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.

Plans change . . .

. . . and then change again.

I decided to take this afternoon off. There was grocery shopping to do and pulled chicken to get started. Todd's family is having a family
reunion in Milwaukee on Saturday and his brother from Michigan will be staying with us on Friday and Saturday evenings. While we will be in Milwaukee during the day tomorrow, I still need to make sure that there is food in the house for breakfast and dinner tonight.

Last evening I asked Todd -

what time are they expecting to get here? 'early evening' .
What about food? 'Well we can probably just order something!'

No, we can't do that. I will make something, how about pulled chicken in the crock pot? 'Sounds great! '

I wanted to say, of course that sounds great! It always sounds great when someone else does the work!

I don't know about you, but if someone is coming to your house, you don't

order pizza, maybe when you are younger, but at my age, you should be able to come up with home made food! Only problem with my plan, is that I didn't have any chicken thighs in the freezer, so I decided I could take half a day of vacation, run to Costco on the way home, pick up chicken and a few other items and get the chicken going in the crock pot by early afternoon and it would be done in time.

But wait at 10:00 I have a message on my phone from Todd, now his niece, her husband and kids have decided to stay near Madison instead of Milwaukee and would like to get together for dinner at a brew pup in Madison. His question is where should we go? I suggest either Great Dane or Ale Asylum. I suggest that Todd try for reservations at either place.

He later calls me, as I was driving home and now his niece and family will not be staying near Madison, because they didn't leave Michigan on time, so I head to Costco and the original plans!

Dinner was good, although a little latter than I had wanted. The chicken was great, recipe compliments of Jenna's blog, Eat, Live, Run, Crock pot root beer pulled chicken, here. Served on a bun or sweet potato.

I made a batch of margarita's and everyone was happy. No pic's of the evening!

Enjoy the moments!

 

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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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Life gets . . .

. . . in the way!

I don't know about you, but this summer is flying by. Does time really go faster as you get older? Or are you just more aware of all the things you want to accomplish and feel like there is not enough time to get it done?

My goal, my want, my dream is to post about life, work, running, biking, gardening, cooking each and every day. How hard can that be? A few words typed onto a screen, a few pictures from the day. Obviously I am a bit lackadaisical regarding that goal. I say I want to blog every day, yet I don't. No one is stopping me. Most evenings I should be able to devote 1\2 hour to writing and publishing a post. Seriously what is up? Kids are out of the house and Todd is retired as of July 1 and is doing quite a good job doing work around the house. Enough complaining . . . .

Saturday morning started with a little 2 mile run with Sophie, then I biked to a 1 hr Pilates class. Honestly the rest of the day was relaxing, pulling weeds, watering the gardens, doing a little cleaning.

Sophie relaxing on the deck after her run.

Recipe challenge update: I continue to work on making recipes from Jenna's blog, Eat,Live, Run - here. Slowly but surely I cook. So far I have made 46 new recipes including tonight's dinner zesty crock pot chicken and potato stew. (Green beans added from our garden) Do you realize how hard it is to cook new recipes all the time? Will I complete my challenge before year end? Who knows, but almost each and every recipe has been great. At a minimum I will have expanded my go to meals and I have used a variety of new ingredients!

Stew on the 27th of July! Not your normal summer dinner? Well, the weather was anything but 'normal' today. I don't think it could make up its mind. Sun, clouds, wind, rain, wind, clouds, sun. Back and forth all day long.

This is what it looked like when we came off the water.

Windy days generally mean great jet ski weather. I think I was a little hesitant to head out on the lake because the temp's were only in the mid 70's, not the warmest weather to get wet. But we did anyway and we were rewarded with white cap weather and hardly a boat on the water. Because of the cool air temp's the splashing water was a bit of welcome warmth, albeit short lived. Because as soon as you got wet the winds chilled you down. But we were constantly getting soaked, so it was a balanced day on the water!

I want to write about my biking and running and Pilates - but in an effort to keep this short and because other than a quick spin around the neighborhood on my bike I did neither of the other two activities today. And after all, I want my blog to be about today, and maybe just a little of yesterday because that is when I started this post!

Enjoy the moments!

 

 

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Going . . .

nowhere / or somewhere - it doesn't matter, because today was the type of day that we deserve after putting up with winter.  Oh my - it was beautiful.  Sunny skies, a little breeze - a perfect 71 degrees.

Blue sky

Running: I started the day with a 2.6 mile run. Many of my running friends are running half and full marathons and I am struggling to work my way back up to 5-6 miles.  I will do it, I know, but it will take awhile. People can talk about how great walking is, and I am the first person to talk about the benefits of biking, but nothing - NOTHING compares to running. If you haven't been running for awhile, 3 miles is a long way.  Case in point, last weekend we were in New York for a long weekend and walked 8-10 miles per day - Friday, Saturday and Sunday - that is a lot of walking. Last week I biked to work Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday and yesterday biked to pilates class for a week total of 56 miles this past week.  All that exercise and 3 miles is tough.  Needless to say, this has made me recommit to running. As an exercise nothing compares!

Planting: Later in the morning I went to the flower shop to pick up some annuals.  My gardens are full of perennials, but the burst of colors that annuals provide is a must have.  I focused on purples, oranges and yellow as color choices.  Hoping for pops of color in those specific colors will look nice.

Veggie garden planted

We also planted our veggies, which included carrots, radishes, spinach, onions, peppers, tomatoes, beans and beets.  I left space for more tomatoes and area's to plant more radishes and spinach in a couple of weeks to spread the yield out over a few weeks.


Menu:  On tonights menu, compliments of Jenna's eat,live,run blog was Beef Empanadas, HERE.  I should have started making these earlier in the day, but it was worth the 7:30 dinner time.  The dough came together easily. I took Jenna's suggestion and combined the butter and flour with my hands. I usually do it with a fork, but actually it was easier to get it completely mixed together using my hands.  Empanadas can be made in a variety of sizes, I looked through the cupboards and found a 5 inch bowl and used that as my dough cutter.  It ended up being a perfect size!  The beef filling was good and a bit unusual, since it included a chopped hard boiled egg.

cut dough

ready for the oven

fresh out of the oven and ready to eat

As always . . . Enjoy the moments!

Bike rim . . .

. . . art!

 

Wow - were does the time go?

Skipping biking and running, yard work and a trip to New York and tons of other stuff - today was a work in the garden day. But before we did that I started the morning off with a little 2 mile run with Sophie. Next up was a bike ride to Pilates. After class I headed over to Revolution Cycles to pick up an old bike rim to build our garden gate! Didn't even have to pay for it, what a great bike shop. Biking with a bike rim over my handle bar was not the easiest thing, but doable. Once home we headed out to pick up our boat and two jet skies. I am sure this is the latest we have ever picked up our water toys from winter storage, but the weather has not exactly been warm enough to even think about being on the water, let alone in the water . . . current Lake Mendota water temp is in the 50's, brrrrrrrrr.

Here is what we did with the bike rim.

 

After we built the door, next up was to put the fencing up. By the time we finished that we didn't have time to plant, but that can be done tomorrow. We still have to put some fencing material on the bottom of the door to keep the rabbits out. Again, that can be done tomorrow.

Because of life in general, I have not been cooking much - - but last night I made shrimp tacos with grilled poblano and avocado salsa. HERE. The salsa was so good, I just finished it off tonight wih a couple of chips. Oh my, it was so good.

Enjoy the moments.

As I read back through this post, it is scattered and disorganized, which pretty much describes my life right now! Oh well!

 

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Catching . . .

. . . up! Oh what a beautiful morning!

Easter Sunday - ahhhhhh! The morning started with choir practice at 8:00 to prepare for singing at both the 9:00 and 10:30 services. In addition to choir responsibilities, Todd and I also ushered at the 10:30 service. Busy morning and a busy week for church. I don't usually sing in the choir, but the Pastor asked a few individuals to sing with the choir to boost the ranks for the Palm Sunday Passion musical and Holy Week. This entailed weekly practice with a Palm Passion service on Palm Sunday, singing on Good Friday and singing again on Easter Sunday. Last Thursday was my last practice :-). Don't get me wrong, I love to sing, but the mix of choir members isn't really a group I want to hang with. There are some VERY nice people, but then there are also the whiners and complainers. You know the type, nothing ever makes them happy. I don't like to be around people like that and since it is my choice, I don't have to!

