Inching Towards Peachtree

So, per the usual, E & I are registered for the Peachtree Road Race (AKA one of the largest 10Ks in the US despite subjecting its participants to heat, humidity, and hills on the 4th of July in Atlanta, Georgia).

Speaking of heat and humidity -- a memorial day pig roast in Texas is HOT!

Last Year's Peachtree is probably my favorite to date of the four I've done (2011, 2014, 2017 & 2018), mainly because it was also the US 10K nationals, and I was able to watch Steph Bruce win on the big screen just before crossing into the starting corral.  So emotional!

The cinderblock oven with aluminum foil plywood lid and vents works very well!

This has been the longest, biggest, running break I've taken since I started running regularly in the mid 2000s.  I intentionally took some time off before Morocco so that my pesky left leg hamstring insertion/deep glute inflammation could heal.  And then, the dog bite really reined in any aggressive running efforts while it was healing.

Fritos on chili -- very Texas.

Now, my bite wound is almost healed, and it turns out, my left hamstring/glute/whatnot is the best and most balanced it's been in years.  It's almost like the 6+ weeks of forced chill and doing some physical stuff that was more wholistic functional fitness and mostly not running-related were just what the doctor ordered.

Feta, swiss cheese, chicken sausage frittata --

The latest effort to sneak garden greens (chard) into dinner

Here's to hoping I can get the mileage for the week above 15 by Sunday and move forward from there.  I've been doing yoga, calisthenics, jump rope, and biking, but other than a few very easy aerobic low-heart rate jogs, I have no real idea where my running fitness is, so fingers crossed...

Morocco, part 2

 Kefta (lamb beef meatball) Tagine with a poached egg in delicious spiced tomato sauce.   

The food in Morocco was possibly the best part.  They have a strong bread culture, and the bread that was served with every meal was fresh and delicious.  Tagines are a wonderful way to prepare food, in general, but in particular while hiking between very basic guesthouses (Gîte_d'étapes) where you (or a mule) must bring all of the cooking supplies (including the gas and burner).

Merguez and vegetable tagine.

Morocco is much more of a dry country than I realized.  For the entire 7 days, we only ate at one restaurant that served alcohol.  We also went to one bar in Marrakech, and it was one of the few places we visited where they obviously preferred French to Darija.

We were invited in for tea at a Berber home.

Linguistically,  Morocco is one of the more complex places I've ever visited.  While Darija is the official spoken language, in most of the places where we hiked, the people spoke a Berber dialect.  Unlike standard Arabic (which I studied briefly 15 years ago, but have completely lost all memory of and cannot follow at all except basic things like thank you, excuse me, etc.), after a couple of days in Morocco I found that I could occasionally follow Darija a little bit thanks to the context of knowing what was being discussed (typically logistics around hiking, eating, driving, etc.) and the French and Spanish cognates embedded in the language.

Lemon Chicken, one of the traditional Moroccan dishes

(preserved lemons and cooked olives -- wonderful)

Part of the reason we'd selected Morocco, was that I wanted to go somewhere where French would be useful.  And it was. But interestingly, almost everyone we spoke to preferred English to French.  Much like Vietnam, there appears to be a generational preference, where the older folks who were educated in French prefer it to English, but the younger folks wish to learn, practice and speak English. There is currently a big debate in the country about whether they should move their STEM education from Standard Arabic and French to English or not.  Standard Arabic, French, and Spanish are all languages of outsiders who came to Morocco and ruled them.  Whereas English is seen as the international language, and Morocco is one of the few places that doesn't have a history of British colonialism.

The weather, wildflowers, and views while hiking were perfect

  Overall, even with the dog bite, it was a fascinating trip and we very much enjoyed ourselves.

Kefta Tagine, fresh chopped veggies, mint tea

and views of the Atlas Mountains

while listening to the call to prayer echo 

down the valley

Travel Medical Adventures (Warning, Dog Bite Photos)

Hello from the other side of the longest I've gone without blogging since 2003.  I didn't miss it at all, which surprised me.

