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

2016 Run the Parkway Half Marathon Race Recap

The Sacramento Running Association, who host the big California International Marathon (CIM), decided to put on a new event this year. They timed this race so that it was about 4 weeks from the CIM. They called it a “training race” because they had a 20-miler, in addition to a half marathon distance and a 5K. For many marathon plans, a 20 mile training run is recommended anywhere from 3-4 weeks from race day and some plans call for more than one 20-miler. The race also benefits the American River Parkway Foundation. Since I live near the parkway I utilize it on a weekly basis for one or even a few of my runs. I figured that it would be good to give back to this great resource. As I am not training for CIM, I signed up for the half marathon (they had an option to change between the half marathon and 20-mile distance for free at the packet pickup). When I signed up for the race I flirted with the idea of bumping up to the 20-miler but with my lack of proper long distance training I stuck with the half marathon.

Packet pickup was at the usual Fleet Feet in midtown Sacramento. I had some errands to do beforehand so couldn’t make it to packet pickup until the mid afternoon. The store was quiet and pickup was quick. I realized this was a very no frills race as I literally was given a bib and a shirt and that’s it. I’m used to at least a few other things to pickup like some other race flyers and such but this was barebones. Being the inaugural race, I wonder also if they just weren’t putting a ton into the race like some other races (the CIM has a huge race expo at the Sacramento convention center). The other slightly odd thing about this race is that it was being held on a Saturday. I’ve done a few Saturday races but not usually half marathon distances. I actually liked this because it would give me Sunday to recuperate before having to go back to work on Monday.

I had my usual pre-race pizza the night before. We got a large combo pizza from a local place called Roma II (we haven’t actually been to the original Roma but have had Roma II a few times). We also got a side order of some meatballs (not pictured).

Then it was an early night for bed (which the wife enjoyed especially because she was feeling a bit under the weather). I slept well and woke up early at 3:40 am. I need some time in the mornings to get my stuff together (breakfast, bano, bano, bano). Surprisingly this was the second straight race that I’ve slept fairly well. Prior to these last 2, I almost always have a restless night of sleep and then get up. I do wonder also if it has to do with the fact these last 2 were “home” races and I slept in my own bed. Or maybe it has to do with the fact that this was half marathon #18 and I’m just getting used to it finally. Either way I’m happy with being able to sleep before a race.

Since the start/finish of the race was at the familiar to me William Pond park and this is also where the start/finish was for the 2 half marathons I’ve done previously (American River Parkway Half Marathon), I was quite familiar with the parking situation. After parking in the neighborhood by the park, I trekked into the park in search of the porta-potties. They weren’t set up as well as I thought but since I arrived about 40 minutes before the start time, the lines were still short for the porta-potties. It is quite hard to use when it is super dark outside and inside the porta-potties. People were using their cell phone flashlights as well as the better equipped who had headlamps. The race officials understandably pushed the race start time from 7 am to 7:10 am so there was some more light on the trail. Just prior to the start, the race people played a recording of the National Anthem – with recorded cheering and everything. People were chuckling with the cheering that was from the recording. And then we were off.

Immediately after the start, we crossed a long foot bridge that took us over the American River. We’d also cross this bridge at the 13th mile just before finishing back at the starting line. img_20161105_092745

The first few miles were run in the pre-sunrise haze and fog. It was quite beautiful and peaceful. This section of the river trail is quite remote with the river on one side and fields on the other side. I’m used to running in the area of the river trail that is relatively close to civilization (roads, buildings, other people). I don’t know how comfortable I’d be running in that part of the river by myself. But it was pretty and peaceful.

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Eventually we made our way off the river trail and did a very short stint in a small neighborhood. Essentially we went through one exit on the trail and made our way about 2 streets over and onto the entrance of another part of the trail. At this point, the trail was not paved and was more packed dirt and gravel, with a few areas of unevenness. Eventually we made our way east and back onto paved roads. And then at some point we hit a turnaround and came back the way we started. I continued with my 4 minute running, 1 minute walking at an average total pace of about 10 min/mile. Throughout miles 4-10 I continued to feel good. I took a GU gel around mile 6. I picked up another gel around mile 7 and then took my 2nd gel around the 10 mile mark.

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Overall I continued to feel good for the race and coasted into the finish line. I didn’t do a crazy sprint like I often do with the last 0.1 miles. I actually stopped a few times in the 12-13 mile range to get some good pics.

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At the finish line, I picked up a banana, half a donut and had a beer. I went with the Erdinger because the Shipyard beer was an IPA and I thought that was a bit alcohol heavy for post-race.

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Final Time: 2:13:25

-StewsCat

Back at it!

Hello!! It’s definitely been awhile since I last posted. Now that the weather has settled down (aka it is no longer super hot), I have jumped back into bread making. The hot weather of summer discouraged me from turning the oven on. We’ve actually had some good rains the last few weeks of October. This is much appreciated from Mother Nature given that we’re still in a drought. It also benefited the new plantings we put in our front yard.

