miles and . . .

. . . beans - not quite in that order!

The day started with my 5 mile run. I wore my new Garmin FR 15 and felt pretty happy with it.
The run felt hot - I couldn't believe how much slower I was from the day before - but 5 miles is 5 miles, no matter how fast or slow you go.  The whole goal of training is to get faster - so we will see. At the beginning, I know it is normal to feel slow and also to question why am I doing this?

Here are my lap times from Sunday's run. As ALWAYS my first mile is the fastest.  Tomorrow I have 3.5 miles on the schedule and I am going to make sure that mile 1 is NOT the fastest!
Laps

Split Time Moving Time Distance Elevation Gain Elevation Loss Avg Pace Avg Moving Pace Best Pace Calories Summary 52:46.1 52:09.0 5.05 105 105 10:27 10:20 9:15 525 1 10:28.4 9:52 1.00 10 -- 10:28 9:52 9:23 105 2 10:27.0 10:27 1.00 -- 2 10:27 10:27 9:21 104 3 10:27.3 10:28 1.00 16 -- 10:27 10:28 9:51 103 4 10:28.1 10:27 1.00 71 85 10:28 10:27 9:15 105 5 10:27.3 10:26 1.00 9 9 10:27 10:26 9:20 104 6 :28.1 :29 0.05 -- 10 9:52 10:12 10:03 4

I struggle with the idea of slowing down - not literally, but figuratively, well maybe literally too.  At 58 it is hard to run and bike with friends that are younger than you, but yet, somehow I imagine that it helps make me stay active and keeps me on my toes. Sometimes I think it would be nice to be with my "own" age group - but that would require me to join a running club or seek out others my age that are active in the same activities as me.  I see so many of my friends and acquaintances slowing down, not getting out there for exercise, using excuses like; it is too hard, or too much work, I am too tired or there is just no time . . . yada, yada, yada! Let me tell you it is hard, and it is a lot of work and it makes you tired and you have to make time for it - but it is work it!  Trust me. The energy you get back more than offsets the energy you spend.

When will I slow down? Has it already started . . . and I just don't know it????  Will I stay as active when I retire? What would I do if I didn't bike and run and do Pilates? During the last 4 months, I spend approximately 40 + hours a month on average running, biking and doing Pilates. Since there are about 720 hours per month, sleeping, getting ready on both ends of sleep account for about 9 hours per day, or about 270 hours in a month, working 10 hours 5 days a week accounts for 200. If you are subtracting with me, that leaves about 210 for everything else!  Perfect - actually that is nice to think that there are as many hours spend doing what ever??? as working!

After running we talked about biking or going out on the boat and I decided I would rather go for a bike ride and then go out on the boat if we felt like it.  We biked around the Capital City Bike Loop, which is a 20 mile loop from my office and so we set off to my office and then hopped on our bikes.  The path downtown was extremely busy with people, kids and students. The first couple of miles were slow and weaving around people, but once we got beyond campus the traffic wasn't bad. Saturday and Sunday was Madison's, "taste of Madison" and I imagine there were lots of people downtown because of the food fair.  Overall, the bike ride was great - it was warmer than we expected and of course we didn't feel like heading out on the boat once we got home.  ???maybe a sign of slowing down???

The picture, from my phone, does not do it justice! The path was massively shaded with sunny yellow flowers all along this section.

Cooking:  Summer has been rough on my goal of cooking only from Jenna's blog, Eat, Live, Run and getting through all of her main course meals.  Well, I am not giving up! I might not have checked many recipes off the list during the summers months, but I am still committed to trying!  So here are two more recipes to "check" off the list!  I have made the black beans previously (before I started my 2014 challenge) and LOVED them - you just have to plan ahead so that the beans are allowed to soak over night.  And since we are from WI and brats are a standard summer staple (although this is only the 2nd time this summer we have made brats) I thought I would try Jenna's caramelized onion beer brats and boy of boy did they hit the spot.  Probably helped that I worked out for 2 1/2 hours, so at the end of the day I was hungry.

Cuban Beans from Jenna's blog - HERE, cooked in the crock pot, (I added some red peppers, since they were in the frig.) (at this point they are uncooked)

Labor Day Beer Brats with Caramelized Onions . . . again from Jenna's blog, Eat, Live, Run - HERE.