Tulips on the way into AMS (before our quick hop to CDG)

Given that I've habitually blogged at least once a week for 16 years, I spent some time trying to understand why it was so easy to let it go:

1. I have Instagram and Twitter if I really feel the need to project my words/pictures, and they are faster and easier to use.

2. Over the years, I've gotten less and less dedicated to the actual craft of writing on this blog, *and* I've gotten less and less specific with the details I share. This means the blog has really shrunk down from a general purpose somewhat redacted diary with intermittent writing exercises to more of a running, fitness, travel, food, and reading tracker -- e.g. useful, but not a particularly creative pursuit.

3. I was preparing for and enjoying a 19-day trip, with at least half of it completely off work.  During our Sabbatical year, I blogged about our experiences and observations as part of the fun of the travel.  I built in time to prepare blog posts after each new location, to help me process and record my thoughts while they were fresh before I went to another place. On this vacation, I believe the longest one I've ever taken while working, I really wanted to just focus on enjoying the trip in the moment and minimizing the activities that could feel like work.

Chefchauoen, Morocco -- the blue city

Our original plan had been to fly round trip to Paris (because any chance I can build in a France visit, I will, and also because we weren't sure what might happen with Brexit at the time we booked our flights, so we wanted an option to bail out of England if necessary).  After one night in Paris to manage jet lag, we planned to fly to Morocco and visit Chefchaouen and do some hiking there, followed by a visit to Marrakech and hiking in the Atlas Mountains.  From Marrakech, we had flights to London, where we'd cheer on Jen at the London Marathon, visit London friends, possibly do some hiking in Wales, and then close out the trip with an awesome weekend full of Wiltshire adventures with Jen & Gypsy Runner as guests of Cat and her family and cats.

Roughly our route, except we flew from Fes to Marrakesh

How did we pick Morocco?  Well, I wanted to visit a country we'd never been to, and we wanted to do some hiking.  E had never been to Africa, and we knew we wanted to start in France, which made Morocco an easier option due to its history as a French protectorate and popularity with French-speaking tourists.  Once we decided to go, E's dad decided to come along as well, which made for a fun family trip.

Day 1 hiking, Chefchauoen in the background

Unfortunately, on the first day of hiking, despite having a local guide, I got bit by a dog.  We were on public hiking trails, but the dog's owner had a marijuana farm near the trail and the dog was a bit too territorial.  There were two dogs, actually, a black one that came running at our group towards the guide in the front of our single file line, and a yellow one that came at the back of our line (me).  The dog was loudly and angrily barking and I was oddly calm in the certainty that I was going to get bit.  I chose to keep my back to it, and sure enough, it did quickly nip at my heel, slicing through my wool socks and leggings and then it ran away.  It was a quick sharp slice, and it didn't actually hurt that much.  I was surprised when I pulled my sock down and saw how deep it actually was.  Later, I felt very grateful when I saw the other scrapes on the outside of my calf from the teeth that didn't puncture. Any deeper in the lower part and it would have injured my achilles.  Any deeper up above and it could have seriously injured my calf muscles.  I was very lucky and extremely thankful.

Within 30 seconds of me explaining that I'd been bitten, our guide rinsed it with saline, applied betadine, and wrapped it with gauze.  He then called a jeep to come get us and we went to the hospital, where they cleaned the wound, gave me a tetanus shot in my stomach, prescribed antibiotics, and sent me to the municipality for 2 doses of the rabies vaccine and a card instructing me to get another dose in 7 days and another dose 14 days after that.

I'd already been taking it relatively easy, athletically, on this trip, in the hopes of calming down my pesky left hamstring/glute, but now it appeared that I'd be taking it *very* easy.

2 days post injury

On day 7, I got myself in to see a travel doctor in London, and they informed me that Public Health England disagreed with the regimen that Morocco had prescribed.  They wanted Immunoglobulin injected into the bite site (actually the most painful part of this whole process) as well as vaccinations on day 7, day 10, and day 21.  So, E and I took the train all the way out to Colindale and back to pick up Immunoglobulin and vaccine doses, which we took back to the clinic for evening treatment.  (Side note -- if you ever need treatment for travel-related medical issues in London, Dr. Dawood and the team at the Fleet Street Clinic is for you.  The first travel-clinic I tried shrunk in horror at the idea of post-exposure rabies treatment and sent me to them. They were wonderful.)

