Santa Cruz Half Marathon

Running

The Wednesday before the race my wife gets hit by a virus.  I make cioppino:

The next day I start to feel like one of the infected.  Friday I'm running a fever.  I won't run with a fever.  Running with a cold, or a little congestion is fine, but a fever is a no go for me. 

On Saturday we feel well enough to at least take advantage of our reservation at the Dream Inn in Santa Cruz.  

I'm no longer running a fever and begin to think I can run the race and get my surf board medal.

That night we go out to eat with my brother, and my sister-in-law at Laili's:

I go with some lamb:

Other dishes included kabobs, fish, and salad:

Normally I am able to line up some sort of pre-race caffeine and breakfast at a local business.  This time I just had the tea in my room plus a couple of granola bars.  

Running I definitely felt the effects of my infection.  The deep lung congestion, and coughing kept me from coming anywhere close to sub 9 minute miles.

Coming into the finish line:

2 hours, 4 minutes and 29 seconds, better than Monterey, but 10 minutes off my Modesto run.

Culinary

I decided to try making a pork terrine with a pork tenderloin center.  I started with some pork shoulder that I had preground the previous day, and then ground 10 ounces of back fat I had from our Berkshire pig.  All of this got pulsed through the food processor until relatively smooth.  I say relatively because, not having made this before, I wasn't sure what smooth was.  It was also a very thick mixture.  The recipe called for slices of white bread, I just have my wild dough bread these days, so I used that instead, but how big to make the slices?  The recipe also called for a ham garnish, but there was too much mousseline for it all to fit in the pan, so I passed on this option.  Here is the processed mousseline:

 The tenderloin was seared and then cooled in the fridge before being placed in the middle of the mixture:

 All wrapped up and ready for the hot water bath.

 The quenelle test:

 Out of the mold the next day.

 And slices of the final product:

It was very tasty!

Run for Your Mother

Running

Last year I ran my first race in a 5k in my home town.  At the time I hadn't been running for even a year.  After trying to run longer distances, I had backed off to just running 3.2 miles 5-6 times a week in order to have a cardiovascular aspect to my gym workout.  I choose to run the 5k because my son was willing to run it with me, I wanted to support local running events, and I had never been in a race before.  Since it was on Mother's day I checked with the wife and she gave the thumbs up.

That was a very windy run, and no matter that a study reported that wind isn't a factor unless you run faster than 7 minute miles.  I can tell you wind was a factor that day.  I was exhausted, and had no speed for most of that run.  I was so disgusted with my time and lack of endurance that I went to the gym and ran another 3 miles on the treadmill.  That was the day I decided to pursue increasing my miles again.

This year the event organizers had added a 10k race and I, with the permission of the mother of my children, signed up for it.  Now that I am running 60+ mile weeks, I figured I didn't have to worry about not having enough endurance.  However, since the back injury, I hadn't been running many sub-9 minute miles.  I wasn't sure if I could even break an hour run time.

Last year I drove to the start of the event.   This year I did a warm up walk/run.  It was all of 2 miles, perfect.  I signed in, got my bib number, and did the occasional jog around the track (it starts at a stadium) as I waited for the race to start.  I wanted to stay warmed up because my back issue appeared to have migrated to my right iliotibial tract.

The 5k and 10k started together, with the people running the 10k expected to run two laps.  During the first mile, I felt I was running too fast, and looking down at my Garmin I saw 7 minute, 40 seconds, so I slowed down a little.  That first mile ended being a 8:16.  The next two miles dropped to 8:42, and 8:36.  At the end of the first lap I was catching up to a teenager who was dragging, but picked up when they heard me coming.  I sprinted for the 5k finished line, but youth won out.  It probably wasn't the smartest thing for me to do since I had another 5k to run.

The next 3 miles I ran 8:40, 8:53, and 8:36.  The last mile demonstrating my pick up as I headed into home stretch.  The last 0.29 miles was at 8:22.  My first 10k and thus an automatic PR of 54:11.  A small race, no chip timer, and still no official results.  Nevertheless, a much better pace than my 30:40 5k a year ago, and certainly faster than 1 hour.  I thought at the end of the race that this was a sure sign of my recovery, and I should have no problem keeping my half-marathon time at Capitola/Santa Cruz scheduled for the following week under 2 hours...

Culinary

Mother's day shopping revealed a lot of Rib Eye pairs put together and trimmed into the shape of a heart?  There were also a surfeit of lobster tails.  I grilled up some surf and turf for my wife.

2 Steps forward, 1 Step back

The semester has come to an end, and I'm going to try and catch up on my blogging.

Running

The Modesto Half was a big deal to me.  It was a PR, I had beaten my first half marathon time by 13 whole minutes, a minute faster per mile.  It seemed logical that I just needed to keep training and I would keep improving.  

And at first this seem to be the case.

I took it easy the week following the half by running only easy paces all week long.  The following week I ran an 8'4" mile while running intervals, beating my previous fastest mile by 15 seconds, definitely the right direction.

Outside of running; my wife and I had quit our gym and bought a weight machine, and a treadmill.  With our large home and paucity of children, we thought it would be best to start leveraging our space to reduce our monthly income expenditures.  We didn't want to pay the gym to store our exercise equipment, and (gulp) repair it.  I just hope I don't regret the letting go of the latter service.  However, a new weight machine meant learning new exercises to work out the same muscle groups.  This is how I hurt my lower back.

My lower back had been good since I had started running, in fact it had improved.  When it started acting up, I would run, and that seemed to put it back into alignment.  It also served as an anti-inflammatory, or at least redirected the inflammation from my back and to my legs.

This wasn't just my back acting up.  I had really done some damage this time.  It didn't seem like it at first.  I tried running the next day to make it better.  I barely was able to run 5 miles, and couldn't run faster than 11'36", 13 minute average.  I also didn't feel much better after the run.  I took two days off after this.  My long run which had been averaging 16.5 miles in less then 2 hours and 30 minutes became 13.3 miles in over 2 hours and 35 minutes.  I thought I could pretty much kissed goodbye any hope of improving my pace in time for the Capitola half-marathon.

I started taking NSAIDs and applying a methyl salicylate rub.  I began running only every other day.  The pains seemed to move around, and my calves got sore for the first time in months.  I think I must have been running differently, putting more stress on my calves to take it off my back.  "No run Monday" became "No run Monday & Tuesday."  I began to get slowly better and thought that maybe I could put in a good show for the Mother's day 10k.

Culinary

I bought a thermal gun:

To get more accurate temperature readings on my pizza stone:

To avoid burning the bottom of my pizza:

And bread:

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.