A Good Weekend

The 10k down in Fredericksburg yesterday was fun. I met up with Clea, Stephanie and Steve just before the start and enjoyed myself. I had a relaxed run and finished in 47.40, which I'll take considering my lack of running (and complete lack of speedwork) for the last month. After the 10k Nancy and I did the kid's mile with Gavin. He alternated between sprinting all-out and having no interest at all in running. We were DFL by a long way, but we were so proud of him - he was by far the youngest kid doing the mile. After he collected his ribbon we explored Fredericksburg some and stopped at one of the local bakeries for lunch before heading home so I could finish off the painting.

And get this - the painting is finished. Hooray Henry!!! I finished up the detail work yesterday afternoon which is really tedious and a royal pain in the rear. Yes, I was the kid in kindergarten who always got into trouble for coloring outside the lines (and let's face it, when have you ever heard anyone credit their life's success to staying within the lines when they were four - uh, never!!!).

This morning I met Clea and Pancake for 9 miles on the greenbelt. It was the longest run I've done in a while, and we had light rain the whole way which is always fun. In fact, the recent rains have resulted in some flowing water and Pancake showed us the way by swimming across at the end. I followed her lead and we all enjoyed wading knee-deep in the water - bliss, and the best part of the run.

As ever, a great start to a Sunday.

Here are some shots from yesterday's race.

Hasta la Pasta

My beloved hand-cranked pasta machine

Pasta is a great runner's food and so versatile - it comes in noodles of all size, can be stuffed (ravioli, cannelloni, tortellini), baked in a casserole, put cold into salad, or as sheets for lasagne. It can be partnered with many sauces (usually tomato or cream based) for endless flavor variations. I love it, but more than that, I love fresh pasta. And there's no pasta fresher than that I make myself. This does come at a price though, because once you've tasted fresh pasta you won't want to go back to the dried stuff.

Fortunately, fresh pasta is quick, easy and fun to make providing you have the right tools. And right at the top of the list is a good pasta machine. While technically you could make your own pasta by rolling it out by hand and cutting with a knife, these little beauties make it so easy. Along with my Kitchenaid mixer, it is the most-used tool in my kitchen. As well as pasta I also use it for rolling out naan bread, pitas and empenadas/cornish pasties/calzones.

Pasta machines come in various different guises (including attachments for your KitchenAid), but I like my manual hand-cranked version because I get more of a feel for the dough and have complete control over it. A couple of recommendations:

- First, get a machine that is made in Italy - it's usually a much better quality. The best two out there are the Villaware Imperia 150 (not to be confused with the Al Dente, which is an inferior product) and the Atlas. I own the Imperia but it's not so easy to find it these days

- Second - never use water to clean it (water + dough = sticky mess). If you flour your dough well it should not be a problem, but if you do get some sticky dough the best way is to wait until it dries out and simply brush it off.

What follows is my basic dough recipe - note that I like making wholewheat noodles because I like the texture, so I use some wholewheat flour in my dough. If you don't, just use all-purpose. I have made variations of this recipe with great success, including colored pasta (using fresh spinach and tomato paste for green and red respectively), herbed pasta (fresh herbs between two sheets and pressed out), garlic and sage pasta and even hot pepper pasta.

Mark's Basic Wholewheat Pasta Dough
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups wholewheat flour
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tsp salt
3/4 to 1 cup water

Combine the flour, eggs, olive oil and salt in your mixer's bowl. Mix with the paddle while adding in the water. When it starts to come together, substitute the hook and continue to knead. Finish it off by kneading by hand for a good 5 minutes.

If you don't have a mixer, combine all the dry ingredients in a large bowl and create a well in the center. Pour in the eggs and olive oil, and add the water gradually, incorporating the flour until it is all mixed in. Then knead by hand for at least 10 minutes.

Divide the dough at this point. If you split it into 2, each piece will feed 3 people (or 2 hungry runners, or 2 for supper plus leftovers for lunch). Sometimes I'll do this, and sometimes I'll split into 4. Roll each piece into a ball and cover with plastic wrap. The pieces that you aren't using can be refrigerated for 2-3 days or frozen (thaw in the fridge overnight before using).

Leave the dough for 30 minutes to relax (makes it easier to work with), then remove the wrap and cut into 4 pieces (keep the pieces you aren't using covered). Flatten out by hand and roll it through the widest setting on the pasta machine. Fold the dough in thirds lengthways and put it through again. Fold the dough in half and put it through again. Keep doing this until you get a consistent width then narrow the setting. Send the dough through just once (no more folding) and continue narrowing until you get to your desired thickness (setting 5 works best for me). If the dough gets sticky, rub some all purpose flour into it and continue.

Once the sheet is ready, flour it really well and send it through the cutter. Store the cut pasta in a loose nest until ready for cooking. Note that fresh pasta takes only 2-3 minutes, so keep an eye on it. I make sure to add some olive oil and salt when boiling, and I'll stir it up to ensure they don't stick.

Once you've made your pasta, try this for an easy and yummy spaghetti and meatballs recipe.

Pasta sheet well floured and ready for cutting

A gaggle of fettucine pasta nests

Batman - an excellent noodle tree :-)

Running in the Wildflowers

I'm off to Fredericksburg tomorrow to run the Wildflower 10k with some friends. I haven't run properly in weeks so I'll probably be really slow, but so what - should be fun. Gavin is signed up for the kid's mile and Nancy is looking forward to it too. Really I should be here in Austin doing the Texas Roundup 10k with the work wellness committee, but I skipped out on it. I guess there's something in my makeup that just enjoys rebelling and following my own path. Besides, the Roundup is a real meat market, and I hate crowds. Far better to do a small town race.

