2017 Surf City Half Marathon race recap

Last Sunday I completed by 19th half marathon. It was the 21st running of the Surf City Marathon/Half Marathon in Huntington Beach, CA. I grew up about 20 minutes from HB and so this was kind of a homecoming race.

I had originally signed up for the full marathon last year. Currently my overall long-term running plans are to complete a full marathon every other year (to hopefully give my body time to recover and just not tax myself too much given my history of injuries). I had been contemplating between Surf City and the Carlsbad Marathon. Eventually I settled on Surf City and my good friend KP was thinking of doing it as well (though in the end she couldn’t due to scheduling conflicts). I was excited about the race and the course didn’t seem too bad. One gripe I read about the full distance was that there was a lot of “looping” back and forth along PCH and the ocean. So it could be a little disheartening because you see the people that are a few miles ahead of you and realize you still have a ways to go.

The Big Sur Marathon lottery came a few months after I signed up for Surf City. I thought “why not sign up for the first timer/bucket list lottery and see what happens?” Sure enough, I received the email that I made it in and could register for 2017. So I did. Now I had a decision to make. Surf City was on February 5 and Big Sur is on April 30. With such a short time between races I knew that I shouldn’t try to do 2 full marathons in such a short time (see above about me being injury prone). I made the decision to drop to the half marathon for Surf City.

The race expo was set up in a large tent on one of the parking lots along the beach southeast of the pier. The organization for the bib and t-shirt pickup was well done. You had to know your bib number ahead of time because within the front of the tent, they had lines with a certain interval of number (1-1000, 1001-2000, etc). And then they had a separate area with lines based on your shirt size. So I was able to pickup my bib and shirt and tote bag within just a few minutes of arriving. This was good because I only had a few minutes to check out the expo as we were heading to meet friends for lunch. Continue reading “2017 Surf City Half Marathon race recap” →

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

“The City” trip

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.

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).

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.

-StewsCat

Thanksgiving 2016

Typically for Thanksgiving we keep things pretty low-key. The last few years I’ve typically made Thanksgiving dinner for just a few folks (myself, my wife, and her two sisters). I’ve done traditional – turkey, cranberry, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, etc – to a play on Thanksgiving (turkey chili, scratch turkey enchiladas, sweet potato ravioli).

However, this year my family was celebrating my grandma’s “88-89″th birthday the day after Thanksgiving. Most people are in the southern CA region so that was where her surprise birthday dinner was to be held. We made the last-minute decision to drive down to socal on Thanksgiving morning. We figured this gave us the best shot at avoiding most of the traffic.

The largest Thanksgiving 5K race called Run To Feed The Hungry is held every year and the starting line is just outside our neighborhood. Luckily they open up an avenue of exit for us that live here because otherwise we’d be stuck in our neighborhood/house until well after 11 am. Luckily the drive down was swift – virtually no traffic.

We stopped at Harris Ranch for lunch and both had the rib eye dip sandwich. It was quite delicious. They also had a bakery onsite and because we were attending Thanksgiving Dinner at my sister’s empty-handed, I elected to pick up some cookies (chocolate chip, snickerdoodles, and oatmeal raisin) to bring to dinner.

We made it down by 4:30 pm (left our house around 9:30 am) and dinner didn’t start until 5:30 pm so we timed it just right.

Thanksgiving dinner was delicious. The food was a combination of traditional Thanksgiving fare as well as some Chinese food. It was potluck style so the burden of cooking a ton of food was spread out. I usually like to contribute and actually cook something but it was actually kinda nice this year not to have to worry about cooking/baking anything.

Someone had made Taiwanese Red-Braised Pork Belly. This was one of my grandpa’s favorite dishes. He loved eating the fat of the 3 layer pork. When I was young I didn’t like eating the “fat” part of this dish but as I have grown up and learned that “fat = flavor,” I ate the fat along with the lean meat and it was yummy.

After dinner my nieces and nephews decided to have a dance party. My sister had obtained this cool disco light at the store and turned their upstairs loft room into a dance place. Man kids have so much freaking energy.

On Friday before grandma’s dinner, our friends decided to have a Friendsgiving. While we wouldn’t be able to hang out with them all night, they elected to start the get together a little earlier so that we could attend and see everyone. It has been a few years since we all hung out. These are high school friends of ours that I (we)’ve known for at least 20 years. It was good to see them and their kiddos.

Grandma’s surprise birthday dinner went great. Things are a lot different nowadays with all the little kids running around. I still remember when I was the little kid at these huge family gatherings.

