Weekend work outs

Happy Father's day to all of the great fathers out there.  My husband is a great dad to our two sons and is currently enjoying a fishing trip in Canada.  He left Thursday morning.  ;-)
Friday: I took friday off, because the electrician was scheduled to come and finish some of the electrical work in the family room.  I started the day on friday with a 6 mile run - 2 miles with Sophie and 4 without.  The run went well.  I was back to the house around 8:30 and the electrician showed up around 9:00.  Right after he left, I got ready to head out on the bike.  My plan was to do a 35 mile loop on my road bike.  It was a great bike ride.  I did this route several times last year and my time was usually 2:45, but yesterday I completed it in 2:23 - clearly having a road bike makes a big difference.  Of the 35 miles, 15 is my normal route to and from work, so there is a lot of stop signs and waiting for traffic.  On the bike trail, I was seeing a lot of 17 - 20 miles per hour pace . . . my average was 14.5.
Saturday: My son and his girlfriend came over and we took the boat out on the lake.  The temperature was a perfect 80.  I drove the boat while my son slalom skied a couple of times.  I am not the best driver, especially for pulling a slalom skier - but got him up on the first try.  I was next up and headed into the water for the first time this year.  My son is a great boat captain - but he tends to pull skiers a littler bit faster than I like - YIKES!!!!   I got up twice - no spills - and had a great time.

We also brought the dogs on the boat and they both enjoyed a little exercise in the water.    They both love their doggie life jackets.  As soon as we stop the boat - Sophie wants to jump in- Nutmeg usually has to be persuaded to jump in.  ;-)





We got home and enjoyed New York strips on the grill, corn on the cob, bread and the first of the season, Summer Shandy, a great beer by Leinenkugel's.  ;-)












Sunday:  Woke up this morning with sore shoulders.  Water skiing will do that . . . especially the first time of the season. I had taken my commuter bike to the repair shop on Thursday, for a new chain and sprocket and headed down to pick it up around 10:00.  I then headed over to my son's apartment.  The plan was to bike from his apartment to New Glarus via the Badger State and Sugar River Bike trails.  This is a 26 mile trip - with about 18 of the miles on crushed rock, which is why I used my commuter bike.  My road bike would not be very stable on this surface.  Biking on crushed rock / packed dirt is much harder than paved surfaces - holy cow!
The best part about the trail is that there is a tunnel on the path - the Stewart Railroad Tunnel, built in 1887 and 1200 feet long.  .  It isn't the longest in the state - but it claims to be the darkest . . . and I agree with that claim.
Here I am at Tunnel Rd.          Here is the sign for the Tunnel.
As we approached the tunnel, you could feel the cool air coming out of the tunnel.  It was also very foggy near the tunnel entrance due to the high humidity.
My son has a flash light on his key chain (otherwise we could have used the lights on our smart phones)  and we used that to navigate the tunnel.  Since the tunnel is not straight - there is a bend in it - you only see blackness when you look into it.   Just to clarify - we walked our bikes through the tunnel.  You could maybe bike through it if you had head lamps or a bike light - but it was really fun to wander through the cool darkness.

The last photo, give you a perspective of the size of the tunnel, this family was getting ready to enter the tunnel, just as we were exiting it.
After the tunnel, we only had about 5 more miles to get to New Glarus.  Once in town we headed to the store where Chelsea works.  We stopped at a local Subway and then loaded our bikes up and headed back to Madison.
Great weekend of exercise and fun on the water.
PS - I have just started using MarsEdit - a blog editor for Mac - I am having lots of problems with photo's - there doesn't seem to be any way to add a caption to the photo's and they are really hard to place in the text.  I will give it a couple more blog posts - but I might be going back to blogger.

Blog Action Day 2010 - WATER - Cherish it!

Blog Action Day 2010

Topic: WATER

I read about blog action day on Robin's blog, Running Circles around the Turtles -  HERE. I thought it might be fun to participate given that the topic is Water. The idea is that everyone involved writes about the same subject . . . obviously this will result in tons of different ideas and opinions.

Cherish Water.

Take a look - Water is all around us. Water is probably the most recycled product we have on earth. The whole evaporation - condensation - precipitation cycle happens over and over again . . . providing us with water to live - water to grow - water to produce.

Is there anything as satisfying as a tall cold glass of water . . . especially after a long run? All we have to do is turn the faucet and obtain a drink - no waiting - no wondering if it is safe - no running out - it is always sitting there waiting for our needs. Do you think about how lucky we are? Do you think about the people across the globe, living without a clean water source? Think about that the next time you take a shower and all that clean water is going down the drain.

Are you conscience of the water you consume?

• Do you shut the water off while you are brushing your teeth?
• Do you let the water run while rinsing dishes you washed by hand?  
• Do you wash you car in your driveway and let the water wash down the storm sewer?
• Do you water your yard and let much of the water spray on to the street or sidewalks?
• Do you run your dishwasher when you only have a few dishes to wash?
• Do you turn on the washing machine to wash only a couple items of clothing?
• Do you take excessively long showers?
• Do you think about the water that goes into producing everything that you buy, whether that be an automobile, food, clothes, furniture, running shoes, paper . . . I think every person, animal, plant and product that we create needs water. Amazing when you think about it . . . isn't it?

Living in Madison WI - we are basically surrounded by water. The downtown area is built on an Isthmus - Lake Mendota on the north and Lake Monona on the south. At it's narrowest the Isthmus is about 1/2 mile wide.

 Downtown as seen from Lake Monona

Aerial view of Lake Mendota, Lake Monona, Lake Wingra, Lake Waubesa and Lake Kegonsa

We talk a lot about water quality of the lakes. We also talk about run-off and keeping fertilizer and leaves out of the lakes. Any water in the streets, runs through the storm water system and ends up in the Lakes. At our house - I am sure our neighbors sometimes think we are crazy - but we rack the leaves out of the street and onto our tree lawn (that area between the sidewalk and street). We also pull the car onto the lawn when we wash it so that the water returns to the earth, instead of running into the lakes.

Before you buy a new shirt, pants, chair, car, bike, toy, shoes or food - stop and think about the water used to produce the product.

Before you turn on the faucet - stop and think about the water that we use.

Saving just a little can make a huge difference.

 

After all, we all live on the same planet - our home - Mother Earth . . . common ground!