Last long run before TCM

Next weekend is the Twin Cities Marathon (TCM). My fourth TCM and my 10th marathon overall. That means this weekend is my last long run. Within an hour I will hit the road for 8 miles. Weather could not be better. 44 degrees and hardly any wind at all.

Unfortunately 8 miles is a strange number for me, I don't have a route for that distance, so I think I will head downtown and get lost there until I get close to hitting 8miles and then head back home.

Excitement is building up.

Post-run report: Run went very well. Ended up doing 8.25 miles at 8:49 pace. See details here. What's more, when I wrote the run mileage on my log, I realized I am about to hit 6,000 KM since I started tracking my miles (which is nearly since I started running a little over 4 years ago. I am exactly 14.6 KM from that milestone. With the schedule I have, I should hit that right at the beginning of the Twin Cities Marathon.

Tapas with Tim and Joy

As defined in Wikipedia (I am going to get lazy here), Tapas are wide variety of appetizers, or snacks, in Spanish cuisine. They may be cold (such as mixed olives and cheese) or warm (such as chopitos, which are battered, fried baby squid). In select bars in Spain, as well as some parts of North America and the United Kingdom, tapas has evolved into an entire, and sometimes sophisticated, cuisine.

I like tapas because it is a way to not commit to a single dish (to prepare, serve or eat). They are definitely more work to put together and, to do it right, there is a lot of logistics involved to make sure everything looks good and so guests are not waiting for too long between courses. Often the leftovers lasts for days. SInce you are going to spend the time cooking so many dishes, you may as well spend a little more time and make larger quantities to eat at a different time.

Last night we had Tim and Joy over for tapas. They are always fun to hang around because, as we do, they like food and they like to try new things and new places. Tapas seemed like the perfect meal for foodies like them.

Below is a picture of the dishes we served. I will follow with descriptions.

1) Smoked trout over avocado cream

2) Poached shrimp with spicy mayo and garlic breadcrumbs. This is definitely one of my favorites. To eat it, you take a piece of shrimp, dip it in the mayo and roll it over the breadcrumbs.

3) Iberico cheese (sheep) with an olive tapenade from Naples

4) Chèvre stuffed jalapeños and roasted bell pepper

5) Potato crisps

6) Spanish hot chorizo over asiago crackers

7) Trio of soups: roasted beet, velvet corn and minted pea

8) Lamb chops with garlic and rosemary with cremini mushrooms in sherry wine

9) Moroccan surf & turf, made with harissa shrimp and a piece of pork tenderloin with paprika, fennel seed, cumin and coriander seed

10) Saffron turkey meatballs and a saffron tomato sauce. As I told Tim, if you could marry a meatball, this should be the one.

11) Grilled orange and shrimp pizzeta with goat cheese and orange cream

12) Ice cream with sherry (pouring the sherry over the ice cream

gives the dish a burnt sugar-like taste reminiscent of a crème brûlée)

13) Dark chocolate mousse with raspberry gastrique served with a 2004 Olivares Jumilla, a rare Spanish dessert wine that brings the best in chocolate and berries

14) To finish, a glass of 20 yr. Graham Tawny port (I prefer 20 yr. Sandeman, but it is very difficult to find)

15) Our guests, Tim and Joy

16) The hosts, Sharon and Diego

Not pictured was olive bread served with the now staple goat butter with kalamata olives and Himalayan salt. During dinner I was taking pictures to be able to publish this on this blog while Joy was beating me to the punch by taking pictures with her iPhone and posting them on her Facebook page. Turns out, Joy takes pictures of just about anything interesting she eats. Here is a picture of Joy proudly showing some fabulous dish she had somewhere.

Harmon Farms 10 miler Trail Run - Race report

Pretty awesome run. Within a few minutes I felt winded. I thought I was going to do terrible, but as soon as we left the grass and started running on dirt, things changed. I must have started too fast. In fact I did the entire 10 miles pretty fast (for me anyway). I averaged 8:20 per mile, a speed I don't usually do even on paved road.