Monday's London vacation activities were:

laundry, Dishoom, 

and several hours of medical stuff with lots of public transit

Day 10, instead of staying in the lovely English countryside, we spent about 2 hours going from the adorably named Castle Combe back to Fleet Street Clinic for another vaccination (the vaccines had to be kept refrigerated and administered by someone PHE trusted) and then another 2 hours or so heading back to Wiltshire, where we met up with our friends.

Castle Combe -- does it get any more quaint?

Once back in the US, I called my local travel clinic and learned that the US doesn't agree with either the UK or Morocco about the treatment regime.  So, tomorrow, I'm headed in for my last and final vaccine dose (day 17 instead of 21).

I did do a little bit of hiking and jogging in the last couple of weeks, and it didn't really hurt, but the wound is actually fairly deep and most of those activities seemed to open up the most recently healed areas. So, I'm going to hold off any "training" until it's fully closed up and healed over.  Wish me luck.

San Jose Shamrock Run, Lead-up and 1st Year Race Report

I was looking forward to a nice mellow week.  We were home and had no plans.

Woke in time for the sunrise on race day.

While work was fairly busy in terms of leftover obligations from Montana, I knew from the past that it would be a good catch-up week because, like Burning Man, a non-trivial subset of my clients attend SXSW and while they are there, they aren't focused on work that needs my attention.  Also, two of my busiest clients hinted that they would be taking the week to enjoy the snow and go skiing with their families, so I knew they wouldn't be scheduling calls or pushing me too hard.

Ground turkey, ancini di pepe, garden greens, straciatella style soup -- 

race tested and approved, like Asian noodle soup, this is a good pre-race meal.

I took advantage of the flexibility and managed my first 30+ mileage week of the year (30.65).  Notable workouts included:

1. A 3 miler with just my phone's stopwatch (Garmin was dead), averaging 10:55/mile -- close enough to what I wanted to run in today's 10K "race" that I was pleased.

2. A long run with just my phone's stopwatch (Garmin may be needing a replacement...) for 9.87 miles at 12:15/mile.  The goal had been 12 miles, but at the 2 hour mark, unfueled and starting to battle nausea, I called it and opted to walk to the nearest restaurant for food.

3. A day before the race mini-track-workout of 3.07 miles total, with a half mile jog to the track for some short quality work of 1 mile at 5K pace; 4X 200 RI/200 targeting sub 8 min/mile.  I have to say, this workout surprised me -- I felt great.  I was trying to thread the needle between getting in some quality and not destroying my legs before the race, and I think I did a good job of it.  Have I mentioned I love having a track a 1/2 mile from the house?

4. And, of course, there was my first running of, and the organizer's first hosting of, today's 10K race.

The planned for course was a 10K consisting of 5K on the roads of San Jose plus a nice out and back along the Guadalupe River Trail.  While California is celebrating that it is completely out of drought for the first time in 7 years, the trail we were supposed to run on is currently flooded. I have to hand it to Represent Running -- they took it in stride, and made last minute changes to keep the race going, including large on-course routing signs directing us through a modified course (essentially twice the urban 5K) to avoid the flood.

There were a *few* turns...

There's a 2:20 pace group at the Oakland Running Festival, so, I've been flirting with trying to hang with them as my A goal.  With that in mind, my goal for today's "race" was to run a good race-effort tempo to confirm that I wasn't insane with this plan.  I decided to keep all my miles sub 10:40, and ratchet down the pace towards the end, if possible.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with how I executed:

Did I really run this 1-wk out pre-race tempo 10K run faster than the raced Kaiser 10K a month ago?

Probably not... (The course was *probably* short. My Garmin thought so, too.)

The finish of this race had two annoying things.  First?  A false finish.  When you turn the last corner and you see the arch?  That is not your finish.  If you are me and you push towards it as if you are done, you will be disappointed.  Instead, you need to keep running until you see this:

Pre-race photo of the *actual* finish

Second?  I'm almost certain the course was short.  My Garmin had it at 5.94 miles, which, even accounting for GPS errors in the tall building corridors and overpasses is still quite short (4.2%). Given all of the turns on the course, I'd actually expect to register a *long* course as I definitely couldn't run the tangents on the first loop with all of the people of varying paces around me.  Also, I just don't think I made the effort necessary to run a 1:01:37 10K today.

