Running and not running in New Orleans

Posted by Rachel

Last weekend we took a five day trip to New Orleans and it was a blast! What an interesting city filled with history, culture, and drunk people. I can see this entry possibly getting lengthy, so if you don’t have a lot of time just skip down to the pictures of food.

Here are the tours we did:

New Orleans food tour (“Tastebud”): I would highly recommend this tour. Even though the style of food in the tour wasn’t my favorite (read: low in carbs, high in protein), we got tastings at five different places and learned the history of the food. It was a good time, which I’ll represent below with the pictures of the two sandwiches from the tour (gumbo, jambalaya, beignets, coffee, and pralines not shown).

 Muffaletta. A rough choice for a no olive fan, but it still wasn't bad.

Roast beef po' boy- a sandwich I don't mind eating

Haunted History Tour: This tour was hilarious, probably because our tour guide was hammered. And to catch up the rest of the group, she stopped us at a bar (“haunted”) in the middle of the tour and recommended that we order a hurricane. This strategy worked- the whole tour group had a lot more fun after that! (Except for the teenagers of course, who were pretty much just embarrassed that their parents were so wasted.) Here’s a picture of the “haunted bar” we stopped at:

I think the hurricane was strong enough to count as >> 1 drink, but Travers and Kristen disagreed with me.

Plantation tour: We got a tour of two plantations- Oak Alley (traditional) and Laura (creole). This was super educational (and of course, appalling at the same time).

 

 Oak Alley

 

Swamp tour: This was just cool. Our tour guide was hilarious and we got a lot of neat pictures.

 

Travers holding a baby alligator. I think it's funny how the random girl behind him looks completely disgusted by what is happening.

World War II museum: this wasn’t a tour, but we did it the last day and it was neat. There is also a Civil War museum but we didn’t go so I have no idea if it’s any good. 

What I liked:

-All the tours we took

-The Garden district: one of the 3 runs we did was through this neighborhood. There are beautiful houses (although if you look at one for too long you’re sure to trip over the sidewalk). We actually went back to this neighborhood later in the day by taking the famous (?) St. Charles street car. We saw Archie Manning’s house and contemplated loudly declaring our love for Tom Brady on his front yard, but we ultimately refrained.

-The River Walk: Although only long enough to run about 1.5 miles, it gets you out of the craziness of the French Quarter and onto the water. A nice space, and I would highly recommend to the City of New Orleans that they extend this path along the full length of the Mississippi River. That would be great. 

Travers on the River Walk

-City Park: Once we survived our trek (see “biking” below), the park was really nice!

Me on my sweet rental bike in City Park (no gears included).

-Frenchmen street: Slightly off the beaten path, with live music at every bar. 

-Beignets.

This is the good life. I made the error of splitting this small plate of beignets with Travers. If there's ever a next time at Cafe Dumonde I'm getting my own plate, and recommend that anyone else who goes here does the same.

 

-Pretty much everything else that is not listed in “what I didn’t like”. 

What I didn’t like:

-The weird smell: At first I thought it was drunk people’s fault, but even outside of the touristy areas you’d catch a whiff of it every now and again. In all fairness, they did wash their streets with soap (which of course, Travers tried to cost-analyze and determine the benefits of fragrance versus no fragrance while we were eating breakfast).

-Some of the running: There are very few paths built for running longer than a mile, and the “sidewalks” are either packed with tourists, completely torn up (even in the nicest neighborhoods), or have cars parked on them (was this because of the heavy rain?).

-Some of the biking:  Lesson learned- if the city paints a bike on the road, it does not necessarily mean that you should bike there. It probably also didn’t help that Travers took us down a scary ass road to get to the park. In addition to cars trying to run us off of it (it was a main-ish road), let’s just say it was a questionable decision. We took a different way back. 

-The bread: The bread in New Orleans is freakin awful. It tastes like dry air. Not to mention, carbs (other than beignets) are really minimal other than a few grains of rice here and there.

-Lack of healthy food: On the last day I ordered a sandwich called the “greenie” (a turkey po’ boy). The only thing green on it was iceburg lettuce, and when the lady brought it out she said “oh honey, you must be watching your figure”. She handed it to me with a look on her face that said ‘I have no idea why you would order this sandwich when it’s the worst thing on the menu’, and if I had to do it again, I would just get something fried.

-The formality: Many of the restaurants we considered going to had a dress code of “jackets only” for men. Are you kidding me? Why would a man wear a jacket when it’s 80 degrees out? Flip flops should be allowed everywhere, period. So to wrap up this novel of a blog post, here’s a picture of Travers in I in one of the fancy/historical establishments in NO- Antoine’s. Luckily we went there for lunch, which served 3 purposes: (1) the meal was cheap, (2) martinis were even cheaper ($0.25!), and (3) we didn’t get laughed out of the restaurant because of what we were wearing.

