Wolf Pack Saturday Beer Run

This was quite the event!  The theme was "birthday party" and we were supposed to dress up as our favorite childhood toy or just dress up along the birthday theme, but I'm not a fan of costumes so I just wore running clothes.  If anyone asked I said I was "run and chug Barbie." We met at Wolf Hills around 1 PM, and then piled into a few cars to shuttle across town to Moon Dog Pizza, where we started with a beer.  Then the running began with a jog down the street to El Bigotes, where I chose to drink water.  That was followed by JJs sports bar where I had a Guinness, and then Luke's where I had water.  Then came the longest run of the event, which was about 1.1 miles to a park where we were divided into teams.  The main goal of the team competitions was not to come in last.  (Losers did shots at the next stop).

The first competition  involved a chalk circle on the ground, where you had to toss a penny and try to get points.  (middle of the circle was 5, mid circle was 4, outer circle was 2.  I got my team 4 points, and we ended up winning that round.  Next up was an egg in spoon relay race where we each had to walk/run to a specific point with the egg and then when all of us had gone, someone had to eat the egg.  We came in second place in that relay, less than a second behind first place.  The final competition was another relay, in which each leg of the relay had to do a specific movement.  I chose the second leg, which was "hop on one foot."  I made it the whole way down and back at quite a good pace, without ever losing my balance.  I was kind of impressed with that... We finished just barely second place again.

Then it was on to the Peppermill where I had a Guinness, and then Bonefire where I opted out of drinking, but did take part in the coloring contest.  A random customer was chosen to judge; I didn't win.  Next up was the Tavern, where I had  a Pilsner and we played pin the tail on the donkey.  I came in 2nd place.  We were supposed to stop at 128 Pecan next, but they were crowded and we didn't want to inconvenience them, so we headed on to Rain where I had a delicious Long Trail Porter.  Final stop was Wolf Hills where I had my favorite Zazzy's coffee ale and played a game of corn hole with some friends.

Unicorn runners?

2 weeks of craziness

The first week of August was a whirlwind involving my last week working at Greenbrier Valley Brewing Co, a visit to Bristol to tour my new school and find an apartment, and lots of packing.  The second week of August was another whirlwind with packing, driving to Abingdon and unloading the Uhaul on Tuesday, returning to Lewisