Let's Fund Raise for Team Bettie!

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On June 3rd, 2012, Carly and I will be running on the Rock 'n' Roll San Diego Marathon. This year we are running to raise money for the National MS Society. As some of you know, my Aunt Bettie (Mom's sister) was diagnosed with MS over 10 years ago. Bettie lives in Colorado and loves to be outdoors. She is an avid biker, skier and traveler. Since her diagnosis, some of those activities have become more challenging but she continues to fight the disease with her positive attitude and amazing sense of humor.

Longest.Run.Ever.

After a lot of anticipation and psyching ourselves up, we finally broke the 13.1 mile barrier and ran 14 MILES today! Here is the map of our run:



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We ran from our apartment out to Venice Blvd. and headed north on Fairfax. We crossed through Little Ethiopia on our way to Hollywood. We got to Santa Monica Blvd. and started to head west through West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Century City and back into our neighborhood in West LA.

Happy New Year!

I can't believe it's been almost 6 weeks since we last posted! I don't think I'll take the time to fill you in on everything that we did since the last post so just imagine that it was AWESOME!

On the eating front, the big news in our house is that we got a brand spanking new Kitchen Aid Artisan Series stand mixer. The next day we busted our our Martha Stewart cookies cook book and made a few batches of her Banana-Walnut Chocolate Chunk Cookies. You'll just have to take our word that they are delicious!

 

Back on December 27th, we went out for Carly's birthday to a great little Italian restaurant in Venice called Ado. It is definitely one of those places that someone needs to tell you about because it's pretty hidden and not in an area where you'd accidentally stumble upon it. We shared an amazing home cured duck prosciutto appetizer and then each had a pasta for dinner that paired nicely with a bottle of chianti. Buon compleanno!

New Addition to the EatRunLove Team

When we started this blog I thought I'd be able to avoid cat related posts but alas I could not resist. A few weeks ago we welcomed a new 4 month old kitten to our house. His name is Louie and he is a ball of boundless energy.

In a rare moment of stillness

In a not-so-rare moment of insanity

2 Weeks Down, 2 To Go

So we’re officially half way through our month detox/diet program and going strong. First week was pretty easy, but we started to get some cravings between week 1 and 2 which means Halloween night will only be that much sweeter when we come off the diet.

We’ve managed some meals out, though.  We went to BJs with Clayton’s family; they even have a gluten free menu. We settled on a big steak salad without the blue cheese and substituted ranch for honey mustard. Another night we went to see a hilarious comedian Paul F. Tompkins in Glendale with Clayton’s brother and planned on eating at CPK who also has a gluten free menu (even just a couple years ago this kind of diet would have been that much harder), but when we couldn’t find the restaurant we opted for protein style burgers at In-N-Out (and happily enough fries are allowed – no gluten or sugar there!). We recently went to Killer Shrimp in Marina del Rey and had the Shrimp bowl (traces of dairy in the broth) and the filet mignon (butter sauce on the side) with the asparagus side. Both were absolutely delicious and didn’t compromise our diet. This actually was the night we brought home our newest addition, 3 month year old kitty who we named Louie after Louis C.K.’s TV show (and it didn’t hurt that he is light orange in coloring)!

Catalina Trip 2011

For our second anniversary, Carly and I took a trip to Catalina island just off the coast of California. It was her first time visiting and my first time since going with my parents over 20 years ago.

We took the Catalina Flyer ferry over from Maria del Rey and stayed at the Snug Harbor Inn in Avalon. We spent our time eating and taking in the sights on the island including the Wrigley Memorial Garden, The Descanso Beach Club, The Catalina Zipline Eco Tour, the Under Sea Gardens Glassbottom Boat and many other things. I made a video all about it so check it out right here!



Hasta luego!

- Clayton

Carly's Epic Post

Clayton and I are trying a combination of two detox/diet programs - one called Arbonne called Figure 8  and the other called Fresh Start - that my brother Eric and his husband Ryan did at the start of the year and liked. To give you a basic idea you remove all simple carbs (gluten, wheat, etc. replacing with brown rice versions of pasta, bread), sugar, dairy, caffeine, and yeast promoting foods including alcohol and vinegar, and veal/pork (grass fed beef in moderation, chicken, and seafood is okay) for 1 WHOLE MONTH. Arbonne does sell nutritional and cleanser products that you can use in conjunction with the program, but we are opting out of that because we don’t want the extra costs and want to keep this as realistic as possible.

The goal is to remove your body of toxins that can lead to extra weight (toxins are drawn out of vital organs and stored in fat cells), tiredness, poor skin health, headaches, etc. Also many people don’t know that they have an allergen towards a certain kind of food and by eliminating the common causes (gluten, dairy, soy protein, etc.) and slowly reintroducing one at a time back into your diet after the month, you can see how different kinds of foods affect you (it literally takes seeing how you feel just 30-60 minutes after having that kind of food again to see if it has any affect on you). The post-program advice is the 80/10/10 rule, “80% of the time follow the 4 week principles, 10% of the time stray slightly (perhaps have a roll at dinner, eat a slice of pizza), 10% of the time FORGET IT (have a glass or two of wine and your favorite dessert...ENJOY!!).” More we want to force ourselves to try meals and foods we wouldn’t otherwise try and incorporate them into our regular diet after we finish the program.

