I made a small change by having Jeney whip up a Sriracha aioli and skipping the hot sauce due to that.

Not surprisingly, this was DELICIOUS!

I’ll be making this again and trying out a few different things, including longer soaking of the carrots (nothing wrong with 30 minutes though), and different peppers.

With the exception of the 8 hour slow cook time, the prep was pretty simple. Some prep for the carrots soak, slicing up this and that, and pulling the pork apart. Great to make in large batches so that you have extras or at least extra pulled pork.

Now, time for some food porn pics.

Next up I think I’ll try making my own summer rolls. We’ll probably wait until the summer to do that and make some large batches at one go so that we can get some practice. Something tells me that the sticky wrapping is going to be fun to figure out…

We don’t have as many plans for 2016, although part of that is due to Jeney being wrapped up, for good reason, in completing her PhD work. Another reason is the uncertainty of what our time will look like after that is done (July / August timeframe).

So, we’ve planned out what we want to do until that point and will probably take a look at some races (like the Ragnar ADK) for the fall once we’ve actually hit the summer.

Right now, it looks like this:

• April 16 – Breakneck Point Trail Marathon. Jeney took 2nd in women’s last year, I’m just going to try and complete the marathon distance this year after taking a bad fall on my ass during the 25k in 2015. Great race and really looking forward to getting out there again.
• April 24 – Seneca7. 7 runners, 77.7 miles, 7am! It’s been on my Finger Lakes bucket list for a few years and our friend Taz got a team together. We’ll be bicycling when we’re not running – should be a blast. The only concern is that this is the day after TAP NY (which we will be at!).
• June 18 – Manitou’s Revenge Ultramarathon. 54 miles near Phoenica, NY. 15,000 feet elevation gain. This will be Jeney’s second run through and my first…excited, and a bit nervous. This is the one that gets us out on the trails, or road, during the winter!

That’s about it for now. We’ve got several others that depend on timing and other plans (weddings, travels, all that sort of thing). A few more that we’re looking at:

• June 4 – Cayuga Trails 50 – We use this route as a training run year round. Since it’s close to Manitou’s Revenge date-wise we might opt for the marathon instead of the full 50 miles.
• July 2 – Finger Lakes 50’s. A fun local race that I did for the first time last year (50k) in some insane mud.

We’ll also be doing volunteering at local races like the Skunk Cabbage half marathon, the Gorges half marathon, and several others.

In addition to the single runs, we’re going to be looking for an opportunity to put together a team for a Ragnar Trail – perhaps an ultra team? We love hitting the trails, and the Ragnar Trail events are a great way to enjoy some trail running and have a good time with friends for a couple of days. The last one we did was Ragnar Trail MA and we had a blast with 3 teams from Ithaca!

What are you running this year?

Today I went out for a short 4 mile trail run and it was spectacular! Sadly, I didn’t have my camera on me, but it did remind me that I have taken a few good shots this winter.

So, without further ado, here’s some of my favorites from a few areas around Ithaca this winter.

A quick slow motion video of a little falls area in Treman…I recently got my Nexus 6P and had to put the slow motion to use!

While that rounds out the scenery shots from around here this winter, I have one more that I, for better or worse, take several of each winter – the ice beard pictures. I present, Ice Beard III, The Icening!

We recently found out that we’ll be here for one more winter – so hopefully I can remember to do a 2017 winter picture roundup. I’ll have to see if Jeney has some good winter pictures to share, although hopefully no winter ice beard pictures

Back in Vancouver, WA on the 13th of December, 2015, there was a big run/walk 5k to raise money for a good friend of mine who is having ongoing issues with a brain tumor. Since we couldn’t make it back from Ithaca for this, we posted on Facebook and asked friends to come out run a 5k in Ithaca with us and to donate if they could.

We had several friends come out to run [original run event here], and donate, based around someone they’ve never met before. I’m extremely grateful for their help, friendship, and donations – I know my friend and his family appreciate the help as the medical bills continue to pile up.