Here is a picture of my church sanctuary this morning! Yup, those are the 10 commandments, front and center! Sort of imposing! Flowers in front of the alter, towels on the alter (offered for 'The Road Home' program, a homeless program my church and I are involved with) and a paper flower cross made by the Sunday school children on the side.

Since our oldest son Joe, was spending Easter with his girlfriend's family and Charlie stayed in Eau Claire, it was just Todd and I. When we got home from church, Todd asked, do you think it is OK to run the power washer on Easter? my response, Sure, I don't see why not! So we got busy cleaning the screen porch and outside furniture. With the warmer temp's finally arriving in Madison, the porch is a wonderful place to sit, but a winters worth of grim needs to be cleaned off of screen, floors and furniture before you want to use it.

Todd handled the power washer, while I scrubbed the furniture. I am sitting on the porch as I type this and it is nice to sit on the chairs without a beach towel, which I used to keep the grim off of me!

Now for the 'catch up' portion.

Running: I have been running 2 miles in the morning with Sophie usually 4-5 days a week and did venture out for 4 miles on Friday morning.

Biking: Tricia and I did a 27 mile ride on Friday, passing through Paoli. Little did I know that we would bike to Paoli (15 miles) on Saturday too!

On to Saturday, Todd, Joe, Chelsea and I decided to do a short ride to Paoli. From our starting point, it is a nice 15 mile ride, nothing challenging, but a great lunch destination. I asked Tricia if she wanted to join us and she said sure. When we got into Paoli, we stopped at one of the many unique shops in Paoli, this one is called 'Cluck'. They specialize in chicken feed and collectibles. I found this great print and can't wait to get it framed and hung, photo bombing chickens!

Here we are outside of the Paoli Pub. There are 'nicer' 'artsy' places to eat, but we prefer a beer and food at the pub and the food is really good!

Side note: I have biked 139 miles in March and April - not as much as many avid bikers, but I don't really consider March and April prime biking months, so am pretty happy with that mileage.

Recipes: Cooking my way through Jenna's blog: eat, live, run  HERE.  l have been really focusing on making some recipes the last couple of weeks. Last time I posted, I had my next recipe selected, Chicken Paprika with homemade dumplings, here. This was the first time I've ever made dumplings and they turned out great. The dish was wonderful, rich and creamy. Will be making again. And it was quick and easy.

We had a causal get together at church a couple of weeks ago. Wasn't sure what to being, but I knew it would be something from Jenna's blog! I decided on Grilled Brie with Honey and Trail mix, here. Again, Brie is something I haven't ever made. I have eaten it, but just never made anything with it. This was well received, everyone enjoyed it and again, easy peasy!

Next up was Spinach feta turkey burgers, here on Sunday. I know I sound like a broken record, but they were so good. Turkey burgers can be a little dry, but with the spinach and feta cheese in the burger, that provided a little moisture and they were great. Not much to look at, especially when you compare it to the rich dark color of a beef burger - but it can hold its own in a taste test.

Tuesday brought us Pork Chops with Grilled Nectarines, Caramelized Onions and Gorgonzola Cheese, here. Sounded and looked fancy but it was really quick and you just can't go wrong with the combination of Grilled Nectarines, Caramelized Onions and Gorgonzola Cheese, oh and the pork.

Last Thursday I wanted to make Red beans and rice, here. I started with soaking the beans Thursday evening and then in between running and biking on Friday, I headed to the store to pick up the ingredient I didn't have on hand, specifically ham hocks. Another thing I have never used in cooking! Like chili, the red beans and rice gets better each and every day it is warmed up.

Hoping you all had a wonderful Easter.
Enjoy the moments.

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Spring has finally . . .

come to Madison . . . although our two large lakes, Monona and Mendota are still frozen

and we are sure to receive some cold temp's in the weeks to come, I think we can actually think about spring in the current tense instead of the future tense.

