Watch out, it's on the loose

Here's an e-mail we got from the garden staff re: our half our garden plot being crushed.  All I can do is laugh.

Subject: Dangerous tree in A row

Dear University Houses Gardeners, 
You may have noticed that a large limb from a walnut tree has come down in the
A row and disturbed several plots. We are working with campus to get this 
professionally removed, but at the moment, it is dangerously suspended by a thin 
strip of wood.  Please stay out of this area if you can and exercise care around the tree. 
This is especially true for small children who might see this has a place to explore. 
It would be great if you have extra produce to offer it to the gardeners affected if
you see them. This is an unfortunate loss for them that couldn't be avoided. 

Sincerely, 
Gretel, Garden Registrar

Week in Review - The "Dude, Where's My Garden?" Edition

Sadly, the garden has not been all it could be this year.  Last year we were raking it in, and this year- despite lots of hard work- it just hasn't turned out so well.  Broccoli = bolted.  Carrots = only grew the green part.  Tomatoes = never turned red.  We were busy last weekend, and I was not looking forward to going out to the garden and dealing with a weedy mess with no vegetables to make up for it.  Well, it was a good thing we went to church this morning because my prayers were answered!

A gigantic tree limb fell on our garden, sparing the good part, and wiping out the part that was a weedy mess!

Here's a view from the far end of the garden.  Eventually I suppose someone will move it, and we'll have sift through the wreckage left behind, but as long as there's a gigantic tree there, we don't have to deal with it!  

The pumpkin is still thriving

And we were able to harvest a few things that will be useful for dinner the next few nights.

Here's the onion and red pepper in food form.  Mmmmmm, calzone.

So have I been this lazy when it comes to working out?  I think not.  Here's the week in review:

M- Strength training

T-  8.5 mi with 3x (800,600,400,200) at 5-10k pace, yoga

W- 8 mi easy

R- 8.5 mi with 2 x 15 min tempo

F- Strength training, yoga

S- 14 mi

U- 6.5 mi, yoga

Total miles: 45.5

2x strength training

3x yoga

I can actually feel myself start to get more flexible from doing the yoga.  I just do 30 minutes at a time, but even with that I think my hamstrings and hips are loosening up.  In fact, I'm planning to watch some more of my yoga DVD to try to see what new parts I might want to incorporate so I can mix things up a bit.

This week (starting from last Saturday) is a cut back week leading up to the 1/2 marathon this weekend.  I admit to not being super pumped about my chances of doing well in this race.  I'm running slow for all my long runs and easy runs, and I'm afraid it's going to be hot.  Neither of those bode well for a PR or even a goal race pace equivalent.  But I guess we'll see how things go after a mini taper.  I always get pumped up for races, and I truthfully have no idea how I've run any of my PRs based on what I see in training.  Hopefully this one will be another unexpected surprise and not a disaster like my last two long races... or that tree in my garden.

Week in Review - The Sweet and Spicy Edition

I guess it was the hot, rainy weather we've been having compared to last year's drier cooler temps, but the garden is just not producing the way it did last summer.  Our carrots didn't grow.  Our broccoli grew and bolted in one week.  The tomatoes look bedraggled.  Fortunately our butternut squash, pumpkin, peppers, and onions are doing well.  The pumpkin plant is humongous, and we even found one little green pumpkin hiding in there.  I guess each year in the garden is different, and you get what you get.  This year we got this:

Green peppers, sweet peppers (which, if you are in Madison and want some, just let me know), and one tiny head of broccoli.  Last year we had so much broccoli!  It's really kind of sad considering all the work we put in to it.  Oh well.  At least we'll have some zesty sandwiches.

On to running and other workout considerations:
M - 5mi easy recovery from long run last Sunday
T - Strength training
W - 8mi with 2x(800,600,600) at 5-10k pace (Interval paces were: 7:40, 7:23, 7:22, 7:47, 7:41, 7:45 min/mile)
R - 8mi with 40 min marathon tempo (run at 8:48 min/mile average pace), yoga
F - Strength training
S - 18mi with miles 9-12 at marathon tempo (did all of them in the 8:50-9:00 min/mile range) in 2:53:00 (9:37 min/mile overall average)
Su - 5mi easy recovery.  Yoga

I'm feeling good about my training overall.  The next two weeks will also be high mileage, and then I'll cut back for two weeks- the first will be recovery, the second will be for a 1/2 marathon fitness testing race.