Disneyland Half Marathon 2011 - Part 2

Clayton and I had an amazing weekend at the Disneyland Half Marathon (our third half marathon). Our time was just under 1:55:00, 3 minutes better than half marathon #2 (Santa Barbara Wine Country), and 10 minutes better than our first half marathon, which was the Disney half last year!! Honestly it didn’t even feel like we were pushing ourselves harder than the other races. I think it’s because we both made a deliberate choice during our training to up our speed on the treadmill between long weekend runs and had gotten accustomed to a faster pace.

One of our favorite parts of the Disneyland race is the first aid after you finish. They wrap ice packs around your knees with saran wrap and it’s amazing. Even if your knees don’t hurt initially it helps with any pain that might come later. You keep them on for about 10-15 minutes while you walk around a little oddly! No such treatment at the SB half.  They changed up the route as well which we didn’t expect, but is nice considering all the people like us who repeat the race. I definitely see this as being a yearly event for us! You can see the actual pictures provided by Brightroom for me by clicking here and for Clayton by clicking here.

Disneyland Half Marathon 2011

What an amazing weekend! We are back from Anaheim and we've finished our 3rd half marathon. We drove down to Anaheim on Saturday to pick up our race bibs and look around at the Disneyland Health & Fitness Expo. After that, we checked in at our usual Anaheim hotel, the Ramada Maingate. It isn't the fanciest hotel but it is a perfect location and the staff there is phenomenal. The only drawback to staying that close to Disneyland are the 9:30pm fireworks that sound like gunshots in your room. Next year we're brining ear plugs.

On Sunday morning we woke up at 4am to give us time to wake up and make it to the start line by 5:15am. We were in Corral A this year so we actually started the race just over a minute after the official start. The course takes you through Disneyland, California Adventure and through Anaheim including running on the field at Angel Stadium. We crossed the finish line with a new personal best half marathon time of 1:54:53 -- more than 3 minutes better than our previous best and more than 10 minutes better than the 2010 Disneyland Half Marathon!

Right after we crossed the finish line.

Hollywood Bowl Celeb Chef Picnic

This past weekend was another crazy one, especially on Saturday.  It felt like Saturday was 3 separate days.  We started off early in the morning with an 8 mile run that took us from our apartment down to right near where I work and then back home.  Here's the route:


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We started a little after 7am and it was already approaching 80 degrees out so it was a warm run.  After we got back and had some time to rest, I started preparing our picnic feast for our trip to the Hollywood Bowl later that night.

Our meal was comprised of 3 recipes from 3 amazing chef's and it made for a fantastic meal. The main course was was Ina Garten's Caesar Club Sandwich. Brothers-in-law/talented chefs Eric & Ryan introduced us to this sandwich a few years ago when we were in town for a visit.  Ever since we've made it for all of our trips to the Hollywood Bowl.

90th Birthday Party and Coming Down A Mountain

It was another busy weekend for us running (pun intended) all over socal.  On Friday we headed down to San Diego to celebrate Carly's grandma's 90th birthday. We all met up at the Stone Brewing World Bistro for a late lunch/early dinner.  There were 14 of us and they gave us a great table outside in the corner that was nicely shaded and semi-private.  It was the perfect setting.  Since the food at Stone is amazing, we knew that we had a great meal ahead of us.  We shared a deep fried mashed potato appetizer and for our entrees I had the Mac n' Beer Cheese and Carly had the Tempeh Shepherd's Pie.

Made with Mike's Stone Smoked Porter & Garlic Beer Cheese and basil, along with Stone Smoked Porter Sausage from San Marcos' T&H Prime Meats & Sausage

Chock full of spiced tempeh, carrots, zucchini, corn and onions, topped with mashed potatoes and cheddar cheese.

Running to the Ocean and Back

Sorry for the 2 week gap in blog posts, August is shaping up to be a crazy month. This past weekend was no exception. We started Saturday with an 11 mile run marking the end of half marathon training week 6. Our route took us from our neighborhood out to Venice beach and and back.


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Having the goal of running all the way to the beach mentally makes the run much more enjoyable because you have a goal in mind. This helped especially on this particular run since we were both feeling a bit sluggish throughout the whole run.

And so it begins!

I feel like it was only a matter of time until we started a blog...

Carly and I have been married for almost 2 years now but we've been together for almost 9.  About 2 years into our relationship we started running together.  We started first at the track at UCSD Spanos Field and then moved on to the Campus Loop. Eventually we started doing 5k and 10k races.

Disneyland Half Marathon 2010

After college, we got a place together, got engaged, got married and then said, "Ok, time to work towards a marathon."  That process started in June 2010 when we started training for our first half marathon.  We both ran and completed the 2010 Disnelyland Half Marathon in September 2010 with a finishing time of about 2 hours 5 minutes.  About 2 months ago we ran in the Santa Barbara Wine Country Half Marathon.  Our goal was to best our original time and we did with a finish time of 1 hour 58 minutes (Carly beat me by about 5 seconds).