This won’t be a long post – I just wanted to say that it was nice to have this response from our friends and to use running and being outside as a way to help others.

Thank you.

Now, I won’t go into details about that part of the trip here; I’ll just say that it was a good time and meeting in person allowed us to take care of planning that probably would have taken weeks or more remotely.

What this quick post is intended for is to highlight the places that we were able to eat at while in Miami Beach. We had some outstanding meals – nothing we had was just “OK”.

A thank you is in order to our friend Sarah for her recommendation of the website Eater (http://miami.eater.com/). This site has a subdomain for each city with some outstanding recommendations and a quick overview of their top picks. Every place we’ve been to in various cities that was chosen from this site has been a winner.

Here’s a quick run down of our favorite places we got to try:

1. 27 – this place is attached to an outdoor lounge (which we went back to the follow night) that is run by the same owners. We showed up on a Thursday night, were seated immediately and had a very informative waitress that gave a good run down of the menu and various highlights. The only down side here was that the tap was down. And by tap, I mean every local beer that was connected to their tap system…We ended up order a good variety of food that was flavorful, presented well, and delicious. Just to throw it out there, our table had the octopus, two catch of the day (red snapper), and a burger (enormous!). Two thumbs up!

2. Roasters and Toasters – Jewish deli on one of the main roads into Miami Beach. If you’re looking for a big lunch this is a good place to go. Huge, meat packed, sandwiches, large salads, and friendly service. I would agree that service might be a tad slow, but for the price and what you’re ultimately getting I still love this place. Come with an appetite.

3. Taquiza – So good. Go here. This cool little “upscale” street taco looking place is on the main drag (Collins St) into South Beach and has seating for maybe 20 or so people in a first come, first serve area. You order at the counter and grab it yourself when it’s done. Several good beers on tap and lots of good taco choices (pollo, barbacoa, etc). Tacos were served fast, even though we ordered 15 at once and the chips were freshly made tortillas that had been quickly fried and served with a nice chunky and fresh salsa. Great for a quick meal and relatively low cost compared to other options in the area. I think the word that describes this place is “fresh”.

4. Makoto – In Jeney’s words, “This is the best sushi I have ever had in my entire life”. Strong statement coming from her! We stopped by here for lunch before hopping on flights back north and we had an excellent experience. Quick service with a helpful waiter who helped us figure out what we should be doing – seriously, this place is apparently quite famous locally and somewhere that chefs like to go and eat it – so he gave us the run down on the menu and made us quite happy eaters. Best parts of this meal? Sushi, obviously, and the many types of delicious rice – seriously, the rice (from sushi to chirashi) was insanely good. What’s that? Why yes, the presentation wasn’t half bad either (no joke, click on the picture to the left and check out that chirashi!).

We also were able to go out on our last night in town and sample some of the local beers, but to be honest we didn’t find any that we came home raving about. To be fair, we didn’t feel strongly about the ones we did try, but nothing really took ahold and made us want to share with friends back home.

If you’re into some sweeter and stronger type beers, you should check out Abbey Brewing Company – they offer a sizable tasting flight with a good range of flavors. Again, not necessarily my style but worth checking out.

If you find yourself in Miami Beach, do yourself a favor and get out and try some of the food – you won’t be disappointed!

On October 2nd, Jeney and I drove a few hours east towards Phoenicia, NY, for the inaugural running of the Cat’s Tail Trail Marathon. Once we got near the Catskills the colors exploded, combining the beautiful tree colors with the mountains and blue sky and we were just happy to be in the area!

I’ll fast forward to the next morning when Jeney’s “head cold” had progressed to the point that she didn’t really get any sleep since she kept waking up from so much sinus drainage and felt “like death”. And it was raining. And the temperature had dropped about 15 degrees from the previous morning (it was now in the 40’s).

Jeney made the hard choice to not run and preserve her health while I headed down the road to the waiting buses that would shuttle us to the start line.

