves everything! 

I could not bear Not to run,... not after having run in every BFest race since the beginning, 2016.  Not after keeping myself in shape all through the year!  Much of the rest of this post will deal with that...  But equally I was so deeply afraid of the official race's "plume."  Aerosols hang in the air...  I cannot do races in a mask.  :(  I could run with maybe one or two other people, if they were known safe and clean.  But three hundred strangers...!   In a county (Fayette) still judged as red (in Covid numbers, that is)... well, I'm just really hoping that next year things will be,... even safer,... for the compromised.  Thank you Breyer for the virtual option!!

 I was enchanted to find a lovely 5K course literally across the road.  See that intersection at the lower right edge?  That's the one by the Clarion Hotel...  The map is turned 90 degrees right, that is, east, so that west is up; but the bottom road is Newtown Pike.  This next shot shows my course a little more clearly.  I shall park in the uppermost spot, labelled Legacy Trail Parking on the above map.

 At time of writing, I am hoping to run early Friday or Saturday morning.  The virtuals are allowed to run anytime between the 11th and the 17th. 

Breyer and 3Way have not recognized my race times for last year, 2021.  I emailed them twice, with pictures.  Their stated reason was that I hadn't submitted my time before noon on race day.  For the record, I finished in 41:40.

Below is my official 2020 race finish, my first virtual one.  

 I keep waffling about being officially recognized.  The race officials bend over backwards to offer you an app (RaceJoy) for your phone. I very much wanted to, and I thought for a long time I would have the technology in place by 2022.  However, I didn't have a case for my phone.  Probably (now that I think of it) this was the result of a combination of not using a cell phone on a daily basis, plus severe restrictions on shopping.  Carried in my pocket -- this is damning -- the thing butt-dialed itself into various configurations I did not want, and took time for me to get it back to its stopwatch.  And the phone's stopwatch was only good for 30 minutes.  My 5Ks are longer than that.

[Not yet realizing that RaceJoy would allow more than 30 minutes.]

I did actually try running while holding my phone in my hand.  I could do it;... but it was too distracting for really good times.  In classic procrastination mode, I had left it too late to purchase a case online.  Or an armband, which I now know exist.  Oh yeah!  I was also deeply distracted with the thought that I could make my own case,... fatal attraction of being a leatherworker.  After all the TSII specializes in small leather pieces...

 

 And so, in this saga of self-imposed restraints, having given up on the RaceJoy app for yet another year, I started using my tack bench stopwatch.  And here I had marvelous success.  Riding along in my pocket did not disturb it the least.  Shoulda done this all along!  I started taking pictures of important (to me) results.  This first one was for 4.76K, on June 30.

I don't want this post to turn into a boring list of times and dates, so I'm only going to show the times I actually photo'd.  So far there's only four. 

This next one happened July 5, over the full distance of 5K.  Not bad!!

Another factor that may have impacted my increased times was a proper sports bra.  Customized it may be, but it gets the job done, which wasn't done very well up to now.

Here's one I put up on my FaceBook.  July 7, over a distance of 3.45K.  This works out to a little more than 8 minutes a K (8.11).  Anything under 9 can be considered pretty darn good for me.

Here is this morning's take, a full 5K run in less than 9 minutes a K.  (8.69).  A 5K is exhausting.  It's more than 3 miles.  Of course there is walking,... at least for someone like me.

We will end this stretch of singlemindedness with a view of my Race Door, actually the inside of the TSII tack room door.  Here is where I hang all my medals and bibs from my races.  "I love me wall."  As it happens, Breyer has not shipped my t-shirt and bib for this year in time (as they were supposed to for virtual runners).  Maybe it's just as well.  One great development in the hopeful category this past year has been that we're no longer quarantining mail.

Ed. Note:  Breyer/3Way DID get me my t-shirt on time!!  The morning I left, Monday, I swung by the box and it was waiting there for me.  Wowzers!!

Virtual or in-person, I am cheering for every runner this year! 

The Expanded Sales List

 

Ed. UPDATE:  

Chesterfield SOLD as of Monday night  7/11

Lima Mule SOLD as of Monday night

Estrella del Sol SOLD as of Monday night

This is where I'm going to throw all the heretofore hidden details of my sales horses for this year's BreyerFest.  Consider it, then, a repast for repainters and repairers, --- an open feast for opportunists, --- and not just a gallery of gouges and an assemblage of shelf-rubs.  As I write, it's becoming an elegy for them, with space for performance pix and all kinds of little personal details, like how Mahi got his name.  I've had them, and enjoyed them, for a long time.  Now it's time for them to move on.

Near- and off-side shots will be followed by, if applicable, any close-ups.  Prices listed are not firm, but they are strongly suggested.  Remember these prices are already discounted by virtue of the above-mentioned opportunities for repainters et al.   The horses on this list are nearly all solid cast resins, which means fragility and great weight.  They will be sold as is, by a friend, in Room 140, if all goes well.

Jorrit by Chris Flint, #1 of a 60-head edition

 Portrait of Jorrit, famous Friesian stallion.  Circa 2008.  Painted in oils by the sculpting artist, Chris Cook Nandell Flint.  Lightly shown -- he looks splendid in parade.  That reminds me:

TSII #454, Not Included

Asking $450.00

I find him tippy.  However, Chris made a base for him.  Almost any base would be an improvement.  Lack of base did not cause this ding, however.  He just hasn't been played with for almost 10 years.  That's my standard for it's time to move on.

 Here's a link to Beau Cheveaux' website page for this edition; look under "Friesian Stallion"

This is another horse who has suffered minor damage and hasn't been played with for more than 10 years.  He's a Breyer Gallery resincast, sculpted by the same artist who did Lonesome Glory, Kitty Cantrell.

