The single biggest obstacle to enjoying nature is getting outside. Our homes are maintained to have the environment of our precise selection. It also contains all of the screens, information, and diversions that are made with the purpose of capturing and holding our attention. To enjoy the outdoors, we need to in fact get outdoors. Even once we’ve mentally overcome the conveniences of the indoors, I find that there is still another “obstacle” or ready-made excuse – the weather.
Continue reading “Accepting Nature to Enjoy Nature”Nature Snacks
As a father of two growing boys, snacks are a big part of navigating the day. The day, especially the weekends, when we are together the whole day, often seems organized around feeding them. As an adult, I can keep myself fed on food, but I struggle to keep myself nourished on nature. Too often, I have had the mentality of needing nature feasts to get any benefit. The time, commitment, and logistics would make this an overwhelming undertaking and I would end up with nothing. However, in 2018 I started to learn that I can gain from the restorative properties of nature with nature snacks during days and weekends.
Continue reading “Nature Snacks”Working our way into Winter Camping
My youngest (six-year old) is really turning into a partner for getting outdoors. The kid is always down to go for a hike or do anything outside. Not only that, but it is his nature that if you give him an inch, he’ll take a mile. Whenever I suggest something outdoors, he’ll one-up me. Take a walk to the park? => Let’s go on a hike. Go for a hike in the county park five miles away? => Let’s ride our bikes there first.
Somewhere along the way he got in his head that we HAD to go winter camping this year. Now I figure that my boys are old enough that we could handle that, and I figured that we would do it some time this winter. But the chance happened to present itself this weekend, thanks to my youngest.
Milwaukee Area Fall Frenzy 2018
Team Adventure Cats capped off the 2018 adventure racing season with the Milwaukee Area Fall Frenzy. Last year, the MAFF was our first ever adventure race. We had learned a lot from the competition last year, as well as from competing in the Chasin’ The Bone and Half Ocho Adventure races earlier in the year. In preparation, I even started to develop my own course locally.
I have to admit that the thought of adventure races really provided me with motivation this past year when it came to workouts. The thought of competing got me out for more and longer workouts than I would have otherwise. It led me to find some new workout routes and combine biking and trail running in workouts too.
Cub Scouts Field Day – With Worksheets!
I recently organized a field day and camp out for our Cub Scout Pack. We held it in our nearby Kettle Moraine State Forest Northern Unit. I think that the event was a success and all of the scouts that attended seemed to have a good time. Reflecting back on the event, I think that it was successful because while I over-planned with programming, we were flexible in execution and readily cut portions of the programming out in favor of free play and relaxation. That being said, I think that the programming materials that I’ll provide below helped the kids to all really learn something and even knock out some requirements.
Introducing the Milwaukee Adventure Race Course (MARC)
As I’ve become more interested in adventure racing, I started thinking more about both race strategy and race conditioning. I wanted to do more race-simulative training, especially brick workouts. I wanted to think about navigation and choosing effective routes. So I created my own adventure race course. All of the information, maps, and instructions are on a new dedicated MARC page of IOTN. Anyone is free to use these and to complete the course at their leisure.
The current course is short – it is about 5 miles of navigation and 12 miles of bike. No paddling discipline yet. Even someone new to AR should be able to complete the course in four hours. Another goal of mine was to provide people in the area an opportunity to try adventure racing on their own schedule.
I do plan for this to be a work in progress and would like to provide a couple of different versions or lengths of the course.
Did you try out my course? Let me what you thought!
Wolf Den Year Plan
This year, my oldest son is now a Wolf scout in our local Cub Scout Pack. I’m moving up along with him. Having guided this den through their Bobcat and Tiger ranks last year, I’m looking forward to another successful year.
I really think that I have a great group of kids and I hope that they all continue on this year. Maybe we can even add a few more. We recently had a pack camp out to finish the summer. While many scouts never even replied to the sign up, I was proud that we had all of the wolves, except for one, and they had tried to rearrange other commitments to be able to make it. With kids and families like that, our den is off to a great start.
Choosing to Make Time
Recently I had to be in Seattle for work for about a week. I don’t do a lot of traveling for work, but usually about twice a year, I’m gone for multiple nights. While this was harder when the boys were little, it is still a challenge as our family schedule is set up for two parents, and my wife has to be to work before the boys leave for school. Luckily my parents frequently are able to help out, for which we are really blessed and grateful. Despite this, I’ve often felt a sense of guilt when I left and therefore would try to make my trips as short as possible. However, such a schedule meant that I would work long hours before I left in preparation for being gone, have an aggressive work/meeting schedule while I was out of town, and then have longs hours of work when I returned to catch up. All the while frequently having been in a place where I had never been before and having returned without seeing much of the city, let alone the natural assets that this new (to me) city had to offer. This year I decided to change that, and chose to make some the time for me after my work was complete.
Backyard Breakfast – Omelettes in a Bag
On the weekend, I like to cook breakfast at least once, if not on both mornings. During the week our mornings are a rush to simply get ourselves and our kids out of the house with everything that is needed for the day. But on the weekends, I like to make something for the family. When I’m getting the itch, I also like to cook it outside.
An Unexpected Adventure Race Tool
This past weekend, I had the pleasure of racing in Medicus WRX‘s Half Ocho adventure race in Middleton, Wisconsin. They put on a fun race that had challenges for experienced racers and also beginners like myself. While I tried to prepare for the event by thinking about race strategy and the gear that I wanted to carry with me, I never thought that my most useful tool of the race would be a rubber band!