Beer – StewsCat

Since my marathon recap post was kind of long, I decided to separate out the actual weekend part of marathon weekend. We decided to stay in Carmel because of the locations of the bus pickups to take us to the marathon start. Right in the heart of downtown Carmel was one of the pickup spots. Luckily there are a ton of small hotels, inns, and B&Bs in Carmel. Rather than leaving the dog in a boarding place in Sac, I found a place that allows pets (Carmel is historically and well-known as an extremely dog friendly place).

We made a pit stop in Fairfield to get some lunch on our way down on Friday. The wife found a sandwich spot called Joe’s Buffet . They made a tasty sandwich – I had a combo of pastrami and corned beef.

IMG_20170428_114441 — *Pastrami/Corned Beef*

Once we reached Monterey and stopped to do my packet pickup, we swung by PeterB’s brewpub (right behind the expo area at Portola Hotel). I had the Belly Up Blonde since I wanted to keep it light.

Prior to our trip, I had done some research on dog-friendly restaurants in Carmel. A ton of places have outdoor sitting and allow dogs in their patio areas since so many people have dogs (either visiting or living there). The Inn that we stayed at also provided us with a list of some of the nearby dog friendly restaurants. Our living quarters for the weekend was the Svendsgaard’s Inn. This place ended up being only about 4-5 blocks from the bus pickup. The accomodations were nice and it was a small quaint little place. They had a small grassy area in a courtyard with poop bags available.

That first night in Carmel (I still don’t understand how the official city name is Carmel-By-The-Sea…such a mouthful), we walked over to Bistro Beaujolais for dinner.

Billed as a French restaurant, we ordered with this in mind. I had the French Onion soup, escargots, and sand dabs. My wife had a lemon chicken soup and the Steak Frites. The last time I was in the Monterey area is when I learned about Sand Dabs. I guess they’re a local fish that is wildly popular and served at pretty much every restaurant (doesn’t even matter if it is American, European, Mediterranean, etc). I was surprised and pleased to see that they had a Michigan beer and ordered the Founders Porter.

Continue reading “Carmel/Monterey (Big Sur Marathon)” →

I got back on track with my running in week 10. I also changed up my training schedule to try to make it better with my new work schedule. Rather than running Tuesday/Thursday, I switched it up to Monday/Wednesday. This also allows me to have a rest day before my long run day (Friday). This week was a drop-back week for my long run. I again did a mixed effort run where I did the middle 4 miles of the 10 miler at a quicker pace. Sadly my “quicker” pace these days is actually not all that fast. I’m not sure if it is due to the high mileage I’ve been putting in causing me to be more fatigued and slower or if it is age-related (diet-related, weight-related, etc). I definitely feel okay though know that with the increased days and miles, I’m putting a lot more stress on my body than I have before. I certainly am quite cognizant of how my body is feeling because I have much experience with injuries in the past. I definitely do NOT want to hurt myself before this marathon like I did with the last one (that was not a fun experience). Wednesday’s treadmill run happened after I had dinner and surprisingly wasn’t too bad – considering I did it about 30 minutes after finishing my dinner. Saturday’s 7 miler also was on the treadmill and I did some long incline walks/runs to try to build some hill mileage into my training. I probably should be doing more hill type stuff but we’ll see what happens.

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

( ) = # of miles on my plan

Monday – 4.5 (3)

Wednesday – 4.1 (6)

Friday – 10.03 (10)

Saturday – 7 (8)

Sunday – 4.25 (5)

Weekly Total – 29.88 miles (32)

We’ve not had any rain for a while so things have dried out a bit and all the previous wet weather has caused a lot of plants to blossom early. It is quite pretty out although my allergies have been driving me nuts as of late.

My long run also took me through some interesting neighborhoods along with a small park that I like because they have an actual restroom (yes I do plan many runs around where I can make pit stops).

Other fun things that happened this week included making some bread for a work potluck. One of my coworkers has some health issues so we were all trying to come up with low-fat recipes to bring. I figured I could just make some bread since I already had some dough sitting in the fridge just waiting for me. I had made the dough for sandwiches but decided to switch it up and use it for dinner rolls.

I really find it fascinating how yeast works. I just love watching how bread rises and gets so big!

For this recipe, I did an egg wash on the dough and baked it for ~23 minutes (internal temp hit around 205F). The small cast iron was a tester for my wife to make sure it tasted okay.

I got her approval and took it to work and it was a big hit.

This past week we also hit up one of the local Korean BBQ places, Blue House Restaurant. We had been once not too long after they opened last year. They have an “All-You-Can-Eat” option. I noticed they added a lot more cuts of meat to their selection and as they started bringing meat out I realized they changed up how they were serving it. When we first came, each meat order came as a large plate of meat. This time they only brought out essentially a one to two person portion. This is smart because it allows us as patrons to try more types of meats rather than getting full on just one type. I definitely went to town and had the Kalbi, Bulgogi, octopus, pork bulgogi, shrimp, chicken. It was all very good and we cooked it up right at the table. I’m always a fan of Korean BBQ. The banchan (“side dishes”) were only okay at this place and not as plentiful as it is at other Korean establishments we’ve visited.

Since it was St. Patrick’s Day, we had stopped by a local micro brew, Sactown Union Brewery, for a few beers before dinner. I had a Nitro Stout that they just released on that very day called Big Fella and then the Carpe Noctem (a coffee oatmeal stout). At Blue House, we shared an OB (Korean beer) and a bottle of their Pomegranate soju. The soju was a bit too sweet for our tastes.