October Recap

Guess if I'm going to do an October recap, it's time. October was another good running month for me. I ran over 100 miles for the fourth month in a row. First time I've ever done that! Besides running, I've enjoyed the fall weather and colors as well as grilling and smoking. If you follow me on Instagram, you've probably already seen these, sorry.

Not much else knew that I can talk bout here so I'll get to some pics.

 

I hadn't smoked any meat for quite a while since it's pretty much an all day affair and I've been pretty busy. Since it takes so much effort, I like to load the smoker up when I do smoke.

Tried green beans and almonds in a foil pouch on the grill and they turned out amazing. They have joined the regular rotation :-).

 

Grilled trout, salmon, and tuna one night. It was fabulous.

 

Jalapeños and pork kabobs, yum! In foil are mushrooms and green beans.

I started using an instant read thermometer and it helps cook lobster perfectly. Once the temp hits 140 degrees, pull it.

Loving the fall colors.

Love this shot.

 

Going to try to hit 100 miles again in November. It's going to be tough with the so going down early and the weather getting colder, it's going to be tough.

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As seen on my run

 

I was a slow getting my camera out to snap a pic of this three foot black snack.

Kind of a dreary day

Trail construction meant I had the trail to myself.

They scrapped the asphalt off all the train bridges down to the original wood. You could really smell the tar.

 

This one was a little tougher to get by :)

 

Knocked out a little over 11 miles. Longest run in about a year. I think Ineed some core work before I go much further.

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It's been a while

Things have been good and busy, I just haven't had much to blog about. Given that I don't blog about work, religion, politics, or family, that leaves training and cooking. With no races on the schedule, traveling a ton, and only running, there isn't much to talk about except that I've run over 100 miles for three months in a row and I'm on track to run 1000 miles this year which is about a 50% increase over last year. I'm probably in the best running shape of my life and am considering signing up for a half marathon in October. The only thing holding me back is the memory of how much my 5 minute half marathon PR hurt last October :-).

As far as cooking goes, I've been cooking out every Sunday and Saturdays I don't run church sound. I've been posting pictures on Instagram. You can see them here but I'll post a couple below anyway.

Last Sunday we drove up the river road along the Mississippi and took the ferry to a little town called Brussels that has a population of 150. We stopped by the visitor center and learned about the quilts of Calhoun county. Pretty sure we made the old lady's day letting her tell us all about it plus going on a tour of the dilapidated building :-). After picking up some pumpkins, we went to the Finn Inn where I had the best catfish ever. I'm not a huge catfish fan but this was deep fried, amazing goodness. If you are ever in Grafton Illinois, check it out. It's the first time we've done something as a family in quite a while.

 

That's about it. As I type this, I'm in an airplane traveling from Cleveland to St. Louis wondered what I get when I exceed the point scale with Hilton hotel points :-).

 

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Beach Vacation 2013

Last week we went to Navarre Florida for our nearly yearly beach vacation. Navarre is between Pensacola and Destin. We stayed in the same condo (The Pearl) and the same room as last year since we liked it so much. The condo has three bedrooms, three baths, kitchen, dining, and living areas. I looked up the square footage and its bigger than our first house (and 10x more expensive). My son brought two friends and my daughter brought one so we had three 16 year old boys and two 21 year old girls with us. As far as I know, they didn't get in any trouble, but then again, I was asleep by 10 pm every night. We all had a good time and with the big condo, never felt cramped. Anyway, here are a few pictures.

View from the front balcony

View from the rear balcony

One day I took the kids parasailing and we had a blast.

We went up about 500 feet. It was very relaxing.

The boys got dunked up to their necks :-)

I went up with the girls.

The boys

 

The girls

 

Hopefully we can go back next year.

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Biggest run month yet!

Without a race to train for, I haven't had much to blog about. I suppose I could blog more about food, but find it faster just to post pics on Instagram. I love looking at training and grilling pics there. If you haven't checked it out, you should. If you do, my username is Ransick (just like my twitter name and just about everything I sign up for).