Today, Labor day is a rest day for me. Notice the irony? Labor Day - Rest Day!  I spent much of the morning in the yard, trimming flowers and bushes and weeding. Seemed a little silly to weed, since the growing season is slowing way down, but it is still nice to get rid of the little pesky weeds through out the flower beds.  The rest of the day, was spent relaxing, watching a little of the US Tennis Open and vegging out!  

Enjoy the last fleeting days of summer.

burnt . . .

. . . toast
yup, someone burnt toast on friday morning and I could smell it on my run with Sophie! It occupied much of my thoughts! did they eat it? did they throw it away? do they like burnt toast? what else are they eating with it?

I have officially started training for the Tyranena 1/2 Barrel (1/2 marathon) in November. I am determined to stick with a training program and selected the Hal Higdon's Intermediate Half schedule. Since it is a 12 week program and I started with only 10ish weeks to go, I slightly modified this weeks training to get me up to speed. In effect I ran 2 on Friday, 3 this morning and 5 tomorrow. This should get me on schedule with week 3. I will NOT skip training runs!  (my usual routine, start strong and then fizzle out . . . NOPE not this time)

I slept until 8:30 . . .  ahhhhhh!!!! and woke to Oscar gagging up a hair ball! Talk about a motivation to jump out of bed! Grab the cat off the bed and swiftly toss him into the bathroom. I made it!
Then relax with coffee on the deck, check email, check Facebook, etc and wait for a break in the rain. Well that didn't actually occur until noon. So that is when I headed out for my 3 mile run. Non-eventful, warm and humid, but not bad. The program called for 3 miles at Pace . . . it didn't indicate whose pace . . . seemed like a snails pace! I charged my ailing Garmin and wore it and was happy to find out that I did the first mile in 9:33, the second in 10:16 and then the third in 10:07. Although my "hopeful" pace is closer to 9:30 - with this mornings humidity, I will take it.  I also ran into the Sandhill cranes crossing the street, but I didn't have my camera or phone - so no pic's.

When I got home my Garmin was flashing through all of the screens and right then is when I decided I would go buy a new one later in the day. I hadn't wore it for at least a year and although it still works, it is exremely slow to pick up the satellite signal and randomly flashes through all the screens and won't respond to your selections . . . which ends up frustrating me (more than it should).  It was purchased in 2009 and might even be a 2008 vintage. There is a lot of sweat that has been loaded into the case!

After getting some chili started on the stove, we headed out to REI and I purchased the Garmin Forerunner 15. Not as many features as my last one, but does the basics and that is really what I need.

Headed out at the end of the day for a little bike ride and today's pictures are from that ride.

Enjoy the moments!

Not crazy . . .

. . . afterall!

As I previously mentioned the path that I bike to work includes exiting the bike path and driving through a parking lot. There are rocks / boulders blocking the connection point so that vehicles can't accidentally get out on the bike path. I had noticed that the boulders were moved, allowing for a small access point sometimes, while other times there were boulders in the way. I decided to start paying more attention and taking pictures when I noticed something different. Well what do you know, the boulders were in a slightly different configuration on Wed and again this morning, confirming that someone is moving them!

Here is a shot from a couple of weeks ago, notice the space on either side of the two large center boulders.

On Tuesday the space on the right was filled in with a boulder.

Yet on Thursday morning the view clearly shows that someone moved the rock and shifted its location so that the opening on the right of the center two large boulders was accessible once again.

Who does this? Why? I get a kick out of these type of random things that show up.

On other news or updates,

Todd's brother and wife were here over the weekend.

The family reunion was good.

I ran on Monday,Wednesday and Saturday mornings

I biked to work 4 days.

I attended 2 Pilates classes.

Summer has finally arrived - hot - humid - sultry weather has settled in and we turned our air conditioning on Thursday.

Enjoy the final summer moments!

 

 

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Another . . .

. . . beautiful day, although still not the summer weather we deserve at this time of year.

The morning started as most of my work mornings start, let Sophie out,
clean the litter box, make a cup of coffee, pick up the back yard and then
take Sophie out for a run/walk . . . but for some reason I ran out of time
for taking Sophie out for the run/walk and I have no reason why that
happened. Does that happen to you? You have a routine, you follow it and
yet somehow, something grabs some time. I don't recall what happened this
morning, but there wasn't time left. So off to work on my bike.

So far in 2014 I have biked over 1,400 miles. Here is a graph of miles per month. Honestly it feels like so much more.