Start and finish by the picturesque San Pedro Square

But, honestly, those are my only two complaints. It was a well-run race.  The second issue is probably entirely due to the last minute re-routing and they did a good job making the most of the mess they had.  Given the flooding and the obligation to re-route within the previously permitted closed roads, a slight deviation is completely understandable.

Of the many pluses, the weather was a perfect (for me) cool start in the high 40s and the finish was comfortable, but never felt warm, even in the direct sun in the last mile.

The Schwag comes in *all* the greens!

The shirt was thin and high-quality (although the colors were somewhat questionable due to the St. Patrick's theme).  The post race food/drink seemed good (water, goldfish, gummy bears, kind bars) plus there's a Guiness coupon, but I didn't use it, so I'm not sure what kind of drink it was for.

A free race photo -- never the most flattering, but proof that it happened.

They even had free photos.  Of course, free photos are usually taken from the ground (not expensive overhangs), which is not exactly the most flattering angle.  But, they are free, and well-focused, so that's a bonus.

Same weekend, same chin, very different angle.

Overall, I was very happy with my race today, not the least because I met up with Angela before and after, and while we failed to get a photo, we did catch up over delicious post-race huevos rancheros.  Any time I get post-race brunch and catch-up with a friend, it just feels like a perfectly accomplished day.

Missed It

My calendar had me racing a 10K this weekend.  Jen was pacing a half marathon at a local race, so I figured I'd register for the associated 10K on Saturday and run the race on Sunday.

I woke at 6:50 am on Saturday and decided to get up rather than go back to sleep to prime myself for the Sunday race time.  So, I enjoyed my coffee and mucked around the Internet, including splurging on a huge order from Rancho Gordo.

At 8:20 or so I checked my phone and saw a text from Jen, asking if she'd see me at the race.  Oh... the race was SATURDAY.  So, that wasn't happening.  I was bummed to miss Jen, but I headed out for a short track workout instead.  Then we went to brunch with some friends.

Risotto with mirepoix, made with artichoke & mushroom broth

I spent the rest of the weekend being lazy.  E did tons of work related to our car situation, but I was a complete sloth other than an easy 3 miler on Sunday. And it was awesome.

Chicken sausage minestrone with alphabet pasta!

For the week, I put in several decent workouts and we ate plenty of delicious vegetarian meals.

Poached egg over cheesy millett with cabbage salad.

Mileage for the week was 25+ despite a fairly heavy workload, so even though I missed the race, I'm pleased.

2019: Goals

Last year, I didn't have many explicit year-long goals.

The only fitness goal I openly stated was that I wanted to try to improve my fitness to the point where I could run "very good" on the Cooper Test. I didn't even come close (it requires running 8:23/mile for 12 minutes).  My first cooper test of the year was at a 9:34/mile pace.  Over the course of the year, I dropped it down to a 9:16/mile pace.  But, I also decreased my 5K pace over the year down to 9:34 (so my 12 minute best became my almost 30 minute best pace) and I ran an 8:52 minute mile at the end of the year.  Both of these made me happy, as my fitness obviously improved.  Any year where you end the year better than where you started is a good one!

I bought myself Lauren Fleshman's Believe

Training Journal for Christmas

This year, I decided to set some concrete running goals:

1. A sub 1 hour 10K (looking for a good late fall option as the target race, with a few races over the course of the year to inch towards that time)

2. A sub 29 minute 5K (I'm hopeful I can do this sometime this Spring)

3. A sub 8 minute mile (this one is a stretch, so in the meantime I'll be happy with sub 8:30 as a stepping stone by June)

4. Very Good on the Cooper Test (probably not doable unless I can get close to the sub 8 minute mile, but I'll chip away at it)

I'm still scheduling my workout and target race schedule for the first few months of the year, and I'm looking forward to having a few racing opportunities to ratchet down towards these goals and hopefully also see and catch up with some of my running friends.