Work has been crazy going from almost no travel to mostly travel. I counted my trips since January 1st and I've been out of town for work 24 weeks out of 31 plus 4 more traveling for fun. Luckily I like my job, the people I work with, the company I work at, and the products we design, develop, sell and support. All the solo triathlon training time has paid off in the mental toughness department :-).

Anyway, on to my running. I hit 118 miles in July! That is the largest run volume month ever and only the fourth month over 100 miles. I feel like I felt before my last half marathon that I PR'd by five minutes and thoughts of signing up for a half this fall and trying to hit 100 miles three months in a row is starting to cross my mind. We'll see. I do miss triathlons and watched quit a bit of Ironman Lake Placid last weekend.

 

Beautiful weather lately in the Midwest.

In other news, my love affair with avocados has reached a new level. I've been making fresh guacamole regularly and am honing in on perfection. What's your favorite guac recipe? I also grilled some avocados last weekend and they were amazing!

Loving my pampered chef avocado knife

 

 

I've been loving limes in my beer this summer too.

 

Figured out that a potato mashers works great for making guac

 

My guac recipe

• A few ripe avocados
• 1/2 red onion minced
• A couple Roma tomatoes blanched then diced
• Juice from a couple limes
• Fresh cilantro, minced
• Salt
• A clove of garlic, minced
• Half a jalapeño, diced

I'm in love :-)

 

Grilled avocado recipe

• Halve the avocados and lightly oil them with olive oil
• Grill on medium heat flesh side down for about five minutes
• Fill the center where the seed was with salsa
• Dab of sour cream on the salsa
• Drizzle fresh lime juice on
• Sprinkle with chopped cilantro

 

You're welcome!

 

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Mid-year goal check

I decided to simplify my goals this year and only have three.

1. Run 1000 miles - YTD 423/500. I have some work to do.

2. Do at least one plank a day, everyday. I did at least one a day through May then quit while on my fishing trip. I don't have an excuse except that I just didn't feel like it. I had my own room in the cabin and could easily have kept the streak alive. Once I missed a couple of days, I quit. Maybe I'll restart in July.

3. Stay under 160 pounds. So far so good there which I'm pretty happy about since I've been traveling nearly every week.

 

In other news, we had beautiful weather for a run today. Here are a couple pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hope everyone is enjoying their summer!

 

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Fishing 2013

Here are some pictures from my fishing trip to Hayward Wisconsin last week. It has become a yearly trip I go on with my best friend and his brother. Spring came late this year in Northern Wisconsin,so we weren't sure what we were in for, but we knew we would have fun regardless. We arrived at 5:30 pm on Wednesday to 50 degrees and pouring rain. We fished anyway and it was miserable, but we had fun :-). We caught a few fish Wednesday night. Thursday was also cold and wet and our boat caught four fish all day (one for me). The fish just weren't interested in eating. Friday, the weather was getting nicer, but the fish were still lethargic. I caught one fish Friday. No problem though, we had plenty of beer, beef jerky, chili cheese chips, trail mix, and slim Jim's. Glad my cholesterol test was two weeks ago :-). Saturday was another beautiful day and the fishing picked up. I caught 22 fish Saturday and our boat caught 42 sealing our third straight fishing tournament win :-).

Didn't take pictures the first two days due to rain. Friday was like this.

Borrowed my friend's late father's (Putie) fishing hat since I forgot mine.

The air just smells clean up there.

No service. Perfect!

This was the first decent fish I caught and my friend had his finger over part of the lense. It means I can make up the size of the fish later, right? Got a good laugh about that one.

Beautiful day

 

My friend bought us matching hideous shirts which we saved for the last day of fishing. We all got quite a chuckle out of it :-).

Kurt with a nice bass.

I had to take a pic with my finger in the way :-).

 

Almost covered my face :-)

Surgery on a northern pike that swallowed a lure.

Me in "the shirt" :-)

Until next year...

 

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