I miss my farm

With fall in full swing and the first wisps of winter in the air I'm already starting to miss the summers bounty of fresh vegetables.

After going on a bike tour of several Northfield CSA (community supported agriculture) farms last autumn I found a farm that I really enjoyed.  The farmers were friendly and answered all kinds of questions as the tour wandered around their farm, they had a nice plot of land and a cute little tractor.  The farmers were very knowledgeable about what they were growing and about the business side of running a CSA and were very open about sharing their experiences and struggles running the farm.  It was readily apparent that a lot of thought and attention went into making the operation a success and that the farmers were committed to raising good produce and improving the land they were growing on.  The size of the operation seemed sustainable and had a nice family farm feel to it.  Plus it was close to my work on the edge of town so it would be easy to bike over after work and pick up my share.

The farm I joined was Spring Wind Farm and after a year of being a member I have to say I love it even more than when I signed up.  I am not a very picky eater, so I have no complaints about mass produced store produce, but it certainly doesn't compare to food fresh from the farm.  Plus knowing how and where my food was grown, where the money I spend in my grocery budget is going, and that the food is grown, harvested, and distributed with sustainability and care for the environment in mind are very much feel good bonuses for me.  The farm also sends out a weekly newsletter with what will be in the share, what is going on around the farm, and a recipe for the week.  They have a website with many more recipes too.  They also have a couple potlucks over the course of the year so all the CSA members can get to know each other, swap recipes, and just hang out on the farm.

Here's how the system works:  Every week I show up and there is a table with produce and a board that says how many pounds of produce each share gets (beets, radishes, eggplant, summer squash, carrots, onions, potatoes and much more).  I could mix and match whatever was available on that table to make the weight I was allowed.  There was another table with greens (mixed salad greens, kale, spinach, ect.) and a volume that each share was allotted.  There were also special items (tomatoes, pumpkins, winter squash, sweet corn, melons) and the number of each per share.  Finally there were fields of herbs, cherry tomatoes, tomatillos, beans, peas, flowers, and other things that I could pick myself up to a certain amount (often that amount was unlimited once the season got going).

I got the chance to try a whole lot of foods that I had never had before, and getting them right from the farm meant they would be as fresh and flavorful as possible, plus I could ask the farmer how to prepare them in addition to trusting my good friend Google to provide recipes for me.

So now that the season is over, was the $285 I paid for my CSA share worth it for the 19 weeks of produce I got?  The answer depends a bit on how I choose to value my produce.  Buying produce at Aldi has a lot different price tag than buying it at Cub or buying it at Just Foods coop or buying it at the farmers market.  Since the quality of produce I'm getting is best comparable to what is at Just Foods that is where I did most of my pricing to determine how much the food I was getting was worth.  My note taking was not meticulous throughout the year, but I took mostly the same produce, so I kind of just made a per pound average for the produce and used that every week.  There are some differences too, since I got squash per unit and not per pound, same with tomatoes and corn, so I kind of guessed at how much weight that was equivalent to.  I also didn't add up all the herbs I picked from the U-Pick fields since I didn't really weigh or measure those, but that is another significant plus because fresh herbs are expensive.  If I had bought all my produce at Just Foods it would have been at least $450, so I came out way ahead there.  My bill at Cub is usually about 60% of my bill at Just foods, so I pretty much break even vs. shopping at Cub, which is where I was getting most of my produce.  So for the same price I get fresher and better tasting (because it is harvested ripe and not shipped) that is pesticide and herbicide free (I do still have to wash my CSA food because it is not all dirt free, but I think I actually trust ingesting a bit of dirt more than some of the chemicals sprayed onto commercial produce).

