It's Time to TRY

With the abundance of evening daylight and the potential for nicer weather, it's time to TRY once again. For the next three Tuesdays we'll keep it very informal with more interesting things on the docket for the beginning of April.

What you need to know now:

Normal place and time -- group run meetups at 5:30 at the Wegman's playground end of Onondaga Lake park. The weather tomorrow night sounds like it'll be spring like, so come on out and join in. If people are up for it, I'd like to walk over to the Retreat afterwards and snack, or drink, or eat depending on the crowds desires. A more social start to the spring yogging season.

I ran at the park a couple weeks ago and was shocked at how bad the pavement is getting to be. Lots of bumps and cracks and dippity-do's. If they don't repave it soon, it'll be like off-roading there this summer. Pay attention if you rollerblade or bike there, because it's definitely not the smooth road it used to be.

Other notes of interest:

The Mountain Goat training runs start this Saturday. So, for those of you getting your Goat on or just looking for a safe, hilly run, it's that time of year. The first week is around a 5 mile run. I am not in good enough shape this year to consider the "Lord of the Rings" run any time soon, so if I do the training run, I'll just be doing the group run distance.

The calendar is mostly updated on the TRY blog. Dates to pay attention to include -

April 13th (Wednesday) Syracuse Chiefs Opening Day tailgate. Skip out of work at noon for an afternoon of play.

April 30th (Saturday) The Making Tracks for Celiacs 5k and 1 mile walk at Jamesville Beach. It's moved up about 3 weeks this year. Looking for participants and volunteers to help make this event bigger and better than ever.

June 17th and 18th (Friday - Saturday) Liverpool Area Relay For Life -- Always looking for new people and new energy!

October 16th (Sunday) Empire State Marathon and Half Marathon around Onondaga Lake. I'm sure volunteers will be needed if you don't want to participate.

There are several other races already listed -- if ones you are doing are not, let me know and I'll add them so that we have a calendar that shows all the races that TRYers take part in.

Random spring thoughts:

With my fathers passing last year, the operation of the family maple syrup business has passed on to my mother and the workload to me and my siblings. So I've been taking a much more active roll in that this year, which means that my winter fun stopped about a month ago and that it may be hard for me to make all the Mountain Goat training runs.

For those of you that have gotten syrup from me in the past, I'm taking orders for this year. It is just starting to be made -- and I'll have it here within a few weeks. (For those who have never gotten syrup from me -- the first container is free -- just to make sure you like it -- but after that I ask that you pay so that my mother has something to live off of. She is mentally disabled. So the proceeds go to a good cause.) Since I have no memory, I have no idea who has, and who hasn't gotten freebees -- so you can lie if you want to take advantage of me. But, keep in mind that you'd be taking money from the mentally disabled...so you'd have to be able to live with that. I don't have exact prices yet, but will be very close to last years.

A couple people have expressed interest in seeing a maple syrup operation in action. What those in the industry call the "sugar bush" or the building where the boiling is done as a "sugar shanty". In two weekends, the 26th and 27th, my hometown of Croghan, NY is having it's Maple weekend, including pancake breakfasts at the American Maple Museum and free shanty tours of local operations. (There is still one operation that uses a team of horses to collect the sap, the last I knew.) If you are interested in going up there that weekend, let me know and I can help you figure out what you need to know. And if you want, I can arrange for you to come see my families operation at some point. (We aren't on the tour circuit.) Croghan is about a 2 hour drive (each way) but includes a drive through the Tug Hill Windmall farm, so there is some unique scenery along the way to make it more interesting.

For those of you who don't know this -- my grandfather is enshrined in the Hall of Fame in the Maple Museum (even though the website doesn't list him -- I need to let their web person know about the omission - there should be a Nelson Widrick listed around 1980.) For those of you that do the pancake breakfast - museum admission is included! What a bargain.

My grandfather was enshrined for his "contributions to the maple industry". (Or something similar.) But he never contributed this:

Eat your heart out, Nelson! That is 'The Paiges' and my name is on that bad-boy forever, baby!!!!

Ok, I'm going to stop talking now. Hope to see a few of you tomorrow! :-)