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.

2 Runs

It's a new year.  The semester break allowed me to get some good miles in during some weeks, and not so good for others.  While on vacation I only managed two runs on a tread mill, and returning from vacation I picked up a cold that limited my running this last week.

Yesterday was the first day that I really felt well enough to put it all out there.  I didn't start out thinking I would run hard.  I was planning on an easy 6 miles to prepare myself for today's long run.  However, I went out hard and ran 6.41 miles in 57 minutes and 18 second, which is a sub-9 minute mile.  Well, that's what my Garmin FR70 told me.

I know this route and Rundistance calculator tells me that it is only 6.21 miles, which puts me at a 9 minute and 13 second mile.  This is still an improvement, but not enough for a sub-2 hour half-marathon.  I'm thinking I didn't tighten the laces of my shoe with the footpod enough.  If it is loose at all, then it can throw out spurious results.

For solstice, Santa brought me a Garmin 210.  It has GPS and gets around the reliance on my quirky footpod.  One of my first runs with this watch told me I ran 12.88 miles at 9 minute 39 seconds average.

Rundistance calculator gives me 13.02 miles for this route putting me at a 9 minute 30 second pace.  I found a couple of sources that say GPS watches will put you at a slower pace than chip time at a race. I guess it looses signal under the trees?  Now, I'm not sure which watch I prefer.  I like that the FR70 gives me foot speed changes instantly, where the 210 takes a while to register any changes.  But I like that the 210 doesn't rely on the footpod or a wireless connection to my computer (the direct connection via a USB port is less quirky).

The bottom line for this post is that I am getting closer to a pace that will allow me to run a sub-2 half-marathon.  I've been focusing on stride, as usual.  My most recent revelation had to do with momentum.  When I get my feet in sync with my speed, add a little elastic recoil to extend my stride, I can really pick up pace.  My feet are getting better and better at forming a wheel, and not a brake as they hit the ground.  Energy is more efficiently used to maintain pace, and not to regain it at each push off.  Under these conditions the effort to hold pace in terms of endurance is less, although the stress on leg muscles is greater.  If I lose momentum, then it takes real effort to get back up to speed.

In the first run above I managed to hold a sub-8 minute per mile pace for more than a nano-second. Even with corrections for footpod error, I managed two sub-9 minute miles.  I found myself thinking that if I could average just a 1 second improvement per week, for 3 years, I would be running 7 minute 30 second miles.  So far, I have exceeded that pace of improvement.  Is the final goal too much to hope for?

I recently discovered some articles on Pose running:

I think, I'm already doing this, but I tried to increase my lean and it did cause me to increase my pace, but not my endurance.  Still, it may be an "arrow in my quiver" of techniques to play with and use as I continue to try and improve pace in my quest for better racing times.

Culinary

Bacon!

This is just after the cure.  I then did a hot smoke, bringing the internal temperature up to 145 degrees Fahrenheit.

Here it is after the smoke.  I made two large slabs from the Old Gloucester pig.  The side was large, and I have enough for a third piece.  I also have a side of belly from a Berkshire pig.  I think I might make smoked Pancetta with and compare Old Gloucester to Berkshire. If you are looking at all that fat and thinking how unhealthy...boy do I have a surprise for you, a Big Fat Surprise!  - but that his a topic for another post.

While in Seattle, I did some beer tasting:

 And some more beer tasting

 And to start the new year off right, some more...

There are a lot of breweries in the Seattle area.

Happy New Year!