My football Packers decided to turn on the afterburners late last season, and–thanks in heavy part to a miraculous Vick/Jackson-led Eagles comeback in East Rutherford against the Giants–snuck into the playoffs a six seed and emerged Super Bowl champs earlier this year.

In the months following, my baseball Brewers put some new pitching puzzle pieces in place for the 2011 season and flirted in and out with the division lead until the end of July. That’s when they decided that they would not only start beating the Cubs, Astros, Mets, Dodgers and whoever else stood in the way, but dominate them. An August For The Ages produced a large enough division lead that even when they came back down to Earth, the Brewers were able to claim the division (their first in nearly 30 years) and home field advantage for the NLDS.

Elsewhere during the summer, my college football Badgers flew under the radar to somehow lure quarterback Russell Wilson from N.C. State and now have developed a scoring offense the envy of the SEC. Already dominating before the conference schedule began, Wisconsin (#7) thumped the Big Ten’s twelfth member Nebraska (#8) in Madison this past weekend. Wilson now has some beginning to whisper the ‘H’ word.

Suddenly, the NFL is back and the Packers are running and gunning to an undefeated 4-0 record. Teams are scoring on them, but they just keep scoring a lot more. Have all the WRs covered? No problem, the TE will catch 3 TDs. Have a game plan to contain the TE? No problem, four different WRs will catch a TD. Have all the receivers covered? No problem, the QB or RB will run up and down the field. High octane and high efficiency, almost reminiscent of Montana’s 49ers in the 80s.

Coincidentally, the NBA season is looking increasingly like it won’t start on time, therefore allowing my basketball Bucks to–well–at least they aren’t losing right now.

Top this all off with the Brewers winning the first two games of the NLDS against the snakes, and you’ve got a recipe for a dream weekend of sports.

Now if only I’d been able to take advantage of the gorgeous weather outside, too, instead of fighting a Trifecta of Ill: asthma, ragweed allergies, and the common cold.

But if this is the price I had to pay for reveling in sports-fan heaven, then it was worth it.

I volunteer for the group and helped last weekend with the Eat Local Resource Fair, a gathering of local vendors and organizations looking to promote the local foodshed. Held at the Urban Ecology Center, the event attracted more than 400 folks interested in sampling cheeses, bread, ice cream & more and learning about the Challenge through educational workshops and informational tables.

Hey Oak Leaf Trail runners, stop on by!

A list of some of the food vendors attending:

• Purple Door Ice Cream
• NessAlla Kombucha
• Cybros Bakery
• Indulgence Chocolatiers
• Castle Rock Dairy
• Rishi Tea

I cranked through my Challenge last year (read more about each day’s menus, starting here with Day 1) by eating totally locally as the goal, with “grown in Wisconsin” as my definition of local. This year I’m taking a more relaxed approach–using primarily the produce I’m growing or buying at Farmers Markets but not eschewing items which aren’t primarily available from the Wisconsin ecosystem. Those items I simply make sure I buy from local establishments, something I’ve already been doing all year as part of my own Local Challenge.

Eat Local Volunteers at the fair

I’m also hoping to visit some of the restaurants featured in the Eat Local Milwaukee Restaurant Affiliate List. I started on Wednesday night with a visit to one of my favorites, La Merenda. Their chalkboard of ingredients from local sources is lengthy and impressive, and some of their dishes–such as the Colombian calabacitas dish of zucchini, squash, tomatoes, corn, peppers, cheese, and scallion aioli–are 100% local save for the salt and pepper. The meal was a real treat, and Chef Peter thoughtfully stopped by for a quick chat about the “state of local” after we were done.

Someone at the resource fair asked me, “Why should I care about local?” It’s a straightforward question, enough. It’s a question which has different answers for different people, however. For me it’s about promoting real food and the farmers who have chosen to grow it. It’s about explosive taste and the earthy wholesomeness of a product not reliant on synthetic chemicals or genetic tampering. It’s keeping my food dollars close to home, rather than having my money sprinkled across the globe into the pockets of faceless stockholders.

And, bottom line, I want to eat stuff that doesn’t suck.

Until last night.

The route is city all the way, as local law enforcement closes down portions of Wisconsin, State, Broadway, and Milwaukee to name a few.

Going into this race–ahem, I mean fun run–I had no intentions of even thinking of competing for a personal record, or PR. The venue isn’t very conducive to that sort of thing. People are here to run 5 km or walk 2 miles. People are here to have a good time: cheering, laughing, drinking, wearing costumes, and kicking large beach balls in the air along the route.

