Chestnut Ridge Park

The week before Christmas I had a day off so Asher and I were thinking up things to do.  Simple, let's go play in the snow.  One of Asher's favorite things to do (he has lots of favorite things).  We headed to a great county park here called Chestnut Ridge.  They don't plow most of the roads in the park in the winter so you can snowshoe, cross country ski or snowmobile through the woods all over the place.  So I just let Asher run.  He loved it.  I got a few pictures of a couple pretty streams and Asher in the snow.

Year End Review

The end of the year always means lot of cool, new things.  Making new resolutions (if you believe in that stuff), looking forward to hopefully warmer temperatures in the near months, and sbr (Swim, Bike, Run) totals for the year....of course.  This year my focus was not to do more quantity but instead focus on quality and let the quantity fall where it does. 

So my totals for the year looked like this:

Miles:
Swim: 184 miles
Bike: 7514 miles
Run: 1848 miles
Total: 9,546 miles

Time:
Swim: 97:25:08
Bike: 385:36:18
Run: 274:51:33
Total: 757:52:59

I also had 34 hours of weights. 

Asher had 1,303.6 miles for the year.  He had a great year of running and we look forward to logging lots more miles together in 2011.

2009 numbers:

Miles:
Swim: 179 miles
Bike: 8066 miles
Run: 2300 miles
Total: 10545 miles

Time:
Swim: 95:07:24
Bike: 419:50:19
Run: 325:43:13
Total: 840:40:56

I'm looking forward to a fun and exciting 2011. 

Snowing....again

Yep, it's snowing again.  Kind of in spurts, sometimes hard, sometimes not at all.  And just a few short miles away, the sun was shinning.  You gotta love lake effect snow.  Good news is the lake is starting to slowly freeze over and when the lake freezes over the lake effect snow stops.  Still a long time but the process is starting.  It's been cold and very windy here this week.  Same story over the whole US.  The snow sure is pretty when you are inside though.  And oh how Asher loves to play in the snow.  It is rather scary when on the morning news they tell you, you will get 1-2 feet, yes feet, of snow like it's nothing.  Odd measuring snow in feet instead of inches.  Stay warm everyone!!

Fun stuff!!

I haven't been very good about updating my blog lately, sorry to my few followers.  I seem to run out of hours in the day.  I have lots of fun posts started so I will finish them soon.  Promise.  I also have lots of really good recipes to post too, I have been doing lots of baking!  Anyway, a quick little update of what's been going on since my last post, the Turkey Trot.  Thanksgiving came and went.  Lots to be thankful for.  Did some early morning shopping with the crazies on Black Friday and went to Canada and did some more shopping at Ikea on Saturday.  The following weekend we took a long weekend, packed up the car and headed down to Harrisburg, PA.  We went to Hershey World, Yuengling Brewery and Gettysburg.  That area, and the drive down there, are really pretty.  Lots of hills and pretty much not a straight road (which Asher didn't care for) but beautiful sights.  This trip would be awesome in the fall.  It was nice being able to run down there with no snow to contend with.  Back in Buffalo, we had just gotten about 20 inches and things were a mess so this was a nice little bit of relief.  This past weekend we took a quick trip to the largest Kazoo manufacturer in North America (who knew this was in our new backyard).  And the UWGB men came to Buffalo to play against the University at Buffalo (UB) so I got to see them play.  That was cool.  I was the only one cheering.  It was kind of funny.  Then that night I got to see my first NHL game.  We had our company Christmas party on Saturday and part of that was a game in our company suite.  We are the energy provider and a big supporter of the Buffalo Sabres so we get some VIP treatment.  It was an awesome experience.  One I plan to repeat again.  Things will calm down a bit now before the big trip back to Wisconsin for Christmas.  Oh and it's snowing here....again.  I think I better get used to this. 

YMCA Turkey Trot

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

Yesterday I did a traditional Turkey Trot.  In fact, this was the 115th annual turkey trot, here in Buffalo, NY.   This is the oldest consecutive running road race in North America.  This year they capped the race at 12,500 and it filled a couple weeks ago.  This was a 5 mile race starting north of downtown and you run into down town.  As I usually do, I ran before the race with Asher.  This has been our traditional for as long as I've had Asher.  He usually doesn't get to do the race but I still want him to be a part of the day so I run first with him.  I got changed and we headed to the race.  It was supposed to rain and was very windy.  I had shorts on but there weren't many to brave the bare legs.  We got lined up and the gun went off.  It took us 5 1/2 minutes to get to the start line.  Apparently we lined up pretty far back.  I spent pretty much the whole race running around people.  The race went well.  I felt awesome and had fun.  There were several people dressed up in costumes.  It was fun seeing all the costumes and running along a road I had never run on before.  I got close to the finish, picked up the pace the last two miles and kept passing people.  Got to the finish and headed back to find Jeff.  I found him at mile 4 and ran the rest of the way to the finish with him.  It was just misting but really turned out to be a perfect day to run.  Felt great, awesome company, great run.  Overall a great way to spend Thanksgiving.

Sprague Brook Park

This Saturday we did another new run location.  We headed down to run some trails at Sprague Brook Park.  I did a little research on it during the week and this looked like it should have some good running opportunities and I was totally blown away.  These trails were amazingly awesome.  Super technical, lots of roots, and trees and rocks and bridges made of rocks and trees and hills, oh the hills.  Probably the best trail running I have ever done.  We even did two full water creek crossings, where my shoes and socks were totally soaked.  We saw some white tailed deer too.  Very cool.  There were some amazingly steep cliffs that went down to a creek that we continued to wind around.  I wish I would have brought my camera.  Next time.  I did grab it after the run and took a few shots of the creek we ran around and through. Asher had such a blast and was exhausted the rest of the weekend!  I can't wait to go back.  A few pictures, more to come next time.

18 mile creek

Since moving, Asher and I have been exploring new running routes all over the place.  Last Saturday we did another new one and ran to a county park called 18 Mile Creek Park.  I found out about this park from a store owner in our town and heard it had great trails.  We weren't planning to run the trails, we'll head back someday and tackle those, but I wanted to see where this place was.  The creek that the route runs along is really cool.  Lots of character to the river which is cool.  I took a few pictures with my phone to share.

Pictures of the really cool creek.  Sorry they are sideways.  Blogger is being dumb and not posting them like they are saved.  Not sure what the deal is.