Us at fancy Antoine's taking advantage of the lunch special :p

Ironman, Step 2: Completing my first lap swim in 6 years

Posted by Chen

First I don’t post in nearly a month, and now look – a flurry of activity! Today, I took my next major step towards potentially doing this whole triathlon thing.  That’s right, folks – after weeks of talking about it but flat out avoiding it, I finally got myself into the water. With the weather being as hot as it has been all week (90-plus degrees, for those of you not in the Bay Area), today seemed like a good day to not slog through another run and to try my hand at sport #3 instead.

Before I get into today’s swim, I should mention that the last time I swam laps was back in 2008 when I seriously injured my hip flexor and couldn’t run for 3 weeks while it healed. At the time, I was still a grad student at UCSB, and I had access to a pretty amazing outdoor pool. I remember getting pretty into doing laps during that time, but my hip flexors inevitably healed, and I quickly got back into running, leaving swimming far behind.

Fast forward to today. I’ve been a member at my gym for nearly four and a half years now, but I hadn’t ever been up to the lovely rooftop 25-yard pool until this afternoon. I was happy to see that there was a full lane open when I arrived (there are only 3 lanes as you can see in the picture below, so sharing is apparently common, as told to me by another member who was up there doing laps as well). Swimming in a straight line is not my forte (I know, it shouldn’t be that hard; I can’t really explain it), so I was glad that I could meander about as I wished while re-figuring this sport out.

It’s somewhat ridiculous that I never used this pool until today

Many random thoughts swam (ha) through my head during this workout, so I’ll break them up by laps (where 1 lap = out and back, or 50 yards), because organization is the key to life.

Lap 1: I think I was a bit too eager when I started and ended up really out of breath by the end of this lap. My new goggles also weren’t keeping water out as well as I would have liked (probably due to user error), and I had TOTALLY forgotten what it feels like to have water going up my nose/ears/every other orifice the whole time. I had to stop, stand up, and regroup, all the while thinking to myself “Holy $@^&*! That was only ONE lap! There’s no f-ing WAY I’m doing a triathlon in OPEN WATER, are you kidding??”

Luckily, I managed to calm myself down and told myself to just keep it easy and try again.

Laps 2-15: I decided to breathe every other stroke rather than every three as I had been doing in the first lap, which definitely kept me calmer during my freestyle laps. I also decided to alternate freestyle with breaststroke every lap, as breaststroke is far easier for me mentally right now. I know that I’ll eventually want to swim entirely using freestyle, but for my first day, this would have to do. During these initial laps, I kept thinking about how so many people are around you in a tri, kicking you in the face and swimming over you if they have to. Every time these thoughts raced through my head, I would temporarily get really nervous and start to panic. To cope, I would turn my attention to saying the lap number over and over so I wouldn’t forget where I was. Side note: who knew counting could be so hard??? This seemed to work, so I kept at it.

Laps 16-30: I started to get into the groove, and while my freestyle laps still felt far more panicky than my breaststroke ones, my overall panic level was slowly subsiding. At this point, I saw someone get into the far lane and noticed that he was, like, twice to three times as fast as the other two of us in the pool. I was impressed. However, I will never aim for speed in the water. I will aim for breathing and life.

Laps 31-45: At this point, I was getting even more comfortable and decided to try my hand at breathing every three strokes for my freestyle laps again. I generally did OK, but what I think I realized is that I swim so slowly at the moment that three strokes is a really long time, and I inevitably kept running out of air while my face was under water. So I would take a big gasp during my breathing strokes and then repeat the whole cycle again. I think I like alternating my breathing sides, though, and it also helps me swim in a straight line, so I’m going to keep working at it.

I finally got out of the pool (I have no idea how long 45 laps took me since I didn’t look at the clock, but I can assure you my pace was stupid slow), and as I was drying off, a sweet lady in the lane over gave me a thumbs up and said, “Good job! You’re a really good swimmer!” I certainly don’t believe her words to be true, but at this point, I’ll take any confidence booster I can get.

All in all, despite my many moments of panic and dread, 2250 yards wasn’t bad for my first day. I definitely need to schedule a lesson with Rachel at some point so that she can tell me how terrible my form is, but it’s nice to know I can still keep myself afloat.

That said, today reminded me that I will DEFINITELY need to practice open water swimming like a thousand times before my first triathlon. Swimming is no joke. If you get tired while biking, you can take a break by coasting down some hills. If you get tired while running, you can take a break by walking for a bit. But swimming? If you get tired while swimming and try to take a break, YOU DIE. I guess that’s a good reason to start incorporating this sport into my weekly workouts, stat. Yeah. I gotta go make a training plan now.

