Modesto Half Marathon Report, Wild-dough, and my new cold smoker

Modesto Half-Marathon

I've really been looking forward to this, my second, half-marathon.  I wanted an "official" sub-2 hour half.  That was my primary goal, but I was hoping for a sub 1 hour 55 minutes, since that was what I had been training for, and would allow me to move on to my next "Hanson's Marathon Method" time in the book.

We arrived in Modesto around 4-ish.  I checked-in at registration and got my Bib.  A quick tour of the expo turned up nothing interesting - as in "I have to have that now!"

Our reservation at Skewers was at 6:30 pm, so we went for a wine supply run at BevMo.

We made it back just in time for our evening reservation at skewers.

We ordered Jeremy's Barbera.  It was excellent - I love Barbera.

We ordered an appetizer of Dolma.

Then we shared a Greek salad.

My wife got some mixed Kabab dish with Chicken and a Ground Meat

I went with the house specialty - Rack of Lamb.

Perhaps not the best pre-run dinner, but I was having a good time and nothing was all that spicy.  We got in an early bed time at the Doubletree with a wake-up call at 5am.

I had forgotten to bring any Gu for my run, but I was going to try to do without it anyways.  My strategy was to walk each aid station to drink water, and electrolytes - alternating at each station. Trying to run through the stations at the Monterey Half hadn't worked out so well, with more spilling than drinking.  My training route requires me to stop at water faucets, and obviously walking is faster than stopping.  Since I had GPS subbed a 2 hour half, I figured the walking strategy could only improve my time.

The electrolyte drink was Nuun.  Unfortunately I have no idea which kind they gave us in terms of calories.  We made a breakfast stop at the hotel restaurant where I had a blue berry bagel with cream cheese, and a banana.  I washed it down with a cup of coffee, instead of my usual tea, visited the restroom, and then we were off to the starting line.

Fighting the crowd for the first mile kept be at a 9:21 pace, but after that it was all sub 9s.

One hour, 54 minutes and 36 seconds.  The official time added 2 seconds and took away about 0.15 miles.  I don't care, I hit my goal.  My next goal is to hold a sub-8'30" pace for this distance and beyond.  This is big improvement considering where I started, but I feel that I have more potential to develop as a runner.  I'm starting to think a sub-8 may be possible.  My best paces keep slipping into the 6's.  I doubt I could ever hold that, but 7's? Maybe, maybe...

Here I am, on the left, coming into the finish.

The last quarter mile was at a 7'40"

Wild-Dough

I've stopped calling my yeast culture "Sourdough."  It really isn't that sour.  On Saturday I bring my culture down to a manageable size, to start the week fresh, by making blueberry pancakes.  This is where my incubator (top device in photo), comes in handy.

 I mix 720 grams of starter with a couple of eggs, some sugar, salt, melted butter, a little flour for body, and incubate at 84 degrees Fahrenheit for 60-90 minutes.  I set my griddle for 375 F, and...

I haven't eaten pancakes for along time because the baking soda and/or powder upsets my stomach (at least I think this is the cause).  This recipe needs neither.  The wild yeast provide all of the leavening power.

What do I do with the rest of my starter during the week?

Calzones:

And lately, I've been trying to perfect a higher hydration bread.  These were at 75%.  Can you tell which one I forgot to score?

On other culinary fronts, I 've managed to finally perfect my cold smoker apparatus.

I drilled a hole in the side of a stainless steel cup, put in a soldering iron, and just add wood chips.

Black Toe and the Birthday Dinner

This wasn't supposed to happen, I don't run Marathons.

I'm looking for ways to avoid this in the future.  It happened after a 3 hour run, which due to my pace netted me 19.22 miles.  That is a PR for my 3 hour run which takes place every 3-4th Sunday.  I was wearing Saucony Rides.  They were just starting to be my favorite new shoe.

One blog says that I need to buy running shoes half a size to a full size bigger then my normal size for walking.  Another says I should have at least one thumbnail length from my longest toe (Hallux) to the front of the shoe.  Another says I need to clip my toe nails regularly.

I bought some more shoes, because I am always looking for an excuse to try new running shoes.  I'm definitely looking for zero drop, but cushioned shoes.  I tried the whole minimal thing, but that just doesn't work for my half century old feet running on concrete for 19+miles.  The Saucony Virrata are looking nice!

Birthday Dinner

My wife and I for our birthdays get a special request dinner.  I almost always ask for her awesome enchiladas, and she almost always asks for seafood.

Of all the meats I struggle with, seafood is at the top.  I'm usually doing a cure, or rub, or slow cooking meat until it is tender (for hours).  I cook fatty meats and use the drippings for sauces and risotto.  Seafood really doesn't do well using these techniques, at least not in my hands.

