To run or not to run

Running:
Not much has been going on in the running area for a while. I’ve still been primarily in recovery mode since the marathon. Last Thursday I did manage to run 4 miles on the treadmill in 32:00.
My plan for this past weekend was to head north to Bayfield. I took Friday and Monday off from work to get in a long weekend. I had lots of chores to do before I left and of course everything took longer than anticipated so I got off to a late start. All the way up I kept playing in my mind that I should run in one of the Whistlestop races on Saturday. I was feeling pretty recovered and thought maybe I could run in the half marathon. I mean as long as I was up there why not. I was confident I would try this until I got closer and heard the local forecast for Saturday. Cold, windy and wet. I still went to the expo with the intent of signing up and actually had the form in my hand. When I saw the $75 cost for the half, my mind changed. I just couldn’t justify the cost of running in miserable weather for a non goal race that I probably wouldn’t do that well in. I scored a new pair of Asics Nimbus running shoes for $50 at the expo and left confident I made the right decision. When I woke up Saturday morning and things were even worse than forecast I was happy I made this decision. I didn’t get out to run at all over the weekend so I ended up with a measly 8 miles for the week. Tuesday I got out for a 7.5 mile run during my lunch break in 59:03. The legs felt great and it was real good to get out there.

Hunting:
I finally got out for my first hunts of the year. My original goal for Friday was to leave in enough time to get out hunting in Bayfield when I got there. Because of my late start this didn’t happen. All the way up north Friday afternoon and evening there were deer out everywhere. Probably feeding with the storm heading towards Wisconsin. The weather was perfect too, so I wasn’t happy I didn’t get out. Saturday morning was terrible. No deer in its right mind would be moving around with the kind of wind we had. I stayed home. Saturday evening it was still breezy, but considerably less than most of the day. I got out for my first hunt of the year. I was only out a couple hours and didn’t see anything, but it was good to be out there. Sunday morning I headed out well before light. There’s something unnerving about walking in the woods in the pitch blackness when you know there are bears in the woods with you. I kind of get used to this a bit after a couple of times, but I was sure jumpy on my way in. I hunted for a couple hours and again saw nothing. Sunday evening things really changed. The weather really calmed down. The woods became very quiet. The leaves on the trees were not moving at all. I could hear things as small as a mouse rustling in the leaves below me. Almost from the time I arrived I had deer all around me. Several passed by pretty close, but I saw nothing I could or wanted to shoot at. I don’t know how many I actually saw because several of the deer passed by a few times. Maybe there were 6/7 total. It was exciting though and the time passed quickly. On Monday morning I decided to try an alternate stand site. It was a nice morning but I didn’t see anything but a few squirrels.

Gardening:
As mentioned earlier I had a lot of work to do Friday before I left. This work was all garden related. With the impending freeze that was coming I had to haul all my pumpkins (maybe 60 of them) from the field up near the house and into the trailer to cover them. The squash also needed to be brought in the garage for protection. I picked about 2 wheelbarrows full. I picked about three bushels of apples of different varieties too. There also was other things to pick and other vegetables to cover to protect them from the cold. The leaves are beginning to fall too, so the pond gets covered with netting to protect from most of the leaves ending up in the water. If it weren’t for May and October the garden chores aren’t so bad. These months can be overwhelming with all the things that need to be done.