Running, lately, and my first brick workout

Posted by Chen

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, mainly because I’ve been doing nothing that comes even close to resembling any sort of training. My legs are still very much in recovery mode from the Boston ‘thon, but I have managed to get in a few fun runs over the past few weeks thanks to lots of personal travel plans.

After Boston, I took a train down to NYC for the rest of the week to work remotely and visit my old roommate (we roomed together when I lived in NYC back in the day) and her husband. I love, love, LOVE getting to run in Central Park, and I stared wistfully at it on Tuesday and Wednesday after the race while my legs remained in a hostile “what-have-you-done-to-me” state.

By Thursday, though, after a couple of test strides in the apartment, I deemed myself ready to move again and headed straight to Engineer’s Gate and the main 6 mile loop. I purposely didn’t bring my Garmin because I wasn’t interested in seeing just how pathetically slow I was, but despite my shuffling, I was so happy to be surrounded by my old stomping grounds. Also, by that point in the week, I had run out of long-sleeve T’s that I had packed and was down to my new Boston shirts, which I secretly hoped would explain my granny-gear pace to everyone passing me. Amusingly, every time I spotted another runner sporting his or her Boston gear, we would give each other a nod of sorts, as if to say “Yes! My legs are super sore too, and it’s somewhat ridiculous that we're even trying to run right now, but look at us! We’re kind-of-sort-of moving!” 

Every time I go to NYC, I HAVE to get a real bagel, because they don’t exist in CA. I’m pretty sure bagels have increased in size since I left the city. Took this picture with a mouse for comparison.

After NYC, I hopped on a plane to head to Austin for an undergrad friend’s wedding. Austin is another one of my favorite places to run thanks to the miles of trails along Lady Bird Lake, so I was eager to get out there. What I wasn’t looking forward to, however, was going from 55 degrees in NYC to 97 degrees in texasTEXAS – that adjustment was really something special. While I was managing 7 mile runs in the Big Apple, 4-5 was all Brandon and I could handle in Austin before slogging back to our blissfully air conditioned Embassy Suites hotel room.

Despite the blazing heat, we had a great time catching up with college friends and visiting Austin’s many cool outdoor spots. We went to a sausage and beer place called Banger’s that had the most taps I’ve ever seen in one place:

Only in Texas… I couldn’t capture all of the taps in one picture. Not even close.

The wedding itself was a blast (what wedding isn’t?), and Brandon and I both took the next day off from work (it was a Sunday wedding) to explore Austin a bit more before flying back to the west coast.

I returned back to the office for all of three days before jet-setting off again, this time to Portland, OR for a reunion weekend with a couple of my high school friends. We started a tradition a few years ago to meet up every spring in a different city to catch up and explore – a brilliant idea, if we do say so ourselves.

While I was once staffed in Portland for three months working for my old consulting firm, I had to do all of my runs when it was still dark out, so I never got to run along the Willamette River that I’d heard so much about. This time, I woke up each morning during the three days I was there to get in 7.15, 5.4, and 5.2 miles, respectively, all around the river with some gorgeous views.

A beautiful riverwalk

I did wear my Garmin for all three of those runs, mainly because I was completely unfamiliar with distances there (and I HAVE to have accurate distances for my running spreadsheet or else the world will implode). I was keeping the effort easy all weekend, which translated into about an 8:45 pace. Not terrible, but also indicative of the fact that I was definitely still in recovery mode (Boston has an uncanny way of trashing my legs like no other marathon can).

Those riverfront runs were a great way to start each day, and I thoroughly enjoyed everything we did that weekend, which included driving out to Hood River to visit waterfalls, wineries, and breweries on Friday, visiting the food/crafts market and Japanese Gardens on Saturday, and walking around the Pearl District and Nob Hill on Sunday. Perhaps one of the biggest collective highlights of our trip, though, was all of the amazing FOOD.  Eating is what I do best, and Portland has some ridiculously good joints. Definitely looking forward to visiting that city again soon!

Best meal ever at Pok Pok: Clockwise from top left: Green papaya salad, fish sauce chicken wings, water spinach, and prawns with pork belly, Chinese celery, and bean thread noodles. NOM.

That brings us to this past weekend, when I completed my first official brick workout. Brandon and I met my old coworker down at the Bay Trail on Saturday morning. This route was completely flat, so compared to my other two rides so far, it was a breeze (aside from the major headwind in one direction). After 20 miles, I decided to hop off and go for a quick run while the other two continued on.

