Category: StewsCatRuns

Portland Vacation -Day 2

Day 2 started a bit slow.  Since we were out late, we slept in.  I woke up first and decided that I should get in some miles before starting the day.  It was July 1st and I like to run on the first of each month to set the tone for the month in running.  Rather than attempting an outdoor run (also because I didn’t bring my running belt nor my GPS watch), I elected to do a treadmill run.  I haven’t run on a treadmill in many years.

The hotel had a very nice fitness room (available 24/7 with your hotel key card).  There was a combination of treadmills, ellipticals, stationary bike, weight machines and free weights.  I hopped on a LifeFitness Treadmill, which was pretty cool because each one had a screen that showed your progress but also doubled as a TV.  The hotel provided free headphones that you could plug in so you had sound.  At first I started my run with no headphones and just watching TV without sound.  After about 1 mile I hopped off and got me some headphones.  I forget how hard it is to run on a treadmill sometime.  I started with a 5 minute warmup at a speed between 4-5 mi/hr.  I then upped my speed to 6 mi/hr and ventured into the 6.5 mi/hr range to try to average out to 10 min/mile pace (6 mi/hr for the entire run).  My run effort level was higher because I had been drinking and eating a ton the day before.  I ended up putting in a little over 4 miles at an overall just under 10:15 min/mile pace.

After I was all cleaned up, we headed on out in search of brunch.  One place that I wanted to try was Tasty n Sons.  We bought another TriMet day pass and hopped on a bus.  We took it 20 minutes north of city center (east of the river) into the Boise neighborhood.  By the time we arrived (around 11 am), the place was packed and the line of people waiting for a table spilled out the door.  We put our names down and had some coffee while we waited.  An opening at the small bar (it sat 7 total) allowed us to get a table a little earlier than normal (we still waited about 50 minutes).  We split one of their Chocolate Potato Doughnuts, which was fairly light.  I had the Fried Egg and Cheddar Biscuit with Fried Chicken.  A big reason we went to this restaurant was that my wife wanted to try Shakshuka (baked eggs n tomato stew with merguez sausage), which came with some grilled bread slices.  Shakshuka is a dish of North African origin and now is popular in many Middle Eastern countries.  It was rather tasty and I’d definitely have it again given a chance.  I had a bourbon cocktail since I already had my coffee and hey I was on vacation!  We chatted briefly with the bartender and got some ideas on places to check out.

After lunch we walked around the Boise neighborhood some but jumped back onto the bus to visit the Lan Su Chinese Garden in Old Town Chinatown.  I’ve noticed that in almost every city in the US, the Chinatown region is also where a lot of the homeless people live and Portland is no exception.  The Chinese Garden was an interesting experience.  We learned that there is a sister Chinese Garden in China.  There was some other interesting stuff that I learned but have since forgot, I’ll just leave you with some pictures of the place.

From the garden we walked up back towards the Pearl District for a snack.  Back in 2012 when we visited, we made the obligatory stop at Voodoo Donuts.  My friend Tim, who has lived in Portland for a few years now, said that we needed to check out Blue Star Donuts because it was much better than Voodoo.  I will say that Blue Star has some more innovative and intriguing combinations of flavors. We tried two different flavors: 1) Blueberry Bourbon & Basil Donut and 2)  I can’t remember

We finished just in time to walk back to our hotel, The Nines, for happy hour at the rooftop restaurant Departure, helmed by Top Chef Alum Gregory Gourdet.  One of my good friends from San Diego was a college roommate with Gregory and she said he used to cook her awesome food.  Happy Hour is on a few rooftop balconies that overlook the city.

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View from rooftop happy hour

We ordered some cocktails as well as some snack foods (Departure Wings and Vegetarian Maki Roll of the Day).  The Departure Wings were fabulous and even though my wife doesn’t normally eat wings, she loved these.  They were basically like popsicle sticks of tender chicken in a crisp outer shell.

Vegetarian Maki Roll
Departure Wings

After taking a break in our hotel room we headed off to find some dinner.  Another place that we both wanted to try served chicken rice.  So off we went to Nong’s Khao Man Gai off of E Burnside just across Burnside Bridge via Bus.  I guess Khao Man Gai roughly translates to chicken and rice.  The dish is deceptively simple yet yields some good flavors.  It was a nice little meal to cap off our Friday.

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Khao Man Gai

 

Guess I did have enough to separate out Day 2 from Day 3 and 4.

-StewsCat

 

RUNservations

On today’s warm run, I had some thoughts (whether they’re good and/or interesting is up for debate but I wanted to remember them) I wanted to jot down.