I may regret letting this one go.

Seems an easy fix, don't it?  I swear I don't know where the time goes.  I used to show this horse with my Purple matchy-matchy English set.  He did reasonable in performance, particularly Cross Country.  Here's that purple shot:

You can read all about this photo in my blog: Fara Shimbo horses & tack.

Next up is an even older resincast, a Peruvian Paso mare by Sommer Prosser.  This one dates back to the early 2000s.  She entered my herd in the first flush of Peruvian passion and enjoyed some great successes.  Then she sat untouched until now.  It's time to move on.

Estrella del Sol

Here's a couple of shots of Chipsy, as I called her, wearing P4, the fourth Peruvian Paso set I ever made.  You can tell that Kathy Moody was a mentoring influence on Sommer.  I also think these pix show better color.

"Tack not included"

Those big brown eyes!  Yes, they are glass eyes.

Before you ask, P4 was sold to Margaret Olson, over the course of 2005 and 2006.

Moving even older, here's a 1993 Golden Oldie.  This one doesn't have a name (that I'm aware of) so we'll call him Mahi Pedro, my own name for this individual.  This is Linda Lima's famous Bell-Tail Mule, from the days when the sculpting artist was also the finisher.  And the caster.  And the order-filler, shipper and correspondent and secretary and...  I visited her home in AZ and it was filled with full-scale carousel horses.  She had cast and painted them herself.

Lima Mule Resincast 1993 

I have tried and tried to keep him painted and protected, but to no avail.  He was named Mahi because during 1993 my husband and I went on a Pacific ocean field experiment (ships and weather and science and waves!), and it was right after this time that I purchased him, through written correspondence, as was nearly all the hobby back then.  Mahi-mahi was a kind of fish that we much enjoyed eating while onboard the research vessel.  I just thought it was a cool name.

Husband of the above Estrella Del Sol is this horse, sculpted by Randy Buckler and finished by California master painter, Laurie Jo Jensen.  He is dated 1996.

Raven, Buckler x Jo Jensen   $300.00

Both these Peruvians were instrumental in my early years of making Peruvian tack.  I will return to that, but not with these horses.  Raven is a small Trad size, with a tack-unfriendly forelock.  Nonetheless, he was the partner for my first Peruvian Paso tack set, an accomplishment.

Here he is wearing P4.

"Tack not included"

As bonus for reading this far, the last of the C Pilz collection will also be up for grabs.  An unkind person would call these dregs; I think I'll call them bonuses. 

For one reason or another, these two did not get included in my earlier sale to Margaret Loesch of the Grey Woods Cat.   Since pandemic, Margaret has gotten most of my OFs.  Look for them on eBay (Grey Woods Cat).  I cannot praise this dealer enough.  She carries a lot more than just Breyers; go look for yourself.  The Grey Woods Cat

I'm going to try and include my Sales Posters.

Editor's Note Chesterfield Lima Mule Estrella del Sol SOLD as of Monday night

See you soon!

TSII #430 Finished

 

TSII #430's rebuild and restoration was finished June 11, 2022.  The job took just under 20 hours spread over a month and a week (start May 3), which, although terribly slow, is far from our slowest.  Alas!  May and June have been extremely busy (read: distracted) for this tackshop.  However, the worst does seem to be past.

The owner of this little gem of a saddle was kind enough to send me a photo of it in its natural setting -- on a Stone Pebbles on her shelf.  Thank you Jeanette Eby, who loves longears (can you tell!):

Photo by Jeanette Eby

It is very satisfying to see TSII tack pieces on other people's horses.  They almost always look better than on my own horses, hah!  

Here are some more pix of #430, one of only 5 TSII silver Parade saddles built in this scale of 1:18:

I think some of these made it up on our Timaru Star II Model Tack FaceBook page.

Here's a close up of the Near side:

And one of my favorite tack views, the seldom-seen but always-useful BE, or Birds Eye:

Honestly, model horses must have some kind of inferiority complex.  We are always looking down on them.

The corona blanket here was made by Unicorn Woman (Melody Snow).

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So what's next, now that all our tack orders are filled?  June was retirement month -- an end to a 36 year career.  That was the busy and distracted -- little else.  (Not counting the psychic cost of continued isolation and evasion weighing ever more heavily on ageing folk.) (We are both still healthy.)  A retirement is a huge change, something that happens only once; it's not unlike getting married in the first place... though in this case, both participants are still just as much in love.  :)   While he expands his online birding, wargaming and trip planning, I am deciding to... work on the next book.

No tack orders will be taken for at least a year, or until the book is finished, whichever comes first.  I should have started on it when Covid-19 hit, but apparently I needed more than 2 years just to finish what was in the tack pipeline.  :0  An inventory of drafting materials reveals 20 pens, 8 bottles of ink, 4 pads of drafting vellum and enough triangles to outfit an army.  :)  Three finished plates, several finished chapters, a huge Scrapbook of potential chapter subjects, drawings and braided button formulae and a place on my computer just for this project, make up the balance.  I've done this before; it's more than time to get this one into reality.  It's only been 25 years since the Guide was published!!  Besides, I feel like I'm starting to forget things.

 As I've long predicted, working on a book about Braidwork for the Model Horse will undoubtedly generate braid pieces.  Such pieces will probably be available for sale (if I don't fall in love with them).  You'll hear about them on FaceBook and here.

I'm also thinning down my collection, partly for funds and partly because some have to go if others are to come in.  I am deeply grateful to Margaret Loesch of The Grey Woods Cat, whom I call my pet Breyer dealer.  If you see some weird horses in her eBay store, they might be mine.  Thank you Margaret!