My friend Tricia and I got a pretty early jump on the bike season and started biking in March, while there was still snow on the ground.

While I did bike to work a couple of days in April, it wasn't until May that the weather started more consistently cooperating or I got into the commuting habit. Honestly, this is more dependant on me getting in the habit of biking to work than the weather cooperating! Like any new task or process, biking to work takes some time to develop the habit. For me, just packing my bag takes some getting use to, making sure that I have everything that I need.

At this point in the season, the entire process goes pretty smoothly, but early in the year, everything takes longer. I am extremely lucky because we have showers and a small locker room at work. I have the necessary shower supplies in my locker and this year I also leave a basic amount of make-up at work.

A couple of lessons I have learned -

• keep an extra pair of underwear at work,
• if you wonder whether it is too warm to bike to work in work clothes, it probably is . . . don't chance it and wear biking clothes,
• in case you absolutely FAIL and forget an important article of clothes I have a dress and sweater hanging behind my door in my office
• leave a light weight jacket at work, although it is generally warmer when you bike home, that isn't always the case, I have had several times when my commute to work in the morning was beautiful while my bike ride home was cold and windy.

From May through August I have biked to work 65% of the work days including every day of August! ;-)

Work, well it is work. . . .

After work I headed to a stretch class called 'Refine your Spine' - a super
relaxing and much needed stretch class primarily on the roller.

So absolutely relaxing.

Speaking of relaxing, what do you suppose this guy is thinking relaxing over the ledge watching cars, bikes and people go by? It is some sort of artistic creation looking out over the third floor of a building near my Pilates Studio.

Back on my bike and not only did I get stopped at one railroad crossing, I got stopped at two railroad crossings!

Enjoy the moments!

 

 

 

 

 

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Missing . . .

. . . summer.

I will return when the temp's warm up. Seriously, there is no denying these cool temp's are lovely. It is great to run without feeling like you are dripping wet, bike without being extremely sweaty and feel cool breezes through the house BUT it is Mid-August and we should have hot, muggy days and sultry evenings.

I want summer back . . .

Enjoy the moments, even if they are cool.

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Must be . . .

. . . crazy. Seriously the boulders/rocks blocking the bike path from cars have not moved in a week. I know I didn't imagine that they were in different locations . . . or did I? Maybe it was a dream?

Speaking of night, which is when most dreams occur, there was a horrible screeching sound that woke me up last night around 4AM. Some animal was clearly in distress. Sophie was upset and started barking - it wasn't a pretty sound. I couldn't get back to sleep and should have gotten up, but instead I laid there trying to convince myself to go back to sleep - but failed!

Back to morning and my bike ride. The weather report predicted rain in the late afternoon, but I figured I would chance it. Meteorologists, some times they're correct and some times they're wrong, and I have been married to one for 37 years so I think I have an interesting perspective. Whenever you see 50% chance of rain, why think it will rain? There is a 50% chance it won't. Go for the positive!

Anyway, somewhere around 3:30 - 4:00 that 50% became 100%! It suddenly started to rain, make that pour. But upon checking radar, it looked short lived and after another couple of short bursts of rain and thunder showers it looked like I would be fine to bike to Pilates. So at 5 I hopped on my bike and headed to class. The sky was dark and it was windy, but no rain.

The Pilates studio I attend classes is on Atwood Ave, a rather funky neighborhood in town. This is a sign I pass, turning to the Pilates studio.

I checked the weather again after Pilates to see what the radar looked like and all was clear. Granted it was a windy ride home and the wind was coming directly out of the north, which is the direction I was headed, but I didn't get hit by a single drop of rain!

On the menu for this evening was a Cuban pulled pork sandwiches and boy was it good. I made mine when I got home from Pilates. Pulled pork and ham warmed up. Add the warm meat to a nice chewy bun with mustard, pickle spears and Swiss cheese and heat on top of the stove.

This is not a Jenna inspired meal but speaking of Jenna, I need to get back to cooking recipes from her blog! I have been slacking off!

As I lamented yesterday, summer is quickly fading. It seems we are busy every weekend until mid September. Why are we so busy you ask? Well, my oldest son is getting married in September and between family reunions, bridal showers and volunteer commitments we have no free weekends. Add to that my Peoplesoft upgrade project at work and I am feeling a tad bit stressed. I require a lot of down time and just don't feel like I am getting enough right now.

Speaking of downtime, it is past my bedtime. I am hoping there are no animal distress sounds tonight.

Enjoy the quiet moments!

 

 

 

 

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Saturday bike . . .

. . . ride to New Glarus.

Alarm was set this morning to make sure that we got going relatively early. It is big time beer events around Madison this weekend. The annual Great Taste of the Midwest, a gathering of craft brews and breweries bring 1,000 different beers to a lakeside park. The event is limited to 6,000 people and sells out quickly. Anyway, because of this emphasis on craft beers in the area, the New Glarus brewery is busier than normal and they had a limited release of sour Peach ale. While we got to the brewery at 10:45, there were lines of people already there at 7. We weren't there specifically for the limited release, although it would have been fun to participate. When we pulled into the parking lot people staff said that they had 1,500 people at the brewery just before we arrived. Even though we missed the limited release, we got to enjoy the wood fired pizza of LaFortuna pizza and enjoyed a couple of beers, including Staghorn and MoonMan, two of my favorites.

I invited a couple that had participated in this years Tour de Brew, which I organize over Memorial Day weekend. I know they like to bike and thought they would enjoy this ride. They had never been to the New Glarus Brewery and I think and hope they had a great time.

Here are a couple of pictures from the road and of course in front of the tunnel entrance.

After we got home, I was basically a couch potato. Well actually a porch hammock potato. I am embarrassed to say I did nothing. Usually a 30 mile ride doesn't tire me as much as today's, but I was tired and didn't want to do anything! Oh well, I know that these days are few and far between. No problem or reason to feel bad. Sometimes you just need to hang!

Tomorrow will be a busy Sunday with church and then we are going out on the boat, but that is tomorrow and next on the agenda is a wonderful night of sleep!

Enjoy the moments and enjoy good beer!

 

 

 

 

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A day off . . .

. . . of work. (I must not have pressed publish last night! Opps)

Oh how I love a Friday off from work, especially with no plans. No reason to set the alarm. Wake up when I want. Isn't that wonderful.

Nothing much on the agenda for today. Enjoyed my coffee outside, deadheaded some day lilies (there are only a few flowers left), watered and fertilized the flower beds, picked up some checks to be deposited for my church, grocery shopped and did laundry.

I road my bike to the bank, which was my 8th consecutive day of biking. Yea!

Didn't take my bike to the grocery store! As I was checking out at the store, the clerk asked a strange question? She wanted to know if I wanted my beverage left out? I wondered what she was referring too since I had bought milk, wine and tequila? It was my 32oz container of Kefir. 'Thanks but no!' I like Kefir, but havnver been tempted to crack it open for a swig!

It appears to have been a good exercising week based on my gear that gets hung to dry.

7 tech shirts, 6 bottoms - that is a good week of work - biking and running gear!

Does anyone else living in a raised ranch use the railing to dry their clothes? If not, you should try it because it works great. My husband always comments, but the clothes are only there for the time it takes to dry. It's not like I leave them there for long!

Enjoy the moments!

 

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Broken . . .

. . . streak. I have posted 10 consecutive posts . . . but not yesterday . .

Yesterday, Wednesday August 6th was a day just like every other day, except that I ran the Movin' Shoes Full Moon run which had a start time of 9PM. Afterwards I met up with a couple of friends for some late dinner at Alchemy and didn't get to sleep until nearly midnight, excuses, excuses.

This was my 4th year of running this race and I really enjoy it. It is a small race with a 500 limit on participants. There were 431 finishers, which means that some people signed up and then were not able to run.

Sad to say that instead of getting faster I am getting slower. In 2011 - 29:34, 2012 - 29:39, 2013 - 30:57, and this year - 31:53. I guess that should be motivation for me to work on some speed work or at least get out there for more miles. And you know what, it was also a GREAT reminder that I LOVE to run. I really enjoy biking, especially commuting to and from work . . . I like biking on the road . . . and I like biking on trails . . . but at the end of the day, even though I am not speedy, I LOVE the way I feel from running. I will get more miles under my belt!

Every time I thought about running the race, I was conflicted. I haven't gotten much running in lately, especially because of all of the biking I have been doing, so I just wasn't feeling it. But I knew that three friends Rachel here, Kim here, and Corinne were going to be there and I am never unhappy after I run. And although I was not as speedy as I would have liked, I still had a great time and it provided me with the motivation to get out there for more runs.