On with the bread making.

Ingredients

300g 100% whole wheat flour
295g bread flour
145g rice drink (“milk”)
300g water
16g salt
35g honey
8g active dry yeast
1/4 stick of butter cut up – half melted, half in chunks

I had made some bread the week before the above recipe with poor results. I think I rushed the whole process. I didn’t knead the dough long enough and also didn’t let it rise/ferment the proper amount. This was all because I didn’t realize I had to make bread until later in the day and the one thing about bread is you can’t rush the yeast. This bread came out much more to my liking. This time I kneaded the dough for at least 15 minutes and could feel a big difference in how the dough formed up and became much more cohesive (I didn’t feel this with the dough the previous week). I also allowed for more time doing stretch and folds with 45 minute rests (total of 3 of these). As you can tell from the pictures, I was able to get a nice rise on the bread before baking. Overall I was happy with another loaf of sandwich bread for our lunches.

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And the crumb

-StewsCat

Chain rub

This post is mostly for me to remember what I did to my bike.

I had noticed that the bike chain was rubbing on the front derailleur when I was in certain gears. I know this is not supposed to happen and after reading up on it I know that it can affect the life of the chain. The front derailleur is the area between the pedals that moves the chain if you have different gears in the front. My bike has 3 gears in the front and 9 gears/cogs in the rear wheel for a total of 27 gears.

I did my due diligence and watched a bunch of videos on YouTube about adjusting your front derailleur as well as reading various DIY bike repair articles on various web sites. Initially I thought this would be a simple fix. But I was wrong. I spent a good part of an afternoon (2-3 hours) futzing with it and only seemed to make things worse. I ended up giving up that day. The next day I was determined to try to figure this out and not have to take my bike into the LBS (local bike shop) to have them fix it. So I basically started from the beginning.

I noticed that the derailleur was actually sitting a little higher than it should. Everything I read said the bottom of the bracket should be about 2-3 mm from the top of the largest gear. So I loosened the bracket holding the derailleur to my seat tube and moved the derailleur lower just a little bit. I also made sure it was parallel to the chain/gears. I had the chain on the smallest gear in the front and the largest cog in the rear. Then I adjusted the L screw to make the chain about 1-2 mm from the inside of the derailleur. I shifted the front chain and it started to rub. This is where I had the biggest issue. After further reading, I suspected that the shifter cable tension was the biggest problem. I loosened the shifter cable from the derailleur and rotated clockwise the barrel adjuster all the way tight (clockwise), pulled the cable tight by the derailleur and tightened it down. I had the chain in the middle ring on front and middle cog in the back. I then rotated the barrel adjuster counter-clockwise (which tightens the slack of the cable – this is contradictory to what you would normally think) and watched as the chain moved away from the derailleur and into the center of it so it wouldn’t rub when passing through. And that was pretty much it. I didn’t really adjust the H screw, which prevents the chain from jumping off the biggest gear in the front.

I also learned that you want to try to keep the chain straight while riding. So you don’t want to be in the smallest front chain and in the smallest cog (highest gear) in the rear. I read when you’re in the smallest gear in front, you want to stay in the back between like gears 1-3. If you’re in the middle front gear, you should stay in like gears 1-7. Finally in the largest front gear (hardest), you want to stay in gears 7-9 or so. That helps keep the chain straight and helps prevent rubbing and I suspect also less tension on the chain since you’re not making it askew.

Went on a short-ish ride today and gears shifted well and everything seemed good with no rubbing. So we’ll see how it holds up. I noticed that there was already some fraying of the shifter cable (which is surprising since I’ve had this bike for 1 year and hadn’t rode it much but maybe just a sign that things made these days don’t last, or the LBS that I bought it from doesn’t use high quality stuff…oh well, when it comes time I’ll figure out how to change the cable as well).

-StewsCat

2016 Urban Cow Half Marathon Race Recap

Any race where I: a) don’t get hurt and b) don’t have GI issues, is a good race.

This was my fourth running of this particular race, what I’d consider one of my hometown races. I took last year off just because…I think partly due to injury but also possibly just from burnout. Since I didn’t have much on my race docket earlier this year, I figured I’d sign up for this race on a whim. I’ve always enjoyed it and the free post-race beer, plus you get a cowbell!

Summary: Well organized race with little in the way for major gripes. The race packet pickup is at the local Fleet Feet, which has 3 days of pre-race pickup (and they had race day packet pickup this year as well). I elected to go on the first day (Thursday) of pickup right after they started (noon) so there was no line though the volunteers were still gearing up for the crowds. This year every runner was given a nice tote bag (think grocery bag).

