50+ Tripel

Running

Here is the official tally for this week:

8/25 to labor day
Day	Activity	Miles
Monday	Easy	6.3
Tuesday	Intervals	3.4
Wednesday	Aerobic	10.7
Thursday	Intervals	4.2
Friday	Recovery	9.9
Saturday	Easy	5.3
Sunday	Long Run	14.5
		54.3

This is the first time that I have managed over 50 miles in a week, my previous distance maximum was 44 miles.

Today I topped it off with my second ever 14+ mile effort.  This run was without all of the unpleasant experiences documented in "Running off the pork." 

I prepared for this run by having a breakfast of two pieces of toast with Lardo, and a banana.  The idea being that Lardo would bring sodium and chloride along with fatty acids, while the banana brought the potassium.  So I had electrolytes, complex carbs (the toast also had sunflower seeds), and a good source of longer endurance ketone bodies.  Also, during the run I made a conscious effort to regularly hydrate with RO water and took one Cliff (TM) shot for the final 4.5 miles.

I crushed my previous half-marathon PR of 2hours and 29 minutes by hitting the mark at 2hours and 17 minutes.  

As I mentioned before, when the weather cools off I plan to pursue 60+ mile weeks by adding a second run of ~5miles Tuesday and Thursday.

Cadence versus Stride Length

I was reading a forum that was discussing what was more important - how many times your foot hit the ground per minute (Cadence) or how long was your stride.  Most were siding with Cadence.  I suspect, as with all debates, the truth lies somewhere in between, with both being important (pace=cadence x stride length), and an individuals personal characteristics playing an important part. 

I tested this on today's run and found my best time with cadence was a 10:30 minute mile, while by increasing stride length I could comfortably hit 9:30 minute miles or better.  So for me, I need to work on stride length.  In fact the 9:30 pace stride length felt so right that I managed to maintain it for long periods of time and if my endurance improves just a little more, this could become my new 10k+ pace.  A sub 1 hour 10k could be in my future.

Reasons to never run a marathon

1. Peeing at the start line - seriously, it happens.
2. Peeing while running
3. Blood in your urine
4. Sharts
5. Bloody nips
6. Loosing toe nails
7. 5+ day recovery times
8. Fudge slides while running
9. Vomiting while running
10. 26.2 miles just doesn't work as a training distance except for god-like people like certain ultra-marathoners.

Culinary

So a week after my 50th birthday party it was time to make the 3rd beer (party goers drank all of my Honey beer) in my cycle with the Belgian Strong ale yeast - a Belgian Tripel.

Here is the recipe:

Date	8.23.14	Name	Triple Threat
Grains	Weight #
Acidulated Malt	4	Strike Vol.	10	Grain Temp.	77
Crystal 10L	1	Infusion Vol.	0	Strike Temp	155
Abbey Malt	1	Sparge Vol.	7.6	Targ.H2O Temp.	172.4561328
Pilsner Malt	23	Approx. Final Vol.	12.5
Western Malt	5	Theoretical Yield	1224.0
		Expected Yield	979.2	Exp. Gravity	85.14782609
		Measured Gravity	79.0
		Wart Volume	12.0
		Actual Yield	948.0
		Efficiency	77.5
		Final Gravity (FG)	90.4	FG Batch 2	90.4
Total #	34
Sugars - at boil	Weight	Gravity Units (GU)	Sugars	Batch 2	Wt
Belgian Candi Sugar	2	46
~1gallon fresh cab grapes
Total	2	92			0
Bittering	Wt. Oz	Alpha Acid	HBUs	IBUs
Warrior	0.75	16	12	19.5
			0	0.0
			0	0.0	Whole Hops
Total	0.75		12	19.5
Flavor
Santiam	1	8.2	8.2	6.7
			0	0.0
			0	0.0	Whole Hops
	1		8.2	6.7
Aroma
			0	0.0
			0	0.0
			0	0.0	Whole Hops
Total	0		0	0.0
Total Bittering Units				26.2
Additional Spices
Mixture of home grown hops	1/2oz	Hop Use Grav.Adj.	1.202174

 Some unique features of this tripel:

1. One gallon of freshly juiced cabernet grapes from the backyard - thanks to my wife.  We might have been able to make a small batch of wine, but I felt this was a better use for them as I could sanitize the juice by adding to the last 5 minutes of the boil, and not resort to sulfates.
2. Four pounds of acidulated malt that I had been saving for two years for this tripel which should have been made two years ago.  My thought is to balance the sweetness of the tripel with the acidity of this malt and the grapes.  This is basically what balances most wine, with a little help from oak barrel tannins in some instances.
3. My home grown hops.  Although not enough for any significant addition of bittering, this mixture of Magnum, Nugget and Chinook hops could be an important aroma characteristic of this beer.
4. Home made Belgian candy sugar which I made the night before using a fellow bloggers recipe.

The wort tasted awesome which is usually a good indicator of the beer to come.