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).
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.
Lake – yet to be built-up homesPicture right after entering McKinley VillageLooking south from the entrance of the VillageClose-up of some homes – look how closely they are to one anotherContemporary condos?Front of the condosCommunity 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.
Rabbit Ears or leaves? (juxtaposition of a billboard by the freeway in the background)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.
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.
The house in the back is all squished in therePicture of the exit
So my first week of marathon training (Big Sur International Marathon at the end of April) is done. It did not start off well. We’ve been getting some pretty crazy rains and rainfall totals here in northern California lately. My first run was supposed to be last Tuesday. We had some historic rains last weekend that continued into the early part of this week. My original plan was to run after work on Tuesday. By the time I left work, the rain was still steadily coming down and I was just tired. So I skipped it. I definitely want to follow a plan more closely this time (considering I’ve never followed one before), but I am not going to be a slave to it. I am going to listen to my body as well. Overall I’m still happy with my week.
( ) = # of miles on my plan
Tuesday – 0 (3)
Thursday – 4.2 (4)
Friday – 8 (8)
Saturday – 4 (4)
Sunday – 4 (4)
Weekly Total – 20.2 miles
Injures/aches – mild right Achilles pain after the last run of the week. Some mild soreness of right knee also present.
My first run on Thursday I purposely ran over to the American River to see how it was looking. Various parts of Sacramento have been flooding with the recent rains. I know it is very unlikely for the American River to flood but I wanted to see how much it had risen with all the water we’ve been getting. Boy I was impressed. Here are some pictures of the river.
Normally there’s a lot more air underneath that bridgeThe water plant (structure) typically has many more feet of white building underneath it
There’s supposed to be a dirt pathway you can walk on at the bottom of the greenery
I tried a new pizza dough recipe this past weekend – mostly due to my lack of planning. I oftentimes start putting the dough together the night before to allow the yeast to essentially knead the dough with a long fermentation. However I forgot to do this so woke up on Sunday realizing I needed a quicker recipe. I have done my usual same-day bread recipe for pizza dough but was wondering if there was another option. After some google searching, I settled on a recipe that sounded fairly simple yet good. This recipe is adapted from Roberta’s (a well-known pizzeria in Brooklyn, NY). I didn’t have any 00 flour so just used AP flour for the entire recipe.
Ingredients:
306 g AP flour
8 g fine sea salt
2 g active dry yeast
4 g olive oil
200 g warm tap water
I combined the flour and salt in a mixing bowl. In my measuring cup, I combined the warm water, olive oil and dry yeast. I allowed the yeast to bloom for a few minutes before mixing it with the flour/salt mixture. I kneaded/mixed the dough in the bowl for 3 minutes.
I then covered the bowl with a towel and let it sit for 15 minutes.
I proceeded to knead the dough again for 3 minutes within the bowl. I was a bit surprised how much the dough had formed up into a cohesive ball.
Earlier in the day I had made some pasta so had a large sheet of parchment paper on the counter that was floured.
So I just took the dough and placed it on the parchment paper, divided the dough in half, and formed two balls.
I let the dough rest under a towel (I used my water bottle sprayer to mist the top to maintain moisture) for about 3 hours. The dough continued to rise.
After 3 hours of rest
I preheated my oven to 545F. I took one ball of dough and on a well-floured countertop flattened the dough out into a pizza shape. I then topped it with marinara, mozzarella, mushrooms, zucchini.
About 1-2 minutes before the pizza was done, I removed it and topped it with some prosciutto.
Et voilà
The above recipe makes 2 good-sized pizzas. I did like this recipe because the dough seemed sturdier than ones I’ve made in the past. It was easy to create the pizza shape and didn’t rip/tear like some of the ones I’ve created. Overall I thought the taste was decent.
Last week during our holiday week off, the wife and I took a quick trip to “The City.” It’s funny because I only learned, in the last year or so, that if you live in this area, “The City” refers to San Francisco. I know the same is said about Manhattan if you live in the outskirts or outer Burroughs of NYC. We like to take quick trips to the City since it is so close.
There’s a hotel that we like in Berkeley because it is dog friendly. They have recently made some changes (paid parking instead of free self parking) that made the stay not as great – mostly because their machine that lets you in and out wasn’t working properly with the room key. Nevertheless it is a great location for us.