The only thing that concerns me is how slow my long runs are.  My goal marathon time is 3:50, which is an 8:48 min/mile average pace.  Do you think that- based on the speed I'm doing my long runs- 3:50 is too aggressive of a goal?  I know you're supposed to do long runs slower than your goal pace, but is 45 sec/mile too slow?  Should I try to speed up my long runs?  I usually finish faster than I start, which I know is good...  Any advice would be welcome!

Week in Review - We're in the Jungle Edition

I haven't posted much about the garden recently.  Part of that is because it had been neglected a bit, and needed some TLC, which was performed last Sunday afternoon when I still had a lot of travel delay related aggression I needed to work out with a garden implement.  Three wheelbarrows full of weeds later, I'd rid it of the major offenders

and we finished the main part of the clean up job today.

We're a little behind the rest of the country in the growing season, so we are just beginning to see the first of our summer crop.

 Leeetle teeny baby bell pepper:

Sweet pepper:

Hot pepper: 

Otherwise, the pumpkin is the clear winner, having taken over it's row and most of another.  I'm excited to see what we get in the end.

So on to the main event- the week in review.  I decided to switch from doing this on Sunday to on Monday because my workout log runs M-S so it makes tabulations just a little easier.

M- 16 miles in ???  My GPS died.  Thank goodness for MapMyRun.
T- Strength and yoga
W- 7.5 mi with 2x15 min at marathon tempo.  Hit both at 8:46 +/- 15 sec.
R- 7.5 mi with 2x(800,600,400,200m) at 5-10k pace.  Hit all these except the first in the 7:20-7:40 range.  Yoga
F- Strength
S- 17 mi in 2:42 (9:29 min/mile pace).  I felt strong the whole way.  I think I'm actually starting to like long runs.
U- 5 mi easy.  Yoga.

Bringing the grand totals to:
53 miles run (artificially inflated because of the 2 long runs that happened to fall in the same week)
2 x strength training
2 x yoga

Good stuff.  No comments.  No complaints.

Inna Gadda De University Houses

I've been verbose in my last several posts so I'll let the pictures do the talking:

Plants (onions and carrots) + lots of weeds

More plants (spinach, red leaf and butter crunch lettuce), more weeds.

Two new pepper plants (one sweet, one hot)

Plants (spinach, lettuces, onions) with no weeds (if that were possible, ha!)

Butternut squash

Baby broccoli still tiny

Sweet potato (in the ICU, probably headed for the morgue soon)

New tomato and pepper plants

Leaves between all the rows (natural weed inhibitor)

Close up.

Even though "inmates running the asylum" was an accurate cliche to describe weeds and our garden when we came back from vacation, it's starting to look respectable again.  We already cut two small heads of the red leaf lettuce for dinner Thursday night.

Duality

The natural
Baby spinach and lettuce coming in (bottom right).  Moving up in the picture, a row of broccoli and a row with two sweet potatoes.

Baby spinach, lettuce, and onions (looking at the other side of the plot).

Baby broccoli close up

 Baby sweet potato plants
Before:                                                                And after:

In sum, we pulled a lot of weeds, turned over three new beds, planted broccoli, the two sweet potato plants, pickling cucumbers and some pumpkin seeds, and harvested a green onion (featured later).  We have about three rows left with plans for tomatoes, carrots, and winter squash.

The Unnatural:
Goose rage - For those who aren't acquainted with geese, they are mean and not afraid of anything.  The ones here are Canadian geese, and they stop by to have babies, which makes them even meaner.  They will plant their flock in the middle of the road and not move for anything, and if you decide you'd like to walk or jog on "their" walking path, they will hiss at you and sometimes actually chase you away.

24-flavored barbecue sauce- Yes, we bought Dr. Pepper flavored barbecue sauce from a hardware store.  No, we were not in Texas.

The mere existence of this product caused Michael Pollan to schedule three extra therapy sessions this month and Jamie Oliver to scream the F-word and punch a kindergartener (but apologize immediately after).  Don't let them know there's an A&W Rootbeer flavored barbecue sauce, too.