Large portion sof the run were single file, so as soon as you got to more open areas you'd get people passing you. I ended the 10 miles in 1:23:22. You can see the route here. As expected, the GPS shows a shorter distance. The quick turns part of the trail race are lost in the surveys made by the device. I am told that the 9.32 miles shown on my run were actually 10 miles.

Unfortunately, this is a small race, so there was no photographer to document my participation and I didn't have anybody to cheer, so the best I could do was photoshop a close approximation of what I may have looked like crossing the finish line.

A fun fact about the race was that I was given bib # 333 and ended up in 33rd place. Good thing I wasn't given a bib # 1. The pressure would have been too much!

Harmon Farms 10 miler Trail Run - The hunter in me

Tomorrow is Harmon Farms Trail Run. A 10 mile run I have been looking forward for a few weeks, when I signed up. I don't do much on trail, but I am slowly developing a good taste for the unpaved road. Somehow it brings the hunter in me. Not that I care for hunting (have never been and have little interest), but whenever I run on a trail (the rugged the better) I can't help but to think of a primitive man running to chase it's prey.

I recently finished the book How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like by Paul Bloom. The last chapter has references to the effect that nature has in humans. The author describes studies in which they add large screen TVs to an office with no windows and display images of nature. While the office workers indicated they liked the change, metrics of their blood pressure, heart rate, etc indicated no change. On the flip side, a window in the same office that overlooked some greenery had noticeable effect on those same metrics, much like studies that show that having a dog as a pet at home may lower your blood pressure.

I think the trail runs have that effect on me...

Third Friday

Yesterday was the third Friday of the month. In most places, that is just one other Friday. Where I live, we have a happy hour for neighbors to get together, a a glass of wine and share some appetizers. This, along with other events in the building such as Yoga on Saturdays and Movie Thursdays in winter helps develop friendships and contribute to welcoming new residents in addition to creating a strong sense of community among neighbors. Al that apart, it is just plain fun to sit down with your neighbors and friends and have a glass of wine and share an appetizer.

With little time to plan this week I used up some italian sausage I had in the freezer along with a locally produced fresh mozzarella to create mine. The result was a mini pizza with a polenta crust, sausage, mushroom and garlic with fresh mozzarella and a roasted cherry tomato. Not my best Third Friday appetizer but still a crowd pleaser. I am happy to say it was the first appetizer to go...

Hurricane

Just did my first run with the Saucony Hurricane. I can't say that they live up to their name. Not my most comfortable pair of shoes, but I guess I can keep them in the rotation. I should probably stick to the Kayanos and Nirvanas.

I did 4.4 miles in 0:35:41, a very quick 8:05 min/miles, but it was not because of the shoes, but because of a couple that thought they could pass me and I had to prove them wrong. Even if that forced me to complete the remaining 3 miles of my run at a pace under 8 min miles...

Retirement Run

No, I am not retiring from running… my pair of Asics Gold Kayano 15 is. I put 400 miles on a pair of shoes and try to get as close as possible to that distance. Today while in Redmond for business, I run the last 3.99 miles in this pair. I like for my retirement runs to be a little different than my other training runs. Sort of like a way to thank a pair of shoes for the good service they have given me. Retirement runs are usually at a slow pace, to truly enjoy the scenery. They also have a very unplanned route which is usually driven by landmarks in the distance that catch my interest.

These particular shoes that retired today have given me exceptionally good service. To reach 400 miles, they completed a total of 57 runs, so just about seven miles per run on average. They also were part of four races including three marathons:

• 2009 Rails to Trails Marathon in Norwalk Wisconsin (3:59:43)
• 2009 LifeTime Fitness Turkey Trot 5K (0:29:40)
• 2010 Madrid Marathon (4:48:57)
• 2010 Minneapolis Marathon (4:31:36)

Today I got up late. I am fastidious about setting up the alarm clock in a hotel. I test them, confirm the AM and PM setting at least twice, check the radio station, etc. This time I forgot to do a volume check. As a result a text sent by my wife woke me up about five minutes before I was supposed to hit the road. Barely made it...