We drove back on Saturday morning, trying to avoid the crazy traffic that accompanies the Sunday after Thanksgiving. The forecast also was for rain starting Saturday afternoon. Before setting out on the open road, however, we stopped at my MIL’s new digs. The new place was nice and it was good to see them. On the way back north we took the 99 instead of the 5. We stopped at a place called Moo Creamery in Bakersfield. It was pretty good stuff and tucked away in an industrial area of the city. Unfortunately we ran into both traffic and weather on the drive up. There were a few times where we ended up in stop and go traffic for 30-45 minutes. Then the rain started and was intermittent but heavy during the last hour of the drive. Fortunately it went smoothly.

I’m loving the new car and the gas mileage it obtains on the highways. I averaged 39 MPG on the drive down and 41 MPG on the drive back up north. Not too shabby especially since I wasn’t being light on the gas pedal either.

-StewsCat

Napa/Yountville lunch

This past Veterans Day, the wife and I were both off work so I suggested we head over to the Napa Valley for some lunch. It seemed like we had been getting over to Napa a bunch of times in the last year but haven’t been in a while. I figured it was time to have a nice meal at one of the many awesome dining establishments. Initially I was going to make reservations for Bouchon, a Thomas Keller restaurant, but it seemed a bit heavy for lunch. I had heard good things about Mustards Grill in Yountville. This is one of Cindy Pawlcyn’s places and she has another restaurant in St. Helena (also in the Napa Valley) and then one more in Monterey.

Their only reservations for Veterans Day for lunch were for either 11:45 am or 2 pm. So we elected for the 11:45 am one. I anticipated that there would be some traffic on the 80 since Friday typically has some traffic and allotted about an hour and forty-five minutes to get there. We left a few minutes late and in fact hit some traffic, though some of it was related to actual minor fender benders. I could see that we’d be late for our reservation and luckily the restaurant was happy to push our reservation back to noon. Upon arrival we were seated quickly in the corner of the quant restaurant. This is located directly off the main highway that leads from Napa to Yountville all the way up to Calistoga. Outside the restaurant they have some small gardens that provide some of the produce they use in their cooking.

I enjoyed that the entire front facade of the restaurant was comprised of windows, allowing for a lot of natural light, especially with our corner table. The waiter promptly came over and went over the specials and took our drink order. I tried a cocktail that was comprised of vodka with apple cider and something else and was quite refreshing.

The wife elected to have the daily soup (Coconut curry butternut squash soup with chili oil) to start and I went with their house made potato chips and dipping sauce. I enjoyed the chips as they were sliced thinly and fried to a nice crunch. For our mains we both went with specials they had for that day. My wife had the Mahi Mahi Tostada with cabbage, beans and cheese and I went with their lamb burger and fries. The lamb was freshly ground that morning. I ordered it medium rare and my only complaint is that it came out medium to medium-well. Otherwise the taste of the burger was delicious and not too gamey. We finished off the meal with the chocolate hazelnut tarte and espresso ice cream (not pictured), which even the table next to us was like “that looks SOOO good,” and it was.

img_20161111_122943 — *Mahi mahi tostada*

img_20161111_122946 — *Lamb burger & fries*

After stuffing ourselves silly, we realized we needed to get some activity in to burn off some of the many calories we just had. So we went over to downtown Yountville (Mustards Grill is a few miles north of the downtown area) and walked around for awhile. There was this cool little statue of a fireman and I thought the back of the statue had cooler details than the front.

They have an Artwalk – with various art installations along the sidewalks (apparently they are also available for acquisition if you have that kind of dough).

We also walked over to the French Laundry, which is on my bucket list.

img_20161111_135340 — *The French Laundry*

A bunch of my relatives have already been but I have yet to partake…one day. Across from the restaurant is their garden where they grow a lot of the produce they use. They even have a small chicken coop.

After we walked through the small quaint neighborhood back to where I parked the car we made our way back to Sacramento. It was the afternoon on a Friday by this time and the drive back was slow going. Upon arrival back in town, we stopped at Sears to pick up my new glasses (they had a BOGO deal the day we happened to go look at glasses). Now I’ve got 3 pairs – one of which will be my running glasses I’m sure. Overall was a fun holiday day.

-StewsCat

StewsCat

Running, baking, cooking, drinking

Category: StewsCatTravels

2017 Surf City Half Marathon race recap

Marathon Training Week 4

“The City” trip

Thanksgiving 2016

Napa/Yountville lunch