Marathon Training Week 4

Another week of training in the books. I can’t say that I did a faithful job following my training plan but overall I am happy with what I did. All of my training for last week was done in a different part of the state – southern California. I had previously signed up for the Surf City Marathon in Huntington Beach last year. After finding out I had made it into Big Sur, I decided to drop from the full marathon distance to the half marathon for Surf City. This did require a small fee to change but I thought it was worthwhile and at least timing wise the 13.1 miles would fit into my training regime.

Since we were doing some of the touristy stuff as well as setting up times to hang out with friends, I shortened some of my runs and altogether skipped another one. I won’t feel too bad about it though since I had a fun weekend.

Here’s a summary of last week’s running.

( ) = # of miles on my plan

Tuesday – 0 (3)

Thursday – 5 (5)

Friday – 2.7 (10)

Saturday – 0 (5)

Sunday – 13.1 (4)

Weekly Total – 20.8 miles (27)

First thing I did after getting off the plane and settled at my parent’s place is go for a run in my old hood. Originally the neighborhood they live in was built in the 50s or so. However, over the years people have demolished homes and rebuilt them in all sorts of styles. In the last 5-10 years, there have been a lot of crazy houses that don’t fit into the area. You can see the difference between more original housing and new housing below.

The race (recap to follow) took place on Superbowl Sunday so we decided to make a weekend of it. Both our families live down in SoCal so it was easy. My folks were out of town but let us stay at their place and use their car (yay for free lodging and transportation). My wife had never been to the Getty Center in LA and has always wanted to go. So this time we had some free time and decided to make a day out of LA since it is a good drive from where we were staying in the OC.

Normally SoCal is sunny like 95% of the time. We happened to go down the weekend that it was rainy and overcast for 3/4 of the time. After spending the first day down hanging out with the wife’s family, Friday morning we set out for LA and the Getty. Due to the rain, traffic was slow going but at least we were moving so I can’t complain that much. And then we arrived at the Getty and surprisingly there were quite a few people visiting as well. Normally people go to the Getty less so for the art and moreso for the beautiful garden and views of the city.

I had previously visited and thought it was nice. Seeing the galleries and visiting the property is free except you do have to pay $15 for parking. Due to the large amount of visitors, the tram that takes you from the parking structure to the actual facility was backed up. The Getty sits on top of a hill and you park at the base of it. Even though it was raining, they offered for people to walk up to the Center. I grabbed one of the complimentary umbrellas (my wife brought her own) and we started walking. Not 100 feet into the walk, another employee offered a free shuttle bus to the entrance. Yay for free and no walking in the wetness. We did kind of a speed walk through many of the exhibits as that is our MO. Unfortunately the large garden was closed due to the weather and rain. The views of LA were also obstructed due to overcast conditions.

After leaving the Getty we made our way into Culver City to have a late lunch at Father’s Office, which is a gastropub that was founded by Sang Yoon, who has been on Top Chef. He developed the Office Burger, which he calls the perfect burger. Watching him on TV, he also talked about how much he detests ketchup and that you can’t ask for that at his restaurant. We both ordered the burger and fries and had some beer (and I had a cocktail after my beer). Overall the burger was filled with quite a punch of flavor and was very yummy.

Saturday turned out to be a beautiful day. Clear blue skies and sunny. In the morning, we hit up the race expo to pick up my bib and shirt. We were meeting up with some friends for lunch so didn’t get to hang out too long at the expo. We met up at Ballast Point Brewing in Long Beach. I thought Ballast Point was a San Diego brewery and it is but looks like they’re doing well enough that they have branched out their locations. Their grilled fish tacos were delicious and I had the Sour Wench Blackberry Ale. It was quite tasty and refreshing. The views from the outdoor seating area weren’t so bad either.

After Ballast Point, the wife and I weren’t done with our day drinking just yet so drove over to Belmont Shores to have some more beers. We ended up at Belmont Brewing and enjoyed some beer and another great view. I do love the ocean.

I probably shouldn’t have had all that beer the day before a race, but I couldn’t pass it up. And overall it didn’t affect my race all that much.