I've done cooking in milk and various cream sauces, and serving on rice.  My son did fish and chips once, which was outstanding.  This year I wanted to do something unusual.  So I went and listened to the guru:

http://ruhlman.com/2013/08/le-creuset-terrines-seafood-terrine/

I've been looking for an excuse to make a terrine.  I even had bought a terrine dish several weeks earlier.

I followed Ruhlman's excellent directions:

Of course you have to have Aioli  sauce for a seafood terrine.  So I broke open a couple of our wonderful local free range eggs and went at it with olive oil.  Thanks to the Paleo people for the core of my idea.

I plated it up or my wife.

Second course was home made pasta primavera.

Desert started off as a homemade chocolate cake which became chocolate torte.  I stole some of my Wife's coffee in the morning to add that special something, and paired it with a tasting of "Bottomless Pit" versus Deschute's Brewery "The Abyss."

The Abyss was the better sipping beer, but my Bottomless Pit came out on top as the best match for dessert - it was sweeter.  The frosting was a sourcream base that turned more into a glaze. but it was good!

The 70+ mile week and Sourdough Obsessions

Running

All the article agree, run more miles run faster.  Well, not all of the articles, nor books for that matter.  There are the articles that also say to run slower to run faster, the book on the 80/20 week, were only 20% of your miles should be speed work, and the rest easy miles.  There is the book on 3 runs per week; long run, intervals run, and tempo run - with cross training on non-run days.  

I read a blog post about 70 miles per week by the Boring Runner, that cracked me up, and the distance sort of stuck in my mind as a goal.

Here are how some of my 70+ mile weeks went:

M	Tu	W	Th	F	Sa	Su	Total
5.2	10.4	9.5	10.4	12.2	12.2	16.5	76.4
	10.4	7.5	6	15.1	6.2	15.8	61
	12.3	15.5	5.6	13.3	9.5	16.5	72.7
	5.6	9.5	11.2	13.2	8.72	19.22	67.44
	11.3	15.7	5.6	12.2	9.5	16.5	70.8

The first week I was crazy and didn't take Monday off after running 18 miles the previous Sunday.  I almost injured myself that week and swore never to do that again.  The Tuesdays with more than 10 miles are "doubles" where I ran both in the morning and afternoon, same for Thursday.  Any Wednesday or Saturday over 10 miles is a "double" run day.  Any Friday over 14 miles is a double run day.  The second run always being an easy pace 5-6 mile run.  Wednesday is my intervals day, and Friday is my Tempo day.  Sunday is my long run day and never features a double.

So, am I any faster?

I nailed my first sub 2-hour half marathon distance with my first ever sub 9 minute mile average pace.  However, it really took it out of me, and I haven't been able to repeat the performance, which was 9 days ago.

Culinary

Almost a year ago I bought two sourdough cultures from Amazon  

I was going to use them for Pizza dough, because all "real" pizza makers use sourdough yeasts.  I figured I would have time to pamper them when Summer rolled around.  Summer came and went, and I never did start the starter.

So I figured, rather then get nothing out of them as they aged in my refrigerator, I would start one just to see how it went.  I went with the Camaldoli.  I found this website that talked about how to care for and feed a sourdough starter.

It started right up.  And then I read about how to make your own sourdough starter, taking advantage of wild yeast.  I was hooked.  Being the Microbiologist that I am, this aspect of food microbiology was fascinating.  I made sourdough pizza:

I still have yet to make it in the Primo, where I will get a better char on the top, but it was really good, and not really all that sour.  It did take me some time to learn how to be patient enough to get that kind of bubbling by allowing the starter to create enough gas in the dough.  

I cut lard into the flour that I added to the dough and made sourdough tortillas:

.  And buns:

The lard made the tortillas and buns so tender and flavorful.  Of course the lard I made from our free range pork.  I found this King Arthur website that had a recipe for using the same amount of starter that you "feed" to your starter, so that I don't waste or throw away any starter.  I love that you can view it by weight in grams.  Although the amount is way more than any of the "real" pizza makers on the pizza forums would recommend, it works just fine, even when I allow it to age for 4 days in the refrigerator.  I made adjustments to fit my own needs.

I threw out the Amazon bought starter, and now work from a "wild" sourdough starter that I maintain in a mason jar.  I feed it daily if it is out at room temperature, or weekly in the refrigerator, taking it out on the weekends to "wake up."  My feedings are 50 grams of unbleached all purpose flour mixed with 50 grams of reverse osmosis water.