After walking about one minute at the start of the route, I could finally start running. And I almost bit it as my feet got tangled in a stray garbage bag which had floated out onto the course unseen under the runners. Heading down Wisconsin Avenue was a rush–the throng of people and the bobbing of heads in front of me was a memorable sight. My picture below, taken from my phone, was obviously not what you’d call optimal.

The crowd was heavy until Broadway. Felt like I got in a bit of a groove heading downhill here, but at the same time my calves were tightening with the shortened, slower stride to this point. It’s interesting to note this–my body would have been more comfortable in full stride running at a faster clip. With the race adrenaline, it was really tough to suppress the urge to sprint ahead past all the slower runners, especially when I could see down the side streets to Milwaukee Street and runners were already hitting the home stretch going the other way.

As we approached the end, the crowd jammed up again, and the last thirty seconds were spent walking to the finish line. But water was everywhere! And beer! By the end of the race, I felt like I’d sweat as much as I do on runs twice as long. Having the mass of (sweating) fellow humanity around me probably had something to do with this. After the race, my girlfriend and I rewarded ourselves with two tall glasses of chocolate milk and a helping of crème brûlée, courtesy of Lagniappe Brasserie.

My final time? A very literal 34:16 from what I guessed was the start line to the finish line.

Hey, at least I beat Mayor Barrett.

• Don’t be hurried when arriving. The morning was crummy with rain and thunderstorms moving through the area. I slammed some coconut water and a rice cake with almond butter about 45 minutes before race time. My racing partners and I then cut it just a tad close arriving for the start of the race. No time for real warm-up stretches.
• Stick with the crowd before the start. To stay dry, the field of participants met inside city hall before the race. A couple minutes later, I was in the bathroom adjusting my race bib when–unbeknownst to me–the gun went off. I got outside quick and didn’t see a single soul. Thankfully my girlfriend came jogging back looking for me when she realized I wasn’t there.
• Begin slow(er). I’m guilty of this one again. Compounded by the fact that I was the last person in the field, I wanted to really fly at the beginning. Who can argue with adrenaline! I sprinted away passing runner after runner. The first miles didn’t necessarily feel fast, but I checked my watch and I was at 21:30 at the mile 3 marker.
• Pace yourself. Hitting the fork in the route which sent 10k runners off in another direction was a psychological turning point. I was immediately greeted by a slow, steady hill climb as a reward for my choice to run twice as many miles as the 5k folks. At this point, the adrenaline faded and my energy slowed. At mile 4, what started as nearly 7-minute miles had risen to 8 minutes.
• Finish fast. Mile 5 was probably my slowest, but I’m not sure of the exact pace as there was no marker. I’m sure I ran a faster mile 6 to wrap it up, but the average pacing for the last two miles was 8:20. I tried to keep up with the runner ahead of me, but I didn’t have the legs for it and she pulled away. As the finish line neared, I spotted my crew cheering and this was a huge boost to the spirits.
  
• Protect the nipples. Not a big deal for the ladies who are already wearing sports bras, but for the men on the other hand….. My slightly-loose running shirt got wet and was jostling around, and my nipples paid the price. They were tender for the next couple days. Next time? A tight-fit shirt or a combination of vasoline and band-aids.

Even though I started one minute after the gun, I finished third, ahead of the rest of the field of 10k runners except for the top male and female finishers. I’m pretty happy with my time of 46:14, considering my conservative goal was 50 minutes and I’d never pushed too hard on training runs longer than 5 miles.

I didn’t have any physical complaints after the run, either, other than feeling a wee-bit light headed for a couple minutes. My legs weren’t even sore the next day. Of course, it might have helped that after the run I went to the Iowa Craft Brew Festival (check out this link for a great recap) and sampled about a dozen fantastic local beers.

It was a fun run, literally.

I can’t wait to do another……

Here’s a Dailymile graph showing my weekly mileage for the last 26 weeks (click the image to enlarge):

Halfway through May, I’ve already logged 40 miles. My highest mileage month since I started recording data back in October 2008 was 56 miles in March 2010. When I look back at my runs from 2008 to early 2010 I see numbers like 1.6mi and 2.3mi as the norm. This year I find 3.6mi and 4.45mi as regular distances.

I’m working my way slowly toward adding more mileage to my weekly number. My intent is to keep the increase around 10-15% every five to six weeks. Starting at 12 miles per week early in the year, I’m now at 16 miles and looking to bump to 19 in a couple weeks. By the end of the year–if things go well–I should be in the mid- to upper-twenties each week.

