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.

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.

Back To The Farmers' Market

I think we have officially found our new favorite farmers' market -- the Mar Vista Farmers' Market! We visited for the first time this past weekend and as you can see from the photo below, we did quite well:

We made it home with red beets, kale, arugula, spinach, peaches, plums, tomatoes, corn, carrots, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries and figs.  We're putting our Williams-Sonoma Cooking From The Farmers' Market cookbook to good use too! As we were unpacking our bounty, I found a small stowaway hiding in the kale...

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.

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.


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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.