We had never been to Stinson beach, which is north of the City near the Muir Woods on the upper peninsula above San Francisco. We had previously been to Muir Woods and had a wonderful hike through the majestic trees. D didn’t realize to get to Stinson beach you had to take the windy, twisty mountainous roads with sheer cliff drop offs. Nevertheless, we made it after a bit of a drive. I think the dog got a little nauseous with the drive (normally she’s a trooper in the car). We grabbed some food at the Parkside Cafe snackbar. The snackbar is window-service small things like hot dogs, sandwiches, etc. I had a hot dog and a cup of their clam chowder. The chowder actually was decent though there was a little bit of grit, which hopefully means they actually make it from real ingredients. The beach that was right behind the cafe did not allow dogs so we drove into the neighborhood just north of this area, parked, and hiked to a beach that allows dogs (and even off-leash dogs). At first I was a bit hesitant to let Sophie (the dog) off-leash because she’s not always the nicest with other dogs – she likes to bark at them and sometimes growl. Eventually we made it to an area void of dogs so let her off leash. Luckily she mostly just stays near us and doesn’t wander more than ~10 feet from us. We spent some time just enjoying the ocean and waves and then headed to the hotel before D and I went into the city for dinner.
Stinson BeachStinson BeachStinson BeachOff-leash!MusselsCool tree
We figured by going during the middle of the week (between Christmas and New Years), it may be easier to get a reservation and not be so busy in SF. We booked a reservation at Tosca Cafe, which is just near the SF Chinatown.
After ordering drinks at the bar we were seated in their private room (their main area was full along with the bar area). It felt more intimate. The walls were covered with a mixture of older movie posters as well as pictures of celebrities and such that had eaten at Tosca. My first cocktail was their House “Cappuccino” 1919 (Marie Duffau Bas Armagnac, Buffalo Trace Bourbon, Dandelion Chocolate Ganache, Organic Milk). It was delicious. We started off with the cheese plate, which was a combination of hard and soft cheeses. I had the crispy pig tail. This was a crunchy/sticky mixture of the tail skin and gelatinous subcutaneous fat with the small amount of lean meat on the bone. For my main, I had the octopus. I really enjoyed it as they prepared the meat well. Many times octopus can be a bit chewy and rubbery. This was not. It had a nice snap and then the inner part was tender. The Spanish octopus was paired with Black Garbanzo Beans, Tomato, Farro, Parsley Mayonnaise. Overall a nice dish.
My second cocktail was the Dolomite Bounty (Bourbon, Cocchi Rosa, Yellow Chartreuse, Lemon, Honey, Bitters). This was refreshing (different than the richness of the House Cappuccino).
Dolomite Bounty
We tried their Tiramisu for dessert. Honestly, it was too soft overall – lacked variation in texture that I’d expect from a good Tiramisu.
After dinner we walked across the street to City Lights Bookstore, which D knew about and I guess is famous. Right next to the bookstore is Jack Kerouac Alley, which had some quotes in the large pavers on the ground. Since we were in the Chinatown area, it was neat that some of them had both Chinese and English.
D was still hungry so we stopped at Hunan Homes (D’s favorite chinese place in SF) and picked up some food to bring back to our hotel.
The next morning we stopped in Berkeley and had breakfast at Cafe M. Then we took Sophie to Cesar Chavez Park right next to our hotel. On a clear day you get a beautiful view of the City and the Golden Gate bridge in the distance. After this we headed home. A nice quick visit.
The first run of 2017 is in the books. I made it out for 4.3 miles and some short(ish) intervals mixed in. I happily accomplished by 2016 goal and thought I’d set some modest goals for this coming year.
Goal 1: Stay Healthy
This will probably always be my goal each year with regards to both fitness as well as life in general. I’ve now been running for 7 years consistently and the first 6 years have been plagued with various injuries.
Goal 2: Finish Marathon #4
I’m signed up for the Big Sur International Marathon. Everything you read about running a race often involves having multiple goals for the race. This way you have a fall-back goal if it isn’t your day. So typically people will set up a Goal A, Goal B, Goal C. My A Goal would be a PR (which isn’t that ambitious considering that’s anything less than 5 hours). It is a little ambitious because of the hilly nature of the race. For Big Sur, everyone says not to even try for a PR and just enjoy the beauty that surrounds you, which I do plan on doing (that’s why it is my A Goal). My B goal is to finish feeling good (each of my first 3 marathons ended with me walking – I suspect I know why too). Finally, my C goal is to finish before the 6 hour cutoff.
I suspect that the reason I’ve not had good luck with finishing any of my prior marathons in a satisfying way is because of my lack of training volume. I haven’t really ever followed a strict training plan for my marathons. I know that this probably has had a significant impact on me on race day. So I’m going to try to stick to an actual marathon training plan this time.
The one difficulty I will run into with this race is that I’ll be traveling the 3-4 weeks prior to the race. This potentially impacts my long run (20 miler?) and the timing of it. I will most likely need to make an adjustment and do the longest run prior to the trip and just maintain my fitness on my trip.
I’ve started to break in some new kicks as I start my marathon training program. I’m returning to the original brand that I used to run in almost exclusively: Saucony. I have enjoyed the Guide series and so have started putting in mileage on the Saucony Guide 8. So far just one run but I like them and the green in them.
StewsCat 