Example weeks from my food log

(can you spot the two weeks with travel & visitors?)

Another thing I did last year was I labeled my days as red (ate red meat), beige (ate poultry), blue (ate fish/seafood), or white (ate ovo-lacto vegetarian).  If I ate two of the categories, I used the color that was higher in the unhealthy/environmentally damaging order.

Due to the negative health associations and negative environmental impact of red meat, I started last year with a goal of keeping my red days below 1/3 of the total and just observing the other days. About halfway through the year, I realized that achieving this goal would be harder than I assumed.

The story I tell myself is that I eat vegetarian about 75% of the time.  And, when left to my own devices (E & I, eating alone, at home), I definitely did eat vegetarian about 75% of the time, with about 5% of my meals containing poultry and approximately 10% containing red meat, while 10% contained fish.

But, any time we have visitors, or we travel, I end up splurging.  Because I don't really enjoy most poultry, splurging for me generally results in red meat.  It was very easy to see the weeks where we had visitors, or were traveling simply by looking at the color patterns on the spreadsheet.

All in all, I finished out the year with 40% of my days being red (145 days), 8% beige (28 days), 15% blue (54 days), and 36% white (133 days). I definitely eat red meat more often than I thought I did.

Logging by day instead of meal does not give me a great insight into the actual percentage of my meals that contain the various protein sources.  I was insistent on logging any day where I had a piece of bacon or 2 ounces of charcuterie as red, for the sake of honesty.  Also, occasionally, I'd opt for a second serving of red meat on a day when I knew it was already marked red -- the day was blown, so why not indulge even more?  So, this year, I'll continue with the color coding for the frequency imagery, but I'm going to do the actual logging by servings (4 oz), with a half serving for small things like a piece of bacon.

In the interest of my health and the environment, my 2019 food goals are: less than 100 servings of red meat & at least 100 servings of fish/seafood (with a focus on sustainable sources) while maintaining my relatively low poultry intake (and thus getting a majority of my protein and other nutrients from plants, dairy, and eggs).  And, of course, I'll continue to try to eat locally sourced and produced food wherever possible (with the *most* local source, of course, being my garden).

Winter lettuces and veggies -- ready to go into the garden.

If you are interested in learning more about the environmental impacts of food production, I highly recommend this fascinating study.

 

Mexico City New Year

I'm a sucker for airline miles manipulation, and this year, they got me.  After our trip to Aruba and our flight back to California, I was shocked to see that I hadn't flown enough on actual paid trips this year to maintain our Delta flight status.

Sunset on our way to Mexico City.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Super ridiculous privileged first world problems, but if we're going to be honest about privilege and first world stuff, then we need to talk about financial literacy.  It's very important in terms of people's ability to transition from parents who are "poor, first in their family to go to college" to children who are "Bay Area hyper-educated normal." My family was *not* upper class, my parents were both the 1st to go to college in their families, and my 2nd generation college-groomed privilege was that I found finance interesting and I could subscribe to magazines about investing and business and my parents let that happen (they were all essentially free due to some weird sweepstakes magazine thing)...

Tacos from El Rey De Suaderno -- Delicious!

All of this (understanding the scarcity model plus a desire to maximize profits) contributes to my ability to realize that if I didn't get at least Silver Medallion status on Delta for 2019, I was losing quite a bit of value (as I had several reserve MQMs that wouldn't roll-over unless I was at least Silver, not to mention upgrade opportunities, free drinks/food, etc.).

Zocalo, the 3rd largest public square in the world.

E called it when I saw my status on the Delta App on our flight home from Aruba/Atlanta, "You're totally going to book a New Year's Trip that gets you status to protect our 2019 travel, aren't you?"

consommé -- one of the best things about  CDMX taquerias

Well, yes.  I tried to brush off his suggestion initially, but of course he knows me better than I know myself and 1 week later, we'd booked a New Year's trip to Mexico City.

The ruins in downtown CDMX right off the Zocalo.

We have several friends who've gone in the last few years, and they've all had wonderful things to say, particularly about the food.

Aztec Sun Stone

I knew we'd have a wonderful time -- it's the largest city in North America -- of course we could find things we'd adore.