  1. Warm weather running sucks.  I had already known that running in hot weather was not fun.  Today’s run confirmed my previous thoughts further.  I’ve alway said that my favorite temperatures to run in are the high 40s F (for long runs) and 50s F.  Due to a morning work function, I had to push my run back until after this meeting.  I ended up starting my run around 11:30 am and the ambient air temperature was 81 F.  Not too bad you say? Well it isn’t if you’re just walking or standing around.  However, once you start running, your body temperature goes up and your body starts working hard to cool itself.  Luckily for me I had a relatively short run on the schedule (I don’t really have a schedule right now, just running to get in decent miles and hit my 70 miles/month goal for 2016).  One thing I noticed is that my heart rate is consistently higher when putting out less effort (i.e. running slower) when the outside temperature is higher.  As an example, on today’s run I put in 4 miles at a relatively relaxed pace and saw that my HR hovered around 156-158 bpm.  Typically when I run at a casual pace my HR is 144-148 bpm.  This definitely tells me that the warmer weather is more taxing on my body.  I also know not to push it.  Coincidentally this article from Runner’s World showed up on my Facebook feed after I finished my run today:  Warm weather running
  2. Garmin 225 GPS / HR watch:  As I just mentioned I was monitoring my heart rate while on my run.  Earlier this year I purchased the Garmin 225 GPS/HR running watch.  I’ve been running with it regularly since I bought it.  I have been very happy with it thus far and it also frees me up from needing to wear a running belt on a lot of my runs.  Before I had the watch, I would run with my phone in a running belt.  Originally I ran with the HTC Incredible 2 (from around 2011 to 2014).  I’d use the GPS function on the phone tied to Runkeeper to keep track of my distance/time.  I also used it to gauge how far I needed to run.  Naturally I upgraded my phone in the fall of 2014 and after about 1 month  noticed that my times were recorded as a lot slower on Runkeeper and the distances were shorter (for runs that I had been doing and knew the distance).  I read up on GPS in phones and accuracy of running apps and found that there is a lot of variation between GPS readings and actual distance based on the phone and GPS chip in the phones.  I started using web sites to track (geodistance) to look at my distances.  I found that my new phone was under-measuring how far I had actually run.  When I looked at the tracking on Runkeeper, the phone would cut off corners (going through houses) in neighborhoods.  It was relatively accurate if I was doing runs that were just long straight runs.  When I ran in the neighborhood and did a lot of turns winding through various streets, it would leave off a lot more distance.  A big reason I chose to get a GPS watch was to have more accurate ways of measuring my distance.  Also with the information on my wrist, I could more easily look at how far I’d run, my pace (and whether I should speed up or slow down) and also track my heart rate.  Since this is getting long I’ll probably do a post just about the watch and its pros and cons.
  3. Grilling.  I purchased a grill sometime in 2014-2015.  I had used it sparingly over the last few years.  I’ve decided that I need to use it more regularly.  So I’ve been doing some grilling here and there.  Yesterday evening I grilled up some chicken drumsticks (I marinaded it in a mixture of soy sauce, sugar, honey, red wine vinegar, fresh garlic, a little sesame oil and olive oil).  I had some freshly made tortillas (well I had made them earlier in the week for lunches) that I put on the grill along with a crooked neck squash my coworker had grown in his garden.  I paired that with a salad for dinner.  Good stuff!

-StewsCat

 

2013 Shamrock’n Half Marathon Race Recap

The Shamrock’n Half Marathon is another one of my hometown races in Sacramento.  For whatever reason I’ve only run this race once in the 5 years that I’ve lived here.  However it holds a special place in my heart because it is where I have my PR in the half marathon distance.

As usual, the packet pickup was at the midtown Sacramento Fleet Feet store.

The start and finish line was at Raley Field.  Sacramento doesn’t have a MLB team though we do have a Triple-A affiliate team called the Sacramento River Cats.  Their home field is Raley Field in West Sacramento.  The first time I went to Raley Field was actually to see Incubus in a rock concert.  I like Raley Field because of its quaintness.  Compared to some of the other baseball fields I’ve visited (Dodger Stadium, Anaheim Stadium, Wrigley Field), Raley Field just seems more approachable and you feel like you can explore the entire area in a relatively short amount of time.  It has that small town feel.

Race morning I woke up at the usual super early time to do my business, eat, have coffee and then drive on over towards the baseball field.  Parking was at various places (baseball field parking, structures, street, etc.).  I chose to park in a structure about 1/4 mile from the stadium figuring it’d make an easier exit after the race.  After parking I walked over to Raley Field.  It was still dark out and I had a fair amount of time to just walk around the outside of the field along with the stands.

Raley Field
Raley Field

As the start time came closer, we all lined up on the outside of the stadium.  One cool thing about the race is that you actually finish on the baseball field itself.  The other perk of the race is that you get to run across the famous Sacramento Tower Bridge – twice.  Right at the start of the race you run across the bridge towards the State Capitol building.  To be honest I do not remember a good chunk of this race.  Looking at the map did remind me somewhat of the course.  The first ~4 miles consisted of running around the Capitol building the streets of downtown Sacramento.  We then headed north to a bike trail that took us across the American River and into the very large Discovery Park.  We continued along the bike trail and then crossed over the American river again and this time ran on the east side of the Sacramento river.