This is definitely helpful because earlier this year California banned plastic bags from supermarkets. I guess there is still controversy as to whether or not the plastic bag ban really helps the environment, but we’ve bought into it and have been using reusable grocery bags for even before the ban.

I was a little nervous about this race only because I hadn’t properly trained for it. A few days before the race I looked back at my training log and realized my last long run was back on August 19th (10.6 miles) and then after that my longest run was 7.5 miles at the beginning of September. So I knew that I was definitely not going for a good time or going to push myself. I also decided I was going to try a run-walk method that I had been reading up on. I attempted this once in a regular run in September.

The night before the race I had my usual pizza except this time I made it. I also elected not to have any alcohol, which is unusual. Typically I have a beer the night before a race. Also unusual was that I actually slept pretty well. Again, usually before races I’m nervous and don’t sleep well – waking up every hour to check the clock to ensure I don’t oversleep. This time I had about 6 solid hours. I woke up and did my usual pre-race things – hitting the bano, having a bagel with peanut butter and just relaxing. I also decided this time to head over to the race later than previously (it is about a 15-20 minute drive to the race start).

I had a feeling that since I was heading to the race later than usual there would probably be a line on the freeway at the race exit. For this reason I checked the map before heading out and elected to drive past the exit for the race and use the next off ramp and loop around. Good thing I did because there were cars stopped for at least 1/2 mile on the freeway itself waiting to get off. I found some street parking and walked over the William Land Park (the start and finish line). They had a U shaped setup for their portapotties and even though I was there only 40 minutes before the race start, I found one with no line. By the time I came out though the lines had started forming. I walked around and there were numerous tents set up – from same day registration to various running groups and etc.

They had a two wave start for the half marathon. The first wave took off at 7:30 and was for people expecting to run a sub-2 hour half marathon. I had signed up for wave 2, which actually only took off 5 minutes after the first wave so not a long wait. The early part of the course (~ the first 1.5 miles) weaves its way through the actual park before dumping into the residential areas just north of the park. I felt a little strange walking after just the first 5 minutes so decided I’d start my run-walk race plan around the 15-20 minute mark. Now everyone knows that runners are a supportive lot and while I do appreciate it, sometimes it can be annoying. Pretty much as soon as I started my 1 minute walk break, I had a runner come up next to me and pass me the whole time saying “come on man, you can do it!” and other such cheers. Now I know he meant well, but I had a plan that I was following and not like you can explain that as the person saying it is already 20 feet ahead of you.

From the residential area, the course took us into the industrial part of Sacramento just south of the downtown area. We also ran by the Front Street Animal Shelter and then north into downtown Sacramento. We then made our way to Old Town Sacramento. Old Town is kinda a kitschy throwback to the “wild west” days. Cobblestone floors, wooden walkways and such. In years previous, we ran down the main street on the cobblestone streets. This year (maybe last year too but I wasn’t there) they altered the route so you didn’t run on the cobblestone at all (not sure if this was due to liability or what). Then we reached the halfway point of the race as we ran southbound along the Sacramento river. We following a bike trail down the river until we were dumped back into the residential area near Land Park (the start/finish).

Surprisingly I felt really good with my 5 minute run-1 minute walk method all the way up until about mile 9-10 when it started to become a little bit harder to maintain my running. I aimed to maintain a run pace of somewhere under 10 min/mile pace and typically was hitting around 9:40 min/mile. I was proud to maintain that overall speed because of my lack of proper training. With no run longer than 7 miles in the 6 weeks leading up to the race, I knew that my legs weren’t technically ready for 13.1 miles.

That last 0.1 miles always gets to me. I was doing an easy jog from miles 11-13 and then when I saw that finish line, I go into auto-pilot and start running quickly (aka sprinting). In previous races, I’d walk through the finisher’s chute after collecting my medal and start picking up the usual post-race refreshments (bottled water, bananas, bagels). I remembered to bring a plastic bag with me during the race so I’d have something to store the post-race goodies. This year’s bounty certainly did not disappoint. I picked up a bottled water, can of coke, 2 chocolate milks, some Kashi GoLean bars, and some pop chips. They also had fresh strawberries and individual serving granola things. This spread was a lot better than previous Urban Cows. The highlight of my finish for this race is the beer garden.

This year’s beer was from Lagunitas (previous years it was Lockdown Brewing, which is located in nearby Folsom). I picked up my free beer and also they had some chips out to snack on.

And a few minutes later…

Finish time: 2:07:35 (9:44 min/mile overall pace). I am extremely happy with that time given my conditioning going into the race.

imag3434 — *I’m wearing my RnR San Jose half marathon shirt from 2011 that was actually 5 years ago on this day.*

Here’s my collection of cowbells thus far (I don’t have any specific plans to do this race again since I’ve done it so many times and I want to try to do new races I’ve not yet done).

-StewsCat

StewsCat

Running, baking, cooking, drinking