Spring! I especially think we were waiting . . . waiting . . . waiting for any slight sign of warmth after the extremely cold winter we had. I checked the weather history and in March 2012 the highest temperature was recorded at 83 degrees with 19 days when the high for the day was 60 or above. 19 days sounds unbelievable as we just survived a March that only yielded 1 day that was above 60, March 31 when the high was 65.

Biking: This year we were thrilled with 50+ degree weather, which occurred for a whopping 5 days in March! I got out on my bike on 3 of those days and was also out on a day when the high was only 46! I biked for a total of 61 miles in March, an all time record. When I bike to work I usually do 60+ miles per week, but in March, not so much!

Running: I have been running, but not for any distance. My runs are comprised of running with Sophie for 2 miles. Here we are on Monday morning - I loved the deep blue sky.

The next race I would like to do is the Crazy Legs run on April 26th, a 8k run though UW Madison campus, ending up on the 50 yard line at Camp Randall. Unless I am able to get some hill work in and run for more than 2 miles, I won't be signing up. We will see what the next few days and week end brings.

Recipe Update:
I have now made 25 recipes from Jenna's blog: eat,live,run, HERE. Doing the math or looking at the counter on the right hand column of my blog, shows that I have 105 recipes left to go. Looking at the number of recipes I have completed so far, 25 just doesn't sound like that many, especially since I started in November. Anyway, I am not going to give up and will continue through this journey!

Last night I made the Penne with White Bean and Spinach, here. I will be honest, I didn't think I would enjoy the fact that there really wasn't any real sauce in this recipe, but the lemon zest and juice along with a little water from the penne and the white beans provided a creamy consistency. The cayenne pepper provided a bit of a bite. It was a quick easy meal. I would make it again and actually thought of adding tuna . . . that might sound weird, but I think it would go well with the lemon and spinach.

I have another recipe planned for tomorrow evening - Chicken Paprika with Homemade Dumplings - this will be a new experience since I have never made dumplings before!

As always

Enjoy the moments!

 

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Just in time. . .

. . . for my vacation . . . I hurt my back!

I tweeked my back last week while pulling on my sock. Nothing serious, just a little tender. I ran and it didn't bother me at all. It was feeling back to normal on Saturday, until I fed the cats. Seriously I reached to the counter corner to reach a food dish and pop, I hurt it again. I spent some time on the roller and that really helped loosen it up. I planned to go skiing with a couple friends and didn't think my back would stop me from skiing.

Got to the hill, picked up lift tickets, got my friend set up for a lesson and off we went. Holy cow, after 1 run down, well it didn't take the entire run down for me to realize that my back was in bad shape. I should have stopped, but I continued for 4 more runs, then I decided I needed a little break. My low back muscle was in spasms and I was in pain. I ran into my friend who was taking a lesson. She had decided she didn't like skiing, she wasn't able to come to a stop and wanted the lesson to be done. I told her I needed a break, and we would go have a beer and then go back out for a few runs down the bunny hill. By this time my back was really hurting, but as I said, we had a beer and then headed back out for a ride up the lift and a few runs down the bunny hill.

By the time I got home I was in a lot of pain. I would rank it 10 out of 10. I took Advil and a couple Tylenol PM's hoping that would alleviate some of the pain. I was not that lucky. After suffering through the night with no sleep, and actually falling down our stairs (I only fell from the 3rd step) because my leg went out under me and not being able to find any position that offered relief I went to urgent care at 8 and came home with Vicodin and muscle relaxers. Arrrrgggggg

That was Sunday morning. Today, Wednesday is the first day I haven't taken any Vicodin, but have taken two muscle relaxers. My left leg is tingly and somewhat numb below my knee, so something is still pinching. What a great vacation. My plan was to run daily and take some extra Pilates classes, but that isn't going to happen.

I am just hoping to get out of the house tomorrow for a walk! Until the tingling, numb feeling is gone, running isn't going to happen.

Recipes -

Last Friday I made chicken parmesan with a twist, HERE from Jenna's blog, Eat, Live, Run. I have never made chicken parmesan. I usually don't like breaded meat, but this was pretty good. What's the twist? Pepperoni on top!

Enjoy the moments!

 

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