We passed by the Tower Bridge because we needed to add in an extra 3 miles before making our way back to Raley Field.  As mentioned before, the finish line was on the actual field so it was fun to run into the stadium and onto the warning track of the baseball field.  The one cruel thing is that they made you walk up the stairs of the Field right after finishing the race.  Overall the course is very flat.

I hadn’t been particularly training to run a fast race, however about 3-5 miles into the race I realized that I was on pace to run a sub-2:00 half marathon.  I had been flirting with running a sub 2:00 half marathon for all of 2012.  The Urban Cow half that I ran 5 months before the Shamrock’n half was a 2:01:14.  Since I could tell that I was running a sub-2:00 pace, I decided to try to keep pushing it and see if I could run a PR.  At the time of this race, I had my phone in my waist belt and didn’t run with a GPS watch.  I had to rely on the on-course split timing mats.  This was a little difficult to do but I just kept telling myself to “push it.”  As I made it to the 10 mile mark, my legs definitely started to whine and I knew I’d be hurting the few days after the race, but I didn’t care.  I crossed the line and was a bit surprised how far under 2 hours I actually was.

Final chip time: 1:55:26 (Current PR)

medal
Blue Diamonds Almonds are headquartered here in Sacramento

I celebrated with a free Killian’s.

Killian's medal

-StewsCat

Avoiding the SPLAT!

On today’s 6 miler I almost ate it…big time.  I was about halfway through the run when I found upper body flying forward much faster than my lower body.

A majority of my runs start and finish in my neighborhoods.  This means I typically am running on asphalt and sidewalks.  The sidewalks are typically well maintained but as with any neighborhood there are some uneven areas of the sidewalks.

I had run on this particular area of sidewalk multiple times prior to this.  Of course there happened to be someone in their yard across the street when it happened.  I kicked the raised area on the sidewalk with my right leg and immediately felt like I was falling forward.  I reached out with my right arm to brace myself but somehow managed to stumble forward with my right leg and prevent me from going all the way down.

Of course I just kept right on running since I was embarrassed and didn’t need the person across the street from asking if I was all right.  Luckily I don’t think any major damage was done.

-StewsCat

Run Addendum

I forgot to mention a few things in my last post.

  • That free hat that I received for the 2013 race?  It served me very well.  It was one of two hats that I used on a regular basis for training races.  Over the last 3 years I used the hat on hundreds of runs.  However, as with most good things, my time with the hat came to an end when I was washing it one day and ripped through it.  Much of the previous sweat absorbing material had already come out so I knew it was on its way out.  But this was the last straw.
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😥  R.I.P hat – you treated me well
  • On my run on Friday morning I was stung by a bee.  About a mile into my run I felt something land on the back of my hat.  I used my left hand to swipe at it thinking it was a fly.  I felt a sharp pain on the inside of my left ring finger.  When I looked at the finger, I didn’t see a stinger as I expected.  The pain continued though seemed to subside to a little bit of a throb.  I’ve been stung about 3 times prior to this so hoped that I wouldn’t have a severe anaphylactic reaction as I know can happen when you’re stung for a second time.  Usually the first sting is a freebie but sensitizes your immune system.  That 2nd sting is when the body mounts an overwhelming allergic reaction causing people’s throats to swell and people to not be able to breathe.  Since I was only at mile 1 and planned to do at least 5-7, I figured I’d keep running and see what happened (I don’t recommend this to others).  I could see a small round white area on my finger, probably where I was stung.  Overall aside from some pain in my finger, I felt overall fine so finished my 5 miler.  To be safe, I took an anti-histamine after I arrived home.  The pain dissipated but then the itchiness began.  The entire inside part of my left ring finger was itchy.  There was also some mild redness.  This continued for the next 48 hours.  My wife looked up some things and suggested I take my wedding ring off because it was tight on that finger and actually trapping the histamines I think.  Once I moved the ring to my other hand, the itchiness subsided almost instantaneously.  Lesson from this run is that if something lands on you during a run, let it be as it will almost 100% leave on its own without causing any problems.  I feel bad though if it was a bee because bees die after they sting something.
  • We’ve been having some great weather for Sacramento.  It’s been in the 80s here and so has allowed me to get some good runs in.  This morning I did either my last run or second to last run with my good friend KP.  She’s moving to Portland in August for work.  She will be missed.  We were just in Portland and I still need to post an update on that trip – it was a blast.
  • There’s a new race coming to Sacramento.  This one will be a 20 miler, half marathon, 5K, and untimed 3K.  The host organization is the Sacramento Running Association (SRA).  This is the same group that puts on the California International Marathon, which I ran in 2013 (race recap yet to be published).  I think I may sign up for the half marathon and consider switching over to the 20 miler if I’m at that stage of training.  Check it out here: http://runtheparkway.org/

-StewsCat