Truthfully the nutritionals on this guy aren't any worse then your run of the mill barbecue sauce (for better or for worse).  D said it pretty much tasted like barbecue sauce.  I guess his palate isn't nuanced enough to get the other 23 flavors from the Dr. P.

It was used to make D's lunches for the week.  Barbecue (I'm getting tired of typing that word) chicken pizza.  But it's healthy because I used whole wheat dough and a green onion from the garden, right?

Well, I'm headed out to run.  I was planning on strength training today, but it's supposed to rain tomorrow, and I don't want to waste a lovely day (even if it's 34 degrees air temp!) inside.  Have a great Monday, all.

Week in Review- The Wild Goose Chase Edition

Yes, this morning I was chased by a wild goose.  Well, maybe lunged at is a more accurate description, but it was enough to make me wonder how long an angry goose could sustain a 10 minute mile.

Edited to add: Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there.  Thanks for helping keep the world from descending into chaos!

Without further ado:
U- Rest and yoga
M- Strength training
T- 6mi with 5x hill repeats
W- 6mi easy
R- 7.2mi with 40 min tempo at 8:22 min/mile pace, yoga
F- Strength training
S- 14 mi in 2:15 (9:39 min/mile pace)

Bringing the totals to:
Running: 33.2 mi
Strength training: 2x
Yoga: 2x

Consulting the great oracle that is the McMillan Pace Calculator with my 1/2 marathon goal pace plugged in,

 My long run pace was right on, but my tempo run pace was a little slow.  Part of this was because I got a monster side stitch about 1/2 way through.  Does anyone know what a steady-state run is? 


Yesterday was pretty chill other than running.  I read, napped, and cleaned.  Today has been much more productive.  I have finished two loads of laundry, run 5 miles, eaten breakfast, and put together this lovely blog post for you and it's only 8:38am.

We are planning to do a bunch of work in the garden this morning so stay tuned for tomorrow's post on things natural

and unnatural

Highlights

• Indian buffet "cat's away" lunch
• New projects on the horizon at work
• Serious progress on my conference poster
• Finally, after almost a year working on it, hitting slightly below my goal weight this morning.
• No rain during my run
• Beautiful weather and two good walks
• Light out early and late
• Forgetting what -5 feels like
• Cooking my first fried egg

• And only breaking one yolk

• Tempo run this morning
• 7 more work days until vacation
• Big plans for the garden this weekend

Little pretty ones

The first signs of life are appearing in the garden!

Tiny baby spinach

baby lettuce

and baby onions

We've now almost filled up the "cold weather" crop region of our garden plot.  There's room for one more planting of lettuce and one more planting of *probably* onions.
 

May 1 is the magic date for plants that don't need it to be hot hot hot (like tomatoes), but don't do well with cold.  So in a few weeks we'll be adding in things like cucumbers, the sweet potatoes currently residing in the windowsill, and broccoli plants.

After gardening, D and I hit the gym for strength training.  I'm happy to report that after taking yesterday off from running, my shin feels completely better.  I'm going to test it out on an easy run today, but if everything feels okay, I'll do one last speed session tomorrow before the race Saturday.

Dinner was an old favorite:

Then we had our second to last youth group for the school year.  Not quite sure if I'm happy or sad about that yet!  

Last, but certainly not least, I want to give a huge good luck shout out to MarathonMaiden and everyone else running Boston today.  Enjoy the fruits of your hard work!

Live, my beautiful creation

News flash from the windowsill; my sweet potato plants are starting to sprout.  The roots started growing a little while ago

 And now the vines are starting to sprout.

I'll have to consult the garden book, but these guys ought to be able to go in the garden pretty soon.  In just a couple weeks we'll be in May and relatively free from the risk of frost.

In other food news, we tried a new Trader Joe's product last night: Tokyo-style soba noodles.

We added chicken and broccoli

There's actually quite a bit of food in the box- enough for two very hungry people or two not-so-hungry people and a lunch for the next day.  The sauce was flavorful and definitely not heavy like a lot of grocery store Asian sauces.  It actually had kind of a lemony flavor in some bites.  This is something we definitely plan on buying again until they randomly discontinue it.

Tonight's excitement is going to the UW Marching Band spring concert.