I’m also looking to finally add some races to my calendar this year, after completing my first 5k last November. The energy of that race day was infectious, and seeing Dailymile people talk about their own races has given me a serious itch for more. I’ll actually be entering my first 10k this weekend.

And as for the beer? I’m doing my part there. Recording most of my selections on Untappd, I recently consumed my 100th unique beer since December 18th. I’ve had a lot of great craft brew in the last five months, and have enjoyed many immediately after (or some before) my runs. I’ll never be at the level of The Beer Runner in terms of running (he’s on something around 225 days in a row) but I’ll hold my own on the drinking.

So regardless how the year started, I’m stoked about the consistency and distance I’ve developed over the last couple months. The ups and downs through the last several years due to injury or whatnot have been frustrating, but looking back on the positive trend has been encouraging.

A college classmate of mine–I hadn’t seen him since college days–had chartered a sailboat and invited his Facebook friends to join him. So I did. Our 36-foot vessel was named Elbereth, presumably after the Tolkien character from The Silmarillion. Elbereth had seen some miles in her years, but she turned out to be a very pleasant and comfortable host for ten days. Complete with kitchen, dining area, bathroom, and two bedrooms, Elbereth was quite literally a floating hotel room, sans room service.

Our route took us counter-clockwise around the British Virgin Islands, making stops each day at different island locations to moor or anchor for snorkeling, sightseeing, or calling it a night. Turquoise-blue beach water morphs lazily into deep blue under the beaming rays of the sun. Predominant easterly trade winds provide a near-constant breeze to keep sails full. Sheltered channel waters are relatively calm and sailing dangers are well marked on established maps. All combined produce an ideal place to sail with a low risk of trouble.

The pace here in the islands is calm and controlled, bordering intentionally on slow. Clocks are nowhere to be found, hence the coinage of the term island time. Our group embraced the concept wholeheartedly. I even managed to turn off my internet-connected phone from the time we initially linked up on Tortola to the time we parted ways at the final stop in Saint John. “Unplugged” is a rare state to find oneself in, and I can assure you it is fuel for the spirit. Rather than sit at the feet of a psychiatrist, one might try hiking in the woods, jogging along the waterfront, or jumping into a boat for a sail.

My local challenge on this trip was pretty simple, considering large chains are practically nowhere to be found (save for Saint Thomas). Dining and shopping establishments on the islands are locally owned by either long-time island families or owners living mainland in the States or Britain. From this perspective, it is a locavore traveler’s dream vacation. Well, that and there really are no other choices for purchasing goods.

Most everything was expensive by American “standards,” except for booze. Fresh meats and vegetables are not a luxury in the islands, and must be shipped in from elsewhere. Conch and lobster are local seafood favorites, and along with various rotis and burgers, find their way onto the typical island menu. Despite the prices, food was generally average, perhaps dependent on the assumed alcohol intake of patrons. The dining highlight of the trip was a lobster dinner at Myett’s Garden & Grille (Cane Garden Bay, Tortola)–the lobster was fresh and the conch chowder was supreme.

Drinks varied across the board, but were very enjoyable. Common island concoctions included the Painkiller (invented at the Soggy Dollar Bar on Jost Van Dyke) and the Bushwhacker (a favorite at Saba Rock off Virgin Gorda). For a beer guy like myself, adjusting to the umbrella drink was not as difficult as I’d imagined, helped immensely by the warm temperatures and under-abundance of craft beer. Micro brews were nonexistent here–with one exception being Foxy’s line of micro brews–so I settled into regular bottles of Red Stripe and Heineken.

As for the sights? My favorites included snorkeling over the wreck of the RMS Rhone off the coast of Salt Island, exploring the piles of huge boulders at The Baths on Virgin Gorda, watching lizards scurry around while hiking the nature trail on Sandy Cay, and swimming under the stars at Cinammon Bay on Saint John.

I’d like to write a comprehensive piece about the journey, but I realize this will take a lot of time and–as I look at the clock–I remember I have things to do.

The first of two cars I've owned in my entire life

Most items I buy are pretty easy to find locally. The one exception would be auto parts. I’m now pushing 160,000 miles on my Jeep Grand Cherokee which I purchased brand new back in February 2000.

One of the upsides of owning a car for a long time is not having loan payments. One of the downsides? Lots of routine maintenance kicks in after a while. Right now my Jeep is in need of quite a bit of this work: brakes (still unchanged after this infamous post), suspension, and tires just to name a few.

