Let's Fund Raise for Team Bettie!

*** CLICK HERE TO DONATE ***

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:



View Larger Map
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.

And we're back!

AND WE'RE BACK!

It's been such a long time since we've blogged that I sort of feel like we're starting over again. I really do hope we can keep up with it this time. We started to train for a full marathon so I feel like blogging will definitely help with the whole process. We just finished our 4th week of a 16 week training program for the Rock 'n' Roll San Diego Marathon on June 3, 2012. More on that soon.

Since out last blog our main accomplishment has been finishing another half marathon (The Carlsbad Half Marathon). That race was particularly tough for me because I was battling some knee issues. I took about 4 weeks off of running before the race to allow my knee to heal but on race day the pain returned at about mile 8. On top of that, I got a horrible blister on my right foot at about mile 7 that rubbed all the way to the finish line. Since I had to stop frequently due to the knee pain and blister, Carly ran ahead of me and we did the last 5 miles of the race apart. That was a different experience for both of us because we usually push each other during a race and for the last part we had to find our own motivation. Carly ended up finishing the race with a time of about 1:57:00 and despite my alements I finished about 10 minutes after her with a time of 2:07:00. It was not a personal best for either of us but we were not disappointed with our performance.

Every time I run a half marathon, I always wonder where I'll find the strength to run a full marathon. I know I need to keep my knees healthy or the full marathon won't happen for me. I am making a commitment to myself to keep up with my knee strengthening exercises and stretches. My goal is to do some every day leading up to the race. If I can keep the muscles strong and the tendons loose then I should be able to steer clear of the pain. Fingers crossed!

Now for some current events. As I mentioned before we are in our 4th week of training and this weekends run was an 8 miler. As I type this blog I am actually on a plane on the way back from a business trip to New York. Since Saturday is our long run day, we ran separately this morning - me in New York and Carly at home in LA. Carly's route this morning took her down near Playa Vista and past the building I work in and lopped back home. After having some difficulty with a 5 mile run on the treadmill earlier this week, Carly really enjoyed this new route outdoors in some beautiful 60+ degree weather. When I'm in NY I love to run in Central Park. This morning it was 28 degrees Fahrenheit when I started my run. With the windchill it was closer to 20 degrees. This was by far the coldest run I've ever done but surprisingly it wasn't that bad. I ran from the Hudson Hotel (where I stayed) near Columbus Circle to the entrance of Central Park at 86th street. I then did a few laps around the Jackie O Reservior and ran back to the southern part of the park and finished up right near the hotel.

I had some minor knee pain about half way through but after some more stretching I was good to finish the run. There were times when a strong gust of wind during the run chilled me to the bone but I was able to keep pretty warm (mostly thanks to my head-to-toe Lululemon gear: beanie, jacket, gloves and pants).

That's about it for now. More frequent updates coming soon. For the marathon we will definitely be doing some fundraising. I will post all that info here and on Facebook and Twitter once we have it.

Adios!
Clayton

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!

Out With The Old, In With The New Balance

It's been a few weeks since our last post mostly because we finished our most recent half marathon and we took some time off from working out.  But, now we're trying to get back into running and the first step for me was new shoes. During our last 2 half marathons, I noticed that during the longer runs I was experiencing some pain right in the arch of my right foot. I have been running in some very supportive Brooks shoes that work well for flat footed people like me but they were not allowing my foot to move very much. So, I visited our local running store, Top to Top, and the Shoe Doctor there recommended the New Balance M1260.

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:


View Larger Map

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.

Good Days and Bad Days

It’s weird how some days the running can be so on and others so off. Well I can happily say this morning was an on day. Clayton and I did our longest run, 12 miles, aside from the actual half marathon. Here is our route. We went down Palms, up Robertson, down Cienega, over to Jefferson and Duquesne (now I know where the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook is) and finished by going to Culver to Overland and finally back to Palms. It felt so good I could have kept going, but that’s when you risk injury, when you run longer than what’s laid out in your training schedule.


View Larger Map

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.


View Larger Map

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.

New cookbook and a 8 mile run

Since we've started to visit some of the local LA famers' markets, we've noticed that there are all sorts of delicious things there but we're clueless on how to cook them and what to pair them with. So, we decided to take a page (pun most certainly intended) from our favorite cooking duo in NorCal (my brothers-in-law, Eric & Ryan) and we got ourselves a farmers' market themed cookbook.  This particular one is called Williams-Sonoma Cooking from the Farmers' Market.  You can purchase it from the Williams-Sonoma site here or from Amazon.com.

Surviving Carmageddon

This past Saturday was a busy day of running but lets face it, mostly eating.  By doing all this local stuff we thought we'd be avoiding all the Carmageddon hoopla.

We started our day off with a 6 mile run which marked the official end of Disneyland Half Marathon training week 3.  I've started using the Nike+ GPS app that's I downloaded to my iPhone and it's pretty awesome.  I just strap my iPhone to my arm and run with the app activated and it keeps track of my distance, pace, run duration, elevation changes and even draws a map of the route I just ran.  It works on the treadmill too.  I'll try to figure out how to share that info to the blog.  Anyway, here is the map of the 6 miler:

View Larger Map

Half Marathon Training: 2 Weeks Down, 8 To Go

This weekend Clayton and I did 5 miles. We’ve done this route before, but it’s a good one. We head East on Palms, go North on Motor up all through the lovely Cheviot Hills neighborhood until we reach Fox studios, then go West on Pico past the golf course, and finally South on Westwood Blvd. It’s a fantastic 5 mile run to have in our pocket. The Cheviot Hills neighborhood gives you a lot of good hills (and you get to pick out what house you want) and then you get relief when you reach Pico, nice shade from the trees and a softer surface on the dirt and leaves to give your knees a break.


View Larger Map

Disneyland Half training starts next week

Here we go with post number 2.  I feel like 2 posts makes this an official blog now.

Next week will be the start of our official 10 week training for the 2011 Disneyland Half Marathon which is on September 4th.  According to the site that is 70 days away!!  If you want to check out the course map, click here to download the pdf.  It's a fun run that goes through California Adventure, Disneyland, through Anaheim, by the Honda Center through Angel Stadium and back to Downtown Disney.

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).