Stereotypical touristic stuff at a ridiculously charming outpost near Teotihuacan.

But, folks, it totally exceeded our expectations.

Pyramid of the Sun -- the largest pyramid in the world you can hike up (3rd largest overall)

It was awe-inspiring.

View from the pyramid of the moon.

The teotihuacan pyramids are, frankly, almost as impressive as Machu Pichu, but with less crowds, and much easier to get to, so net, possibly a better experience.

The food was, as promised, excellent.

We decided on a light Portuguese lunch

(Jamon Iberico, Pan Tomate y Mejillones y Pulpo)

The museum of Anthropology was one of the best museums I've ever been to, which is saying a ton, as I tend to prefer my museums on the modern, arty, side.

We originally went with hopes of out of control Mexican fireworks (for which they are known), but, one of the few downsides of modern day Mexico City is the air quality (abysmal).  As such, fireworks had been more or less outlawed (as had tire fires and trash fires), so we found ourselves on Paseo de la Reforma with a cheery, happy group of folks with nothing more than a band, lights, and *HUGE* sparklers.  It was wholesome and wonderful and one of the more enjoyable ways I've crossed the new year's threshold.

Overall, it was a wonderful way to transition into the new year and I'm a bit shocked that it isn't held out as more of an international destination for Americans who want to travel.  It is the largest city in North America, very tourist friendly, but clearly its own Latin American destination where English will work, but not remotely as well as Spanish (so if you have some, use it -- they will appreciate your efforts!), and it has tons of culture.  Why it is not on the default list of easy places for American families who want to raise world traveling children is shocking to me -- the pyramids alone are worth a trip.

Also, the food.  Did I mention the food?

Chapulines -- look closely, those are baby grasshopper tacos (delicious!)

We'll probably go back as our friends stayed an extra day and did stuff we didn't do that sounded wonderful, plus there were neighborhoods we didn't visit and food we didn't try.

We fit in all sorts of fun cultural stuff including a great night of Lucha Libre!

If you're looking for a short international trip that has tons of culture, you should consider Mexico City.

New York Marathon Spectating Weekend

A good friend of mine, A, left California and moved to Rochester, New York a while back.  We hung out earlier this year and realized we needed to schedule some quality time together.  So, we decided to go spectate the New York Marathon, just us.

It was a wonderful weekend.

If I had it to do again, I would register for the Abbott 5K on the Saturday before the marathon, which is an impressive event that shuts down Sixth Avenue.  We spectated it as well, and it was fun to see all the fast folks zoom by.

The reservoir in Central park -- such a great run!

I walked and ran more than a marathon's distance over the 3 days in town.  I fueled with Peruvian food, Columbian street cart food in Central Park, Pizza (Napoletana) in Brooklyn, Soup dumplings & other Chinese food, Vietnamese won ton soup, and Per Se!

One of many Central Park Views

My friend, F, was running the NY Marathon and somehow managed to get me added to her reservation at Per Se, so I ended up with an unexpected 3-star Michelin meal to boot.  It was, as you'd expect from Thomas Keller, divine.

Look at that form!

Running in Central Park hours before the marathon participants would arrive was very cool.  It was just me and all the cyclists and roller bladers who take advantage of the closed course and do a 26.2 mile ride or blade that finishes before the race events start. At the end of my run, I encountered the youth runners, all lined up and ready to race in Central Park.

All the youth, lined up for their race.

It was a very motivating weekend, running-wise.

Watching Shalane pull into 3rd place on the big screen while sitting in the grandstand seating at the finish was the highlight, but it was also wonderful to watch the Americans roll in and chat with Allie Kieffer's friends and family (all sporting flat Allie on popsicle sticks) and cheer her on as she moved from 11th to finish 7th.

Lots of discussion in the grandstands about tree-trimming 

that could have made things better...

Overall, it was a wonderful weekend.  Catching up with A was so good.  New York is a place I will always love to visit -- it is so alive and I adore it every time I come.  I've lost count, but I believe the current total visit count is 10ish, making it one of the cities outside of California where I've spent the most time.  Nothing's changed -- I still want to go back.