I was in marching band in high school and for my first two years at UF, so I have a special place in my heart for it.  Plus, after listing to them practice outside my window at work for two football seasons now, it's time to hear them in concert.

Well, time to roll out and do some strength training.  Between yesterday's easy 5mi and my rest day today hopefully I'll be ready to tackle 14 tomorrow morning- my longest run in a really long time.

Enjoy your Friday!

Garden 101

Now that the ground is thawed and the risk of getting a major snow is passed, it's time to start our garden.  This is our second year with a garden plot (although this one is new to us and WAY better than the one last year), and we have a much better idea of what we are doing.  So how do you go from this:

to something capable of supporting tasty fruits and vegetables?  I'm planning to go through the process in a series of garden posts, of which this is the first.  

Step 0.5: Plan

This is a step we neglected last year, but realized very quickly how important it is.

You want to draw some kind of schematic so you know what you want to plant where and when you did it.  Plants and weeds look a lot a like in the first few weeks of life, so it's important to have some clue which is which.  Also, you want to spread out planting time sensitive crops like lettuce a couple weeks apart so you have a months' worth of lettuce a few heads a week rather than 20 heads of lettuce that are all going to go bad if they aren't eaten NOW.  Once you have a plan, it's time for the fun to begin.

Step 1: Clearing out all the old stuff, rocks, sticks and weeds

Here's a close up of what the ground actually looks like before you do anything to it.

  

That's dead corn in the center, and there are some other random rocks, sticks, trash, bushes, and baby weeds hanging out.  While you will never be able to rid your garden of all of them, they don't play nice with the seeds you are planting, so you want as many out of there as possible.  We pulled up all the dead plants and gave the plot a good rake to get the top layer of whatever off before we started the real work.

Step 2: Turning over the garden

This step is exactly what it sounds like.  You take a shovel of dirt.  You turn it over.  You take another shovel of dirt.  You turn it over.  Then you go back over it with a hoe and break up all the dirt clods.  

This exposes all the good soil you want to plant in.  It's also a good opportunity to remove other little weeds and things you didn't get before.

Let me take a little detour here: If you have never done this before, it is a wonderful exercise for your body and mind.  Spend 2 hours turning over a garden plot, and you will have a whole new understanding about the history of civilization, international/racial relations, and the American food production system.  Turning over a garden is also an excellent companion activity to reading a Michael Pollan book.   I don't want to give it away, but this is really really hard work.   

Step 3: Create planting beds

I'm sure there's a better explanation for why you move your dirt around into planting beds, but as far as I can tell it's to help you tell what is a weed and what is a vegetable at the beginning of the growing season.

It's a bit hard to tell from this picture, but those are two long mounds with a rut in the middle for walking between the beds.  Here's the whole plot after we were done making beds.  Because we are still in "cold weather" season (meaning it can and will still freeze at least overnight) we only turned over enough dirt for 4 rows.

Step 4: Fertilizer

This could also be done when you are breaking up the newly turned over soil.  We decided to just fertilize the beds to (hopefully) minimize weed growth in other places.  This is an organic garden so we used organic (read $$$ and hard to find at Menards) fertilizer

And that ended day 1.  The next day we started

Step 5: Planting

Start by digging one or two little ditches in your bed depending on how big you expect your final food plant go get.  These will not get too big (like say a broccoli or tomato plant will) so they go two to a row.  You definitely don't want to go too deep.  Just deep enough that the seeds don't blow away.

     

Then sprinkle them in.  Technically you are supposed to plant one seed per 1/2 inch, but just try to get one of these little buggers to behave that nicely.  It won't matter that they are close together because some won't germinate, and you'll (break your heart) thin the rest.

Those are carrot seeds.  We also planted some of an onion set, which is just a bunch of little baby onions.

While I was out there, we were also gifted with some strawberry plants someone was tearing out

Which brings our planted list to: carrots, onions, spinach, lettuce, kale, and strawberries.  You should water after you plant, but we knew we were expecting rain so we didn't.  

I'll go back out periodically to pull up major weeds and generally keep an eye on things.  In a few weeks we'll put in more spinach, lettuce, carrots, and onions so they'll mature a little later than this bunch.  More fun stuff like broccoli, tomatoes and peppers go in once it gets warmer.  Stay tuned for the next edition of garden 101.