Unfortunately for me, word got out that I was jumping ship and the guys are now insisting I bring them back some Fredericksburg peaches as a penance. My pleas that it was too early in the season fell on deaf ears, so I offered to bring them back some wildflowers and warned them not to get the wrong idea.

They politely declined :-)

Signed up for Hell

I just signed up for the 50 miler at Hell's Hills (the replacement race for last weekend's Rocky Hill Ranch). June in Texas - what was I thinking?

Actually it will be good practice at being self-sufficient for the Cactus Rose 100. Besides, a good sufferfest does wonders for the soul.

Yes, I'm sure that makes sense :-)

Pines, Pilates and Pumpkin Paint

I had the day off on Tuesday so I headed out to Bastrop State park for a nice run in the woods. There's something about running under the pines that sings to my soul, and it was an enchanting morning of silver streams and spotlight sunbeams. It is the kind of trail where you can really put the hammer down, but sometimes it's far better to take it slow and savor the experience - the smell of the pine, the swish of the trees, the majestic beauty of the forest. I really don't run out here often enough, and it's not that far of a drive.

I also discovered that my State Park pass expires at the end of the month, so I need to look into renewing it.

I spent the rest of the day prepping our living room and corridor for painting - taping baseboards, removing electrical outlets, ripping off corner protectors and re-mudding the damaged drywall (message to the former owners of our house - it's not a good idea to put plastic corner protectors on the walls, and really not a good idea to hammer screws into them). Painting the living room has been on my "honey do" list ever since I retiled the fireplace, so I decided to finally bite the bullet and get it done. Last night I got started painting. It's great to have a large living room with high ceilings - unless you're painting it, then it kinda sucks. But I burned the midnight oil to get it done, and all that's left to do are the edges and detail work. Hopefully I can finish that tonight, because our living room is a real mess at the moment.

But at least I can rest secure in the knowledge that I am now the proud owner of a pumpkin colored living room!!!*

And last but not least, I ordered a pilates dvd that arrived yesterday. It consists of five 10 minute pilates workouts on a stability ball which can be combined, mixed and matched to whatever duration workout you want. It looks good, and maybe I'll get a chance to do it once the living room gets back to normal.

And a big thank you to all my friends who recommended yoga dvds. I have my eye on two power yoga workouts - one by Bryan Kest and one by Rodney Yee. With these sultans of stretch to aspire to, I will doubtless be as limber as a soggy sausage before you can say "downward dog".


* I know what you're thinking - some kind of horrific 1970s orange. But it's not - more of a subdued off-yellow - looks nice and feels really warm and cozy.

That "Feel Good" Thing

For the last month or so I've been leading a "trail 101" run on Monday nights as part of our work wellness and fitness program (I somehow found myself on the fitness committee about a year ago - how did that happen?? - I blame this). We've had anything up to 8 people show up, but I have a hard core of three guys who have run with me every week because they're training for the 10k version of the Rogue summer series. When we started, they'd never run any kind of trail before and our first 6 mile benchmark loop took around an hour and 10 minutes (and I took all kinds of s%$t for standing at the top of the hills and chuckling - an unfortunate side effect of being evil :-) ).

But it's been amazing to see them take to it and improve week on week. We spent a few weeks hitting every hill I could find in the park, and another week slamming speed interval repeats on some enclosed loops. Tonight we reversed direction and ran the 10k course as a dress rehearsal/final benchmark. A little frustrated at not being able to get a run in this weekend, I decided to push them. So I set a steady pace and kept them to it. It wasn't particularly fast, but I held the same pace on all the uphills. I pushed them just enough that they had to work hard to keep up, but not hard enough that they would bonk before we finished.

We finished the loop in around 55 minutes (according to their watches - I never start mine for these runs) which really surprised them. For me, it was really exhilarating to see them so energized and full of questions. A good workout has that effect, and it's very much an honor and a privilege to share in that.

And I was glad I was able to run out some stiffness in my legs since I did the mother of all leg workouts last night. I shredded yesterday morning and then sat down and realized I was being lazy with my weights workouts. So I crafted my own leg and abs workout that really pushed me. I geared it toward building leg strength for hills, and it included 2-3 sets each of walking weighted lunges with trunk twists, one legged lunges, bridge pose into hamstring curls on the ball, squats and bicep curls combo, side lunges (are you seeing a pattern here) with front raises, deadlifts into lateral raises, bicycle crunches to exhaustion (one of my favorite ab workouts - I can go a long time), side lying leg lifts and butt blasters. Finished it off with a good 2 minutes of plank (deceptively hard). It was one of those workouts that leaves you glowing - your blood is pumping and you can take on the world. Gavin "worked out" with me, though his workout looked a lot more fun - it consisted of taking a run up, diving onto the stability ball, rolling over the top of it and pushing back off the table. Probably a good thing Nancy wasn't here to see it.

He would make a good coach too - "come on daddy, stop hogging the ball. You're going too slow"!!!

And as a bonus I realized this morning that I have the day off tomorrow. So I'm going to head out to Bastrop State Park for a nice run in the pines and to make up for the weekend.

It seems I just feel better when I'm running regularly.