Now, for a little background on this area – Jeney had run Manitou’s Revenge just north of Phoenicia in June. However, my knee had been having issues in the spring so I had not yet had a chance to run in the Catskills – today was going to be the first!

So, how was it? It was awesome!

It was cold.

It was rainy.

There were no scenic vistas to take in at the top of the peaks as we were basically IN the clouds.

Speaking of scenic vistas…

But you know what? It was a total blast. One thing that I really like about running in this area is the people. Both at Manitou’s (as crew) and at this race as a runner everyone was pretty upbeat and really easy going – just a good group of people.

It also probably helps that this isn’t a “first timers” trail marathon – literally. Everyone has some sort of longer distance trail running experience which certainly helped on that day as the course was (in my mind) fairly technical, combining climbs, ledges, running water on the trail, wet log ladders, and steep ascents/descents.

I channeled my inner Seattleite and figured the weather was a benefit; I tend to run hot and it was better than being hot and humid! After getting the big climbs out of the way I thought about how Jeney would tackle the 8 or so miles of mostly down and got after it.

Even though I had a few close calls, the day ended well with a 7 hour finish and no injuries. For the rain and slickness combined with the tough course I call that a raging success!

Would I do it again? You bet! I highly recommend this course to anyone that wants a challenge in a marathon type distance. With the 7,000 feet gain in elevation and the long descent at the end this course is a ton of fun and a challenge.

Jeney met me about 1/10 mile from the finish where she had been cheering people on as they came in:

It was great to have her at the finish, along with some great food and a cold beer that we had brought along.

Sadly, we didn’t stay too long as the cold weather wasn’t helping me out after finishing and we still had to take care of our camping gear (and take a cold shower at the campground…that’s another story!).

This is one that we’ll hopefully get to both run next year if we’re still in the area.

Mt. Democrat, just outside Alma, CO, was a fun hike, and the weather couldn’t have been nicer. A short steep climb takes you from the trailhead at about 12,000 feet to the summit at 14,154 feet in 2.4 miles!

On the way down we got a little bit of running in on the less scree (and people) filled steep descents – and managed to snag a quick video that also shows the valley and the surrounding ridges and peaks.

As you can see below, we had a bit of rain that morning…

However, once we got parked and were walking in to the registration area it had pretty much reduced itself to a light drizzle and the temperature was a nice 55F or so.

This race has been around since 1988 but we had yet to sign up for any of the distances (25k, 50k, or 50 mile). We figured we had a good shot at enjoying the 50k since it is a relatively flat course and has tons of aid stations (~1300 feet of elevation per 15.5 mile loop and 6 or so aid stations per loop!).

The race probably had 200 or so people starting at 6 am (50k and 50 mile racers) and we all started out together. We quickly turned off the camping road onto trails which were mostly consisting of mud – this was to be the theme for the day!

I can now say that THIS was the muddiest race I have ever run – with the trails being multi-use (horses, etc), the rain before and during the race, and the large number of runners, this course became a mud pit in sections!

After a few years in upstate NY I’ve gotten more used to this, but even I was surprised at the amount of mud and super slippery sections. That said, this was a really good race with great support – I would definitely do it again and look forward to checking it out next year.

After the first lap was done, Jeney made the smart decision to stop at 25k due to issues with her feet and toes stemming from her Manitou’s Revenge run a couple weeks prior – better to stop early and not risk serious complications! I was pretty proud of her as this isn’t an easy thing for anyone, especially her, to do in the middle of a race.

I was feeling OK so I continued on. After stopping to wash out my shoes I kept a decent pace until I hit about 20 miles and just crashed a bit – naseua, fatigue, etc. Luckily I had been eating and drinking prior to this and was able to slow down my pace a bit and just keep going. Jeney helped out by surprising me at around mile 25 as I was coming out of the woods and getting ready to head into the cow pastures which really gave me a boost and was the turning point for the rest of the run.

With 6 miles to go it was much easier to keep a steady pace and enjoy the remaining time. The sun had come out and it was a beautiful day – still muddy and slow, but a great day to be in the Finger Lakes!