I only ran 4 miles, but holy hell – biking makes running feel SO WEIRD. I felt like I was dragging the whole time (probably because I was used to biking speed), but I was actually running marathon goal pace and managed to average 7:57 pace for the run (probably because my legs were locking into my cycling cadence rather than my typical, lazy, far-less-than-the-ideal-180-steps-per-minute running cadence). It was the strangest feeling to feel so weak but perform decently well at the same time.

The fact that biking managed to suck the fun out of my run did nothing to make me embrace this whole triathlon thing any further, but I suppose I’m willing to keep giving this sport a chance. In a weird way, it’s nice to be completely bad at something again, and I’m looking forward to (hopefully) making gains and watching myself improve over the summer.

I still need to get my @$$ into a pool, though. Coach Rachel – help! 

Volunteer Report: Western Pacific Marathon, Half, 10K and 5

Posted by Katie

Speaking of volunteering… Matt and I volunteered at an aid station for the Western Pacific races put on by Brazen Racing on Saturday. I have always looked into Brazen races, they do so many cool trail races in the east bay but yesterday was my first event! I have to say, I was impressed by their aid stations and their appreciation for volunteers, I will definitely run one of their races and volunteer again.

http://www.brazenracing.com/westernpacific.html

This race is in Fremont, so we absolutely felt we should either run or volunteer. With a marathon coming up in 3 weeks, volunteering seemed like the more logical choice. We were situated at aid station #2 so we were at the 10K turnaround and the half and full marathon ran past us and then turned around to run past us again. I thought this might lead to a crazy rush of people at the water stop, but the way they staggered the start meant the flow of runners was pretty constant, but never over whelming. When I run a race, I expect to see water, some type of sports drink, and maybe Gu. Brazen races really goes above and beyond in aid station stocking, three flavors of gu, and TONS of food  basically what I would expect in an ultra (see photo).

Aid station goodies

The other sweet thing is the volunteer swag. Volunteers are given a tech shirt and sandwiches for lunch. In addition depending on how long of a shift you volunteer for, you are given a full or partial credit for a future Brazen race! Sweet!

In other news the big 20 mile long run was today and it went... um, good and bad? The first 9 went perfectly, the next 11 were a huge struggle. Hopefully the taper helps. 

-Katie

Trek Domane- my new bike!

Posted by Rachel 

So I finally got a new bike! I test rode about 4-5 different brands and models and went with the Trek, which I love! I’m not really that into cycling so I’m not going to extensively review it (mostly because I don’t have the technical knowledge to provide quality information), but it’s definitely the most comfortable bike I’ve ever rode (thank you carbon + good engineering) (far more comfortable than my Specialized Dolce Sport). The components are also nicer and I don’t feel like I’m fighting the bike as much. The question people always want to know is “is it faster?”, and since I’m a fairly quantitative person I’ll provide some insight here. My commute home from work is a good benchmark because I do it often, although there are variables in headwind, stoplights, and temperature. On Wednesday I did my first ride home on the new bike and it was about 0.5 mph faster than my previous commutes (it was also hotter- 90 degrees, but I’m not sure if the heat slowed my pace). So basically, I do think it’s faster, but it’s not launching me to victory in cycling or anything like that. That’s actually one of the reasons cycling is my least favorite triathlon sport- because you can pay for speed and advantages. Sure, the good cyclists train very hard, but I much prefer sports with minimal equipment. It should be just you and your suffering that determine your performance, hence my love of swimming and running :) I also want to give props to Cycle Sports in Oakland if any East Bay-ers are reading this because they were great to work with, know a TON about bikes, and really take care of you after your purchase!

To further break in my new bike, Travers took us on a ridiculous, 45 mile bike ride with 4300 feet of climbing on the peninsula (from Millbrae BART). The worst part by far was the downhill, which took place on a busy road with a highly variable shoulder (by highly variable, I mean that at times it did not exist). I can safely say I will NEVER do this ride again, although I wouldn’t mind repeating the post-ride Chipotle burrito and Patron margarita (finding a Chipotle that serves tequila was a huge win). Luckily, on the aforementioned terrifying downhill, there was a vista point where we could pull over and regroup. I’ll document the ride with a picture from that.

This serene photo does not properly reflect the misery of the ride

And of course, my new toy!

During the summers, our second bedroom gets converted from guest room to tri gear storage room. This is quite practical since we don't actually ever have guests.

Closing stray thoughts:

-The Warriors are killing me right now. You would think as a Bills/Sabres fan, I'd be highly accustomed to this.

-On the way home from work yesterday we heard "woomp there it is" on the radio. It made me feel old. That and not getting ID'ed for my margarita at Chipotle today.