Here is a picture of the 4 of us and just Corinne and I with the Capitol building in the background.

Fast forward to this morning - those dang rocks (that block vehicle entrance to the bike path) did not move. I am sure they are regularly moved . . . but not this week. Both on this mornings commute and this afternoons commute, they were still in the same place. One of these days I will get to prove that they move.

Enjoy the moments!

 

 

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Moving . . .

. . . boulders!

On my bike commute to work, I bike on a variety of surfaces. I start out on
residential streets in my neighborhood, then bike on a road with a
designated bike lane, then hook up with the bike path, either biking
through Tenney Park or taking a short connecter path and then back onto a
street that is designated as a Bike Boulevard which is a local street with
low speed, low (motor vehicle) traffic volume and used primarily by
bicyclists. Motor vehicles are welcome on bicycle boulevards, but bikes can
use the entire lane.
I have a couple of different routes to get to work, but they all end up
using a portion of the bike path to hook up with the Bike Boulevard. This
involves biking through a large parking lot that is NOT heavily used. To
get into the paved area, there is a slight turn off of the bike path and
blocking this are large boulders. These large boulders keep cars that might
attempt to pull out of the parking lot onto the bike path. If they did do
this, there wouldn't really be anywhere for them to go, they wouldn't fit
through the tunnels that are on either side of the path at this point, but
I am sure that if the boulders were not there someone would attempt to
drive the bike path. What would really happen to them is that they would
likely drive right into the Yahara River which runs along the bike path!
Anyway I swear someone keeps on moving the boulders. One day it is easy to weave through them and the next . . . not so much. Since I have to weave
through them, especially because I am usually coming from an awkward angle, I notice that they are not in the same location. I biked to work with my
neighbor and mentioned this to her and she said that she had seen someone
with a bike trailer behind their bike stop and sound quite confused, since
he had easily made it through the opening the day before and yet this
particular morning the opening was not large enough? So my mission for the
next couple of weeks is to take pictures so that I know I am not going
crazy.

This morning I did a combination of running and walking my neighborhood 2
mile loop with Sophie. Since my legs were still tired from last weekends
bike ride I just didn't feel like running. My legs would probably appreciate
taking a day off from commuting to work via bike, but I didn't want to lose
the momentum that I had created by biking Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Just around the corner from my house was none other than one of the foxes.
My guess is this was one of the younger ones, he/she was pretty skinny.
Sophie and I were running and he jumped out of the tall grass scaring
Sophie who lunged at him. We all stopped and looked at each other . . .
then he moved on. No camera or phone with me.

Mid afternoon I took a break and walked to my nearby coffee shop, Ground
Zero for an iced coffee and peanut butter cookie.

Life is good. Enjoy the moments!

 

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Monday . . .

Monday, so good to me.

Or not.

I didn't set my alarm this morning. Instead I decided to sleep until I woke and ended up waking around 7:30. I decided to bike to work. I know that might sound crazy, especially after biking 147 miles on Saturday and Sunday, but it was a beautiful morning.

Besides the beautiful day (morning), I set a goal to bike everyday of August. It might not be many miles, but I would like to get on my bike everyday. I have been tracking my mileage and am participating in the National Bike Challenge. The challenge is made up of individuals, work groups or teams that track and report miles biked and earn points for every day biked, in addition to the mileage covered. Just a little added motivation to get on my bike.

Well the beautiful morning changed to rain and thunder this afternoon. I bailed and called Todd for a lift. I still biked, just half as many miles as my normal commuter route.

Short and sweet.

Enjoy the day, enjoy the moments!

 

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MS 150 . . .

. . . day 2.

Ahhhhh! It feels so good to be done.

In total we biked 9 hrs and 36 minutes for a total of 147 miles. While day 1 is relatively flat with hills only popping up in the last 20 miles, the second day has hills, hills and more hills. It feels like every time you turn a corner there is another hill. Besides the hilly route, you are tired after Saturdays ride and sleeping in a dorm room.

On the way back into Madison we stopped at Christy's a great bar on Lake Waubesa to celebrate. At that point we had less than 5 miles to bike. We hung out there waiting for others from our team. I enjoyed a few vodka lemonades -

This was my 5th year of participating in the MS 150 bike ride and very likely my last. But we will see once next year comes around!

Enjoy the moments!

 

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