The Grand Cherokee has been rock solid* with only a couple of annoyances, the largest of which was a leaky axle seal which I had repaired several times before finally replacing the entire axle. I don’t believe this was as much the fault of the vehicle as it was the approach of the repair shops I used. The other problem I’ve noticed over the past five or six years is that the vehicle burns off coolant and I need to refill the reservoir every three or four weeks.

At this point, I don’t want a different car. I also don’t want to put a lot of money into the Grand Cherokee if something major is uncovered. I don’t get stellar gas mileage (high teens in the city, mid twenties on the highway), but I’m also utilizing the car in a way that is more environmentally friendly than upgrading to a different vehicle every two or three years. Thankfully, planned obsolescence hasn’t quite found its way to the auto manufacturers like it has to consumer electronics.

I’d been driving on pretty old tires most of the winter–and my car is already slightly handicapped in this area by being two-wheel drive. When I purchased the car, I didn’t need the four-wheel drive capability as I was driving in Texas climate. Here in Wisconsin, snow is another story. Even a slight dusting can become potentially debilitating for my car, but with careful driving and route choices, I’ve managed to avoid anything serious other than having friends push me out of icy patches.

First day in the driveway some ten years ago

So it’s comical that I chose to replace my tires in April, after the winter season had come to an end. I’d probably have gone longer, but the 2/32″ tread left on my tires plus the blowout Marcus experienced on the highway were two major factors in the decision. I stopped in at one of the two places I use now for local auto parts, Mills Fleet Farm. I was in Manitowoc for a weekend event and dropped the car off for the new tires, which they installed quickly along with performing a front-end aligment.

I’d also have purchased brake parts, but Fleet Farm didn’t have my brake pads, so I decided I’d wait to check Blain’s Farm & Fleet in Milwaukee. Farm & Fleet is based in Janesville, so it’s even more local than Fleet Farm (based in Brainerd, Minnesota). Both companies are still owned by the original founding families (which are not related), which makes them old-school throwbacks of a sort. The stores have that “feel” about them that you’d recognize as soon as you walked in. In a way that is very anti-Target, stores and weekly ads prominently feature work boots, Carhartt farm apparel, poultry feed, and teat dip.

The best part of this story? The tires I purchased went on sale the next week (buy three, get one free). I took my sales receipt from Manitowoc over to the Germantown store and they happily refunded me the difference.

I love my Fleet Farm.

* Knock on wood.

Machine Shop Facelift
My friend Marcus joined me as we made the first stop at INdustri Cafe (524 S 2nd St) for an #MKEFoodies event. Even better? Beer was provided courtesy of Milwaukee Brewing Company (their building is across the street). Even better? My friends from NathanAle’s Brewery brought me some samples of their latest creations. I was already steeped in good beer and I hadn’t even seen the food menu yet.

We missed the appetizer samples, so we ordered a plate of pan-seared scallops rockefeller. The scallops were cooked to perfection and made even better by the addition of spinach and bacon, and a garlic aioli sauce on the side. Additionally we tried a plate of the sausage and cheese curd kabobs. The bites of meat and cheese come on an edible pretzel skewer with a side of mustard dipping sauce. Two great appetizers which went very well with the Louie’s Demise beer.

INdustri Cafe has done a nice job creating a cozy feel inside this 130-year old former machine shop building. I’d never seen the coffee shop which occupied the space prior to INdustri Cafe, but I have a feeling a dining destination will do better here than a neighborhood-type coffee spot. With an excellent menu and freaking awesome desserts, INdustri Cafe should be on everyone’s restaurant short list.

Octogenarian Owners/Occupants
On the recommendation of Twitter friends Mike and Kay, we walked down the street next to a Milwaukee institution: Tony’s Tavern (412 S 2nd St). You are correct if you just observed this place doesn’t have a website (click here for a nice review). If you’d visit, you’d also observe no credit card machines, a jukebox with vinyl records, and a bartender in her eighties.** This place is certified old school, complete with the pictures and the smell from our grandparents’ house to prove it.

I ordered an Edmund Fitzgerald from the tap and realized quickly this might have been a mistake. The beer was perfectly poured but tasted a little–to keep up with the theme–old. This is a casual, come-as-you-are sort of tavern, and I should have probably gone with the blue collar drink offerings instead. As I walked around, the details in this place were simply remarkable, down to the manual hand-pull cash register behind the bar.

The main room fits a good group comfortably, and overflow can mingle in the side room around the pool table. If you’d like something to eat, Ann will holler “Tony!” and he’ll fetch some popcorn in the aluminum popper pan–like the ones we use over the campfire. It’s a great experience, and I’m thankful I was able to be served by the owners, who incidentally live in the bar (I think the bedrooms are upstairs and their kitchen is straight through the back of the bar).