I did learn one thing from this run: because of its random nature, it is not a good idea to do a retirement run in a city you are unfamiliar with. As you can see from the resulting route, there were a few 180 turns and a lot of confusion. Several times I was convinced I was lost, and this added some stress to what was supposed to be a relaxing run. In some way, I felt I did a little bit of a disservice to my shoes, so when I returned to the hotel, I sincerely, and profusely apologized to them... Then I threw their ass in the trash :-)

Some shoes have a life after retirement as walking shoes. The hole that developed by my right big toe many miles ago may preclude them from such a destiny. As a result, these will not make it back to Minneapolis. The Gold Kayanos are survived by a pair of orange Kayanos, a pair or New Balance MT800, a pair of Mizuno Wave Nirvana and a pair of Vibram Bikilas. All of then in active status on the rotation. They will be replaced by a pair of Saucony Hurricane that I got at a good price at a Running Room sale and have been patiently waiting in their original box in the closet. This will be my first pair of Sauconys. I may need to write about the inaugural run :-)

By the way, the irony of retiring shoes after 400 miles to avoid loosing too much cushioning a the same time that I am starting to run with a pair of no-support-whatsoever Five Finger shoes because of the benefit of natural running is not lost in me. And yes, I am comfortable with both positions. They are both perfectly consistent with my love for new gear.

Runs 4 Food in Redmond, WA

Traveling for business in Redmond, WA is a good opportunity to eat at a new place and run in a new area. Dinner last night was at Matts' Rotisserie and Oyster Lounge Bar. After sharing some oysters with the colleagues traveling with me, I ordered a wedge salad (pictured at right), and a halibut taco.

The salad was delicious. I have always liked the way wedge salads are presented. A lazily quartered wedge of iceberg lettuce with dressing even more lazily poured on top. Still, it works. Mine came with some nicely grilled prawns. Charred outside, tender and just cooked inside. The taco is nothing to write about. The corn tortilla was good, but the halibut was too small and a tad dry.

The run was pretty good. Redmond, where I come for business a couple of times a year has a col temperature and nice hills. I did 4.01 miles at 9:06 min/mile pace. Given the inclines I encountered, I am happy to call it a tempo pace. For details on the run, follow this link.

Tomorrow I am running my last run with these shoes, which won't make it back to Minneapolis. I will make sure to write about this run.

People For Parks 5K (and bonus miles)

Few runs are as enjoyable as those consisting of bonus miles. Those are the miles you run before or after a race, but not as part of the race itself. This morning we run the People For Parks 5K (fund-raising to pave the audience area in front of the Lake Harriet bandshell and refurbish the worn benches). The run promised to be fun and an opportunity to use my Bikilas in a race, but my training schedule called for 11 or 12 miles this Sunday. The solution? Bonus miles!

Instead of driving to Lake Harriet, I decided to run there. The plan was to run in my Kayanos and carry my Bikilas in a small backpack. Then run the 5K along with a number of friends and Sharon who were biking or driving there. (In all fairness, Sharon also put some bonus miles by adding a 5K around the house before the race).

The run to Lake Harriet was pretty awesome. I took a few detours (one of them by accident), and ended up doing 8.82 miles at 8:20 min/mile. And did so very comfortably. I will give some credit to some dude that thought he could pass me and ended up eating my dust. The rest of the credit belongs to Eric Clapton and his San Francisco Bay Blues from Unplugged that I played obsessively as I was cruising through Lyndale.

The 5K itself was also pretty good. Finished in 25:37 (8:16/mile), thanks in part to anther dude that thought he could pass me. This time, I had my serving of dust, though.

One thought was planted in my head that is worth mentioning, and in the event that Tim reads this... As I made it to Lake Harriet, I realized there was another run taking place in the area: the City of Lakes 25K. This other run starts at 8:00 AM. The 5K I run started at 11:00AM. What is more, the finish line of the 25K race is very near the start of the 5K. Of course that got me thinking... (and I am sure you, Tim, know where I am taking this). If next year the setup is the same, we could do the 25K and finish on time to get our bib for the 5K. The best part is that each race automatically becomes bonus miles for the other race!! How could we let an opportunity like that pass?