This, my first trail 50k ended up taking me just over 7 hours and was a great way to kick off my “real” running season for 2015. After rehabbing my legs/knee/hip from serious IT Band issues this spring it was a great feeling to finish this race without any pain or issues with my knee – hooray!

Next up – Colorado and the Trans Rockies Run 6!

We were excited when Ragnar announced a new Trail event in Massachusetts! Huzzah! A trail event in our backyard! Kind of…as we learned the location was still 5 hours away. Matters not! We’ll still do it and I bet we’ll have a lot of interest – we thought.

Fast forward a few months, and we came upon the brilliant idea of having a mens and a womens team. Perfect, we can have a Vagnar Team and a Twig and Berries Team. However, not even two teams was enough to get everyone we know from Ithaca who wanted to run this relay into the race – so our friend Eva headed up a third team – Team Ragtag Rag Gang.

I’ll skip the weird weather details and just say that we went camping near the race location the night before since apparently Ragnar could not secure the location for the night before or the night after (we could start setting up 7 am the day of the event and had to be gone by 6pm the day it ended…a little odd!). This worked out well as it was a 4.5 hour drive and not something we wanted to get up at 2 or 3 am and do on the day of the relay beginning.

Northfield is just outside of Springfield, MA and was a neat location. The trails themselves turned out to follow the same general topological feature – UP, UP, UP, and then DOWN, DOWN, DOWN. This isn’t my favorite way for a trail run to progress, but it takes all kinds! The forest was beautiful and running at night was a blast, for me, in these woods. Once I got over the hill on the Yellow loop at the beginning I was able to cruise downhill for several miles with my headlamp lighting the way.

For myself, this race was important as I’m coming off of some IT Band issues. Having built up to some 6-8 mile runs I successfully ran the 15-ish miles for the 3 Ragnar legs and had no issues. Hooray!

So – we mentioned that we had 3 teams go up together, right? Check out this shot of our “compound”:

We actually did a good job of staying in the allotted space (each team is supposed to stay with in a 17′ by 17′ area).

Logistically this was a tough race as getting everyone to the same places at the same times, planning meals, getting gears, etc, was a bit complicated. Not sure that we’ll head up doing all of that again, but it did work out really well in the end. The food was a real success as each team took charge of one meal – doing it this way meant more variety, “better” food, and quicker prep, as opposed to just bringing coolers full of sandwich fixings.

It might be a while before we run another Ragnar with all of the ultras and other crazy stuff coming up, but we would recommend this trail relay to anyone wanting to get out there and run around the woods with some friends!

The first night we ate around Dorchester, on Lundy’s Lane at a brew pub called The Syndicate:

– good beers, a good IPA with west coast hops. Apparently a good bloody mary (“caesar”) can be had there as well.
– solid burger with great bun, cheese, meat (local), and more.
– the 3 course meal was lackluster, the steak was overcooked and fairly fatty.

Overall, would go back and stick to more standard up fare.

While in NOTL wine tasting we stopped at the Angel Inn, another pub that is touted as the oldest in Canada.

Solid drink choices and hearty food selection. Had myself a decent Rueben, the fried fish was likewise Ok, and the service was fairly fast. Nothing blew us away but it was a good amount of food for a good price while out tasting.

Dinner on the second night was at Mai Thai. Overall we thought it was good, but not impressive Thai food. Few vegetables and not very hot when ordered “spicy”. The pad thai was actually a little better out of the fridge the next morning. On the upside, they serve 9oz pours of wine…

The food highlight was saved for last, when we went to Smokies – a poutinery near the falls that has some kick ass poutine. We had the double pork (pulled pork and bacon), fajita, and one other I can’t recall… Fresh fries, good cheese, and tasty toppings made this a win. Good serving size (not crazy huge) allowed us to nearly finish and still be able to walk out

Hit up the falls on the way out – pretty awesome even in winter:

At least the poutine is still filling me up while we wait at the border crossing!