Old Faithful
Finally, since we needed some late-night grub, we made a stop at Bel Air Cantina (1935 N Water St). This replaced the so-so former tenant Good Life, which was a fatality of the [extremely] long Humboldt bridge project. The inside looked pretty similar, but the food menu is completely different. We ordered tacos for this fourth meal, and they were all tasty. I had the Gringo (hard shell corn with ground beef), Baja Tilapia (soft flour with fried tilapia and avocado), and Barbacoa (soft flour with BBQ beef slow cooked in beer and orange soda).

It’s a great late-night eating option, an option which can be tricky to find on Milwaukee’s Eastside. Tacos are also the perfect late-night standby, so I hope this place sticks around for a while (if there aren’t any more bridge projects or sinkholes which say otherwise).

Check all of these places out as soon as you can. Highly recommended.

* Cause for annual celebration in the United States? This is the day on which a Mexican army soundly defeated a much-larger French army.  Works for me!

** Educated guess.

Good Eats
The trip started with an evening in Iowa City to visit friends Geoff and Betsey, in town from Kansas City and watching Marquette tear it up in first-round NCAA hoops action. Accompanying them were several pounds of assorted K.C. barbecue from Oklahoma Joe’s (the one in the gas station). Who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth!* The barbecue hit the spot, the Warriors won (surprise!), and it was a great time spent with good friends.

In Des Moines the next day, I found myself in a mall for lunch. That certainly narrows the options, but not impossibly so. I grabbed a plate of food at the Chinese food counter and a chocolate malt at Maid-Rite (3850 Merle Hay Rd), which turned out to be a bit of a local institution. Next time I’m back, I’m definitely going to try one of their loose meat sandwiches. Overall, the band concert and the good company made it an enjoyable mall trip–my first intentional mall visit in many years.

Bottle Opener
Sunday night, I ventured out to two popular Des Moines watering holes: El Bait Shop and High Life Lounge (both at 200 SW 2nd St). El Bait Shop was a recommendation on Twitter from the fine folks at Peace Tree Brewing in Knoxville, Iowa. With over 100 beers on tap and more than 100 in bottles, the selection was not lacking. As a general ordering tradition, however, my first draft selection (Peace Tree Hop Wrangler IPA) was tapped out.**

I “settled” for a bottle of Peace Tree Double IPA (Beeradvocate: A-, Ratebeer: 94). Loved it. The serving temperature was perfect and the bitterness was impressive. I sipped this one while watching Marquette win (again! surprise!) their second-round NCAA match-up. After polishing off the Double IPA, I switched to a bottle of the Peace Tree Rye Porter (Beeradvocate: B, Ratebeer: 75). I enjoyed the smoky sweetness of this one.

Beer got kicked to the curb as we ventured next door to the High Life Lounge. The place was plucked directly from the early seventies, and reminded me of oh-so-many places I’ve been throughout small-town Wisconsin. Signage, wall carpeting, wood paneling, tables and chairs are all vintage, as is the drink menu. High Life Lounge also serves only food and drinks from the era, including the Tangermeister: a tasty blend of Tang and Jägermeister. I got there too late for food service, or I’d have tried the highly-recommended tater-tot casserole. Next time.

We Shall Overcome
Monday included a lunch stop at The Old Spaghetti Works (310 Court Ave) for all-you-can eat pasta (I finished my first bowl, but wimped out on the second and had to take it to go). On the way back to Wisconsin, I managed a pitstop at Millstream Brewing Company (835 48th Ave, Amana), another of Iowa’s breweries. Tried several samples here, and discussed the recently-overturned archaic Iowa beer tax law with one of the brew masters.

Until just last year at this time, beer over 6% ABV was taxed in Iowa as hard liquor, which made brewing the stuff in state slightly prohibitive, and distributing it outside the state-run Alcoholic Beverages Division impossible. By moving that limit to 15%, breweries are now putting more effort into classic barley wines, double IPAs, and other beers which traditionally contain higher alcohol content. Local beer distributors are now able to sell a greater selection.

And local drinkers (and those who visit the state) benefit with the renewed energy placed in the craft beer space. I took home six packs of the Millstream German Pilsner and Back Road Stout to celebrate.

* Bottom line, I just can’t worry about where my friends and family get food from. The scope of that project would be insane (and not to mention socially awkward).

** This seems to happen to me an inordinate percentage of the time.