So why put this post up now?  Because today marks the first time that I have had to go through the produce aisle since early spring to pick up lettuce, and also squashes and other things I can no longer get fresh from the farm.  Since I started eating produce I never thought much about when it was in season.  I know this stuff, it just didn't seem that important when I could just go to the store whenever and buy it.  Now the produce selection looks a bit sad all stuffed into bags with price tags on everything, but on the plus side my summer of trying new foods means I have a much better selection of produce that I know how to prepare and eat.  I also have another reason to look forward to summer :)

Mankato Marathon

Last weekend I ran the Mankato Marathon.  I posted a recap of the race on the Vakava blog, but left out analysis of the race because that might be more than most readers on that blog want to hear about.  I figured if you have found your way here however that you are interested enough to sift through some more details, or you can always navigate away at any time if you aren't.

First off I'll say I did luck out weather wise.  The forecast was for rain, but all we got was some mist for a while about half way through the race.  It was cold though, probably 36F at race start and not much over 40 by the end of the race.  Overall the temp felt good, but I noticed my legs never really warmed up, so maybe that contributed to their tightening late in the race.  It was very similar weather conditions to R2T marathon last fall where I had a similar issue (although at that race starting too fast was the likely cause of most of my problems).

I was running with one other guy almost from the start and for much of the early race Brian was in sight 200 meters or so ahead of us two.  We hit some hills around mile 7-9 and that is where we caught and dropped Brian and also where the guy I had been running with got a small gap on me, that he then proceeded to quickly widen.  There was one runner in sight ahead who I caught at mile 13, and I didn't see another marathon runner for the rest of the race.  I used to run a lot on my own and then loved to run in packs on race day, but now it seems like the opposite, I do almost all of my running with Nichole, and then on race day I often find myself completely alone on the course.  I really like running alone in trail races, it brings the seclusion of the woods much more into my conscience and I can enjoy just running in the woods.  For a paced road race effort though it is harder to remain focused and remember that I am racing when I'm all by myself out on the roads.

The race started in control, and I really didn't feel like I was working at all for the first 4 miles.  Then when we turned into the wind it was a bit of work but still felt easy and relaxed.  When we hit the hills from miles 7-9 I felt like I was working a bit and still that is when I got gapped.  After that I tried to methodically close distance on the runner ahead of me, who I caught just after the halfway point.  I had one downhill mile at 5:58, otherwise most of my miles were in the 6:10-6:20 range.  The legs chilled a bit going into the wind from mile 14-16, and they were starting to tighten up going down the long hill around mile 18, but I still felt like I was holding pace alright.  Then about mile 20 I just couldn't keep the tempo up any more.  The legs were not going through their normal range of motion, they were not swinging easily, and I really had to focus on the correct motions, which means I was not focusing on the correct tempo.  Pace quickly slipped to about 7:00 miles, then 7:15.  At this point we were running through a park with a bunch of twists and turns, so I couldn't even get into a rhythm at all.  When I got back on to the trail, a familiar section from a bike ride last summer, I told myself to go faster because it didn't hurt more to run harder.  This was true for about 1.5 miles, and I did manage to pull just below 7 minute pace for mile 24, then it did hurt worse to run faster, and I was worried about a leg cramping up because they just felt so tight, so I limped in to the finish.

The race course was a bit long, so according to Strava my marathon distance time was 2:50:38.  Not that it's really worth anything, still 6 minutes over my goal for the race.  On one hand I'm happy I finished and paced most of the race well, but really the race was a failure in that I didn't achieve the goal I set out to get.  I'm ok with failure, but not happy with it by any means.  I still think my goal was an achievable one, and now I have motivation to be consistent about getting long runs in next spring to give myself a better chance of finishing my next marathon strong.

Now I really need to start hitting the strength work hard if I want to see good improvement this ski season.  I was using running as a bit of an excuse to not work on strength too much and risk putting on weight, but now the focus is all about getting faster on skis.  Oh, and having fun, really the focus is all about having fun while getting as fast as I can.  Towards that end this evening I'm picking up a couple pairs of Cat skis from Fit to be Tri'd and strapping a headlamp on my bike helmet to go Cat ski around the arb in the dark.  It should be sufficiently ridiculous to pick my spirits up.