Tim, if you are reading this, let me know that you are in, 'cause I already know you want to do it.

Like the wind

This Saturday four miler runs in the fall around Union Yard are proving to be fun and fast. Today I averaged 8:27/mile with really no effort. I am starting to suspect my Garmin 405. Perhaps the proximity to the tracks is throwing the satellite signal off :-) Oh well, that was another beautiful run...

Ouch!! Was that a friggin’ root?!?! - The Bikila update

So following my friend’s Scott advice I’ve been really careful ramping up my mileage on the Bikilas. Running no more than once a week, the first time I did just two miles. Then increase weekly to three, four and yesterday five. On top of that I decided to run in them yesterday because it was a club run and usually we have a little of a slower pace and sometimes we even squeeze in a walking break.

Well, yesterday we had a nice five-mile run. At some point, running by the university of MN, the road and sidewalk were closed due to construction and Robbie, our club’s running guide, steered us to a grassy area to bypass that construction.

Midway through that, the ball of my very unprotected right foot stepped on a root… Ouch! I immediately corrected the step not to put any more weight on that stride (something you get used to do with Five Finger Shoes) and then kept running normally.

By the time I got home, I had some pain. When I took my shoes off and walked barefoot, I was in serious pain. My fear was having broken something. Not now, in the middle of effortless running season. Prime running season!

To give you an idea of poor timing, this is what a broken foot and 6 weeks down would threaten out of my schedule:

• Sun, Sept 12: People for Parks 5K. This run is so short that I was planning on running from home to Lake Harriet (~4.5 miles) on a pair of Kayanos, then switch to my Bikilas for the race and at the end turn around and head back home back in my Kayanos, for a total of ~12 miles.
• Sun, Sept 19: Harmon Farms Trail Run (10 miles). This one I am really looking forward to, since it is a rail run (of which I don’t do many) and allows me to use my beloved New Balance MT800.
• Sun, Oct 3: Twin Cities Marathon. This is not just another Marathon. It is not only a beautiful run, but this year, this run will be my 10^th marathon!! this reminds me that when my friend Tim was training to run his tenth marathon (also Twin Cities), he suffered a stress injury that kept him out of the race. Obviously, this memory compounded my fears.
• Sat, Oct 16: Big Woods Run (1/2 marathon). Also a rail run to use my MT800’s.

On top of that, being out 6 weeks and missing all those wonderful races, it will totally ruin my training schedule for the third annual Rails to Trails Marathon (Nov 7), of which I have run every previous one.

So needless to say, not an ideal time for an injury. That said, I just came back from a 4.6 mile run around home and even managed a respectable 9 minute mile pace. I have no pain when walking or running on athletic shoes, but still see the stars when walking barefoot. I am thinking (hoping) this means it is just a bruise…

Try and stop me... this is effortless running!

What a difference a few degrees makes! Earlier this week we were still hitting high eighties, and probably mid sixties in the morning when I hit the road for a few miles. This morning I went for my usual 4-mile Saturday warmup run and wow! It felt cold. Turns out it was about 45 degrees.

My warmup run is in preparation for my long runs on Sunday and I am not supposed go hit it hard. 9:30 min/miles is appropriate for those runs. I did 8:35 and it was completely effortless. I kept trying to slow down, but it felt just too good. I took a new route that ended doing about a mile by the railroad tracks of Union Yard, behind the new Gopher stadium. What a beautiful run.

Tomorrow my schedule calls for a mere six miles. If temperature remains cool, it will be difficult to keep it that short.

Zoom! Yah! Yah! Here I come!

I just heard from the race director of the Zoom! Yah! Yah! indoor marathon that is held every January in the St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN. This race is run around a track course requiring runners to complete 150 laps. There are only 42 spots open every year and thus candidates are selected through a lottery. Well... this year's runner number 30 is yours truly!

So Zoom! Yah! Yah!, here I come!