Up Next: Surf City Half Marathon Race Recap

-StewsCat

Marathon Training Week 3

My week three of marathon training hit a bit of a snafu. Originally on this week’s plan, I had a long run of 12 miles. Next week (Week 4) I was only supposed to do 10 miles for my long run. I forgot, didn’t plan out, that I actually am doing a half marathon race next weekend. I wasn’t sure if I should alter week 3’s plan of 12 miles and ended up compromising during the actual run. Week 2’s 10 miler felt really good and easy. This last week’s 11.45 miler was extremely tough. I wonder if it was related to the fact that the night before the run I had a few cocktails. I am still learning about my own body and what alcohol does for it. In the past I used to have a beer the night before a race and then I did a few races without having beer the night before and noticed that it was a little easier. I’m by no means going to abstain from all alcohol during training, but maybe see how my body does by not having alcohol the night before a long run.

Here’s a summary of last week’s running.

( ) = # of miles on my plan

Tuesday – 0 (3)

Thursday – 4.13 (4)

Friday – 11.45 (12)

Saturday – 5.3 (6)

Sunday – 3.0 (3)

Weekly Total – 23.89 miles (28)

This week’s long run took me along the American River Trail. I used to live by the river the area that I ran this week. It was nice to be back in my old running haunts. The day was nice and warm (high 50s). I saw some good wildlife on this run. I didn’t get a picture but there was a very white bunny with a few brown spots. It did not look like the normal wild jackrabbits that are along the river. I wondered if maybe someone had freed their bunny or it had actually escaped its home and was exploring. Later on I saw a legit jack rabbit along the trail. I also came upon this heron that was standing regally by the bike trail. As I approached, it would spook and fly away – but only about 20 feet ahead and then we repeated the process over and over since I was heading in that same direction.

The rain has stopped for a while now and so the river levels are definitely lower than they were previously.

There is still evidence of the previous rains/winds as there were quite a few trees that had toppled over. You can see that some of these trees actually obstructed the bike path along the river.

It’d been awhile since I ran on the bike trail. There’s one section that is covered by trees on both sides and it is very peaceful.

Overall my body felt good at the end of the week. I had some pretty serious soreness the morning after my long run. However I don’t know if that was also due to some heavy lifting I did the day before the long run. I still managed to do my medium length run (5.3 miles) the day after the long run. So overall I’m happy with how things are going. I have been using my foam roller more to try to stave off any injuries. So far so good…*knock on wood*.

-StewsCat

Pita Bread

So I’ve definitely struggled with what I can make to help us get through the week for lunches while at work. In the past I’ve done tortillas, loaf bread, and sandwich bread rolls. D suggested I could make pitas. So I looked up some recipes and in true me fashion tweaked it to create my own version of things.

Ingredients:

1 cup warm water
2 tsp yeast
1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 Tbsp sugar
1 cup whole wheat flour
1.5 cup all-purpose flour

I started by adding the yeast and sugar into the water and letting it sit for about 5 minutes. Then I proceeded to make a poolish with the water/yeast/sugar and whole wheat flour. I mixed this up thoroughly and let it sit for about 10-15 minutes.

You can see that it is a pretty wet mixture. To the poolish I added the olive oil and the AP flour. This dough is less water % than many of my breads so came together fairly easily and I hand kneaded for about 5-8 minutes. I formed the dough into a ball and coated it with olive oil and let it rest for about 1.5 hours.

After the dough doubled in size, I punched down the dough and deflated it. The dough was then divided into 8 balls.

Each ball was then placed on a floured surface and a rolling-pin was used to roll out the dough into about a 6-8″ disc shape. I had read that there are two different ways to cook pitas. The oven method creates a great “puff” but the downside is that you don’t get the nice brown spots from the stove top method. I elected to try both to see which one I felt was better. I didn’t get the nice separation of the pita as I expected with the stove top method. I used a cast iron pan for stovetop. The oven I had at 450 F and a baking sheet (pre-heated).

img_20170122_185038 — *Rolled out dough*

For the pita in the oven, I palmed the dough disc and flipped it onto the baking sheet. These I cooked for about 3 minutes (sometimes a little more).

