Tow of shame

Running:
It feels so good to be back to running regularly. I’m still easing back into it, but there have been no setbacks to this point. My runs have mostly been in the 4 to 6 mile range.   Two weeks ago I ran 24 miles on 5 runs. Last week I did 32 on 5 runs. This week should be up near 40. My run Sunday was 12 miles in 1:39:38. First time I wore my watch since starting back. This was a little slow, but I was happy to get my first run over 1 hour since July 11th under my belt.  This run put me over 1500 miles YTD. 

At this point the Lakefront marathon on 10/3 at least looks possible again. I’m doubting I have enough time left to get in the proper training to do well. At this point I am settling on doing enough to just do reasonably well and by that I mean a minimum qualifying BQ time.  I'm counting on the YTD miles to help me out.

I still have my sights on running the Lake Country half marathon on 9/4. I will decide the night before based on the weather forecast and how the training is going. I will have to see if I think a couple days off and a race will give me more benefit than a longer training run and less time off.

Hunting:
Antlerless tags went on sale this past weekend for available units. I was able to get one tag for area 3 which is near Bayfield. You were allowed 1 per day and only 300 were available. I noticed the next day they were sold out or I would have purchased a second one.


On the weekend of the 14th/15th I was up north for an extended weekend. One of the days my brother Todd and I spent a few hours building a new ground blind for hunting season. We brought in the chain saw and cut up the already downed trees to build a real good base. We actually lashed several of the logs to trees to give support for the structure and provide for correct gapping for the sight windows. We have a little finishing work to do, but I think a real good blind in what looks like a highly traveled area.

The other exciting part of this trip was our fishing adventure. We knew the boat had been used, but didn’t fill up with gas before we left. This was kind of on purpose rather than have a lot of gas go bad since no one had plans to use it for a while. We went early in the morning as the forecast called for increasing winds throughout the day. By afternoon there was potential for 7 to 10 foot waves in the open waters just beyond the islands. We first tried the spot we had been the previous week out near Outer Island. We caught one fish, but it was kind of slow so decided to move after a few hours. After trying to get out farther we just decided to head closer to Bayfield and fish for a while at Oak Island out of the wind. We caught another fish, but again it was pretty slow and we decided to call it a day around 12:30. Heading back in towards Bayfield the motor started running rough and finally just died. It’ a real good thing it conked out when it did because had it been earlier we would have been drifting out into the open lake. The way it was we threw out two anchors, but they weren’t holding us. We were being pushed by the increasing winds ever closer to the rocky shore of the Island. Finally after getting within 20 feet or so of shore the anchors caught. We ended up having to call the Coast Guard and had to be towed back to Bayfield by a boat like the one in the picture. Over 40 years of fishing the big lake and never had anything like that happen before. Turns out that even though the gas gauge registered ½ tank it was actually bone dry. How embarrassing to experience the "tow of shame"! I guess we learned a few lessons the biggest being to always fill up with gas before heading out on the lake no matter what.

Gardening:
Really amazing that I still haven’t had to set up my sprinkler system on the garden this year. I think at this point I’m not even going to worry about it. All plants are mature enough that they should make it fine for a week or two with no rain. Before this year I couldn’t even imagine such a thing. Each week in previous years I spent hours watering. Everything other than the Brussel Sprouts and the winter squash are either done or able to be harvested now. The pears are really plentiful and large this year.

This past weekend we had our annual summer harvest meal get together with several friends. Everything we eat comes from the garden. The meat on the menu was venison tenderloin that I saved for this occasion. The dessert was fresh “no bake” berry pies. We had blueberry, blackberry, and black and blue (combo of each) all of which I picked myself.  I think blackberries are my favorite fruit.  Quite a treat.  We had a great time and the food was excellent as usual.