The stove top pita stayed flat but I cooked them for about 45 seconds on the first side and 1-2 minutes on the second side.

Here’s a side-by-side comparison of stove top vs oven-baked.

img_20170122_190938 — *Stove top on the left, oven on the right*

Overall they came out decent, though a little dry. Not too bad and something that may go into the rotation for lunches.

-StewsCat

Marathon Training Week 2

My second week of training is complete. I continue to fine-tune my training plan. I had 3 miles on the schedule for after work on Tuesday. However, I was feeling some soreness with my right lower leg (below the knee) on Monday and somewhat into Tuesday. With my history of injuries, I don’t want to take any chances with hurting myself, especially this early into the training cycle. So I decided to skip Tuesday’s run again.

( ) = # of miles on my plan

Tuesday – 0 (3)

Thursday – 5.01 (5)

Friday – 10.03 (10)

Saturday – 6.05 (6)

Sunday – 3.26 (3)

Weekly Total – 24.35 miles (26)

Overall I feel good at the end of the week. Today’s run I did with my wife biking alongside me (she’s been doing this for some of my shorter runs and it is great having the company). Compared to the run last Sunday, this one felt easier and my legs felt better – even though I did more miles this week than last. Hopefully that is a sign my body is actually adapting to the miles.

I’m excited for this coming week as hopefully will be getting a fun delivery, we shall see and I’ll update as things unfold.

We had some crazy rains/winds here with more of the latter than the former. These last few nights I’ve actually been awoken due to the high winds outside. Somewhat scary as there have been multiple trees in the neighborhood that have either have large branches fall or even entire trees (as seen below). Here are some shots from this past week’s training:

img_20170119_095449 — *Broken branch on the river trail*

img_20170119_095546 — *River is slightly lower than previous but still fairly high*

img_20170119_100134 — *More daylight under the bridge than last week*

img_20170119_100431

img_20170120_112254 — *Crazy crushed truck!*

-StewsCat

McKinley Village

On today’s run, I went to check out a new neighborhood, McKinley Village, that is being constructed just outside of the midtown/downtown Sacramento area. Many in the East Sacramento neighborhood were very resistant to the introduction of a new houses because they were concerned of the increase in traffic and congestion. The location of the site is interesting because it sits between a freeway and some raised train tracks. They actually had to create a tunnel under the train tracks for a road in and out of the neighborhood (as below).

img_20170120_102427 — *Entrance underneath the railroad tracks*

That means there’s only one way in and out. Eventually I believe they are supposed to create another ingress/egress from another part of the neighborhood. I guess within the “Village” there is supposed to be like 5 different sections. So far they only have model homes built and sales offices open. You’ll see from the pictures below that the designs of the homes vary greatly. With the space being so open right now, it looks a bit strange having a contemporary condo next to a more traditional looking home.

img_20170120_102538 — *Lake – yet to be built-up homes*

img_20170120_102544 — *Picture right after entering McKinley Village*

img_20170120_102549 — *Looking south from the entrance of the Village*

img_20170120_102648 — *Close-up of some homes – look how closely they are to one another*

img_20170120_102653 — *Contemporary condos?*

img_20170120_102932 — *Front of the condos*

img_20170120_102945 — *Community clubhouse*

Another unique feature of the neighorhood is that there is supposed to be an art walk within a park area. So far they have a few pieces up already next to what looks like a bocce ball court.

img_20170120_102556 — *Rabbit Ears or leaves? (juxtaposition of a billboard by the freeway in the background)*

img_20170120_103126 — *Leaf shaped bench*

There is also a clubhouse and I guess a community pool. As you can see, there’s a ton of sitting water as it has continued to rain a good amount the last few days.

Beyond the wall is the Business 80 freeway. I will say that the sound barrier is not that bad but you can definitely hear the hum of the cars going by.

img_20170120_102830 — *Freeway right behind the wall*

One huge negative (at least in my own eyes) are that a lot of the houses actually sit in front and behind each other – like those apartment parking spaces where it is one long space and you can park two cars but need to move the outer one to get the inner one out. I can’t imagine having a house so close to another home and also having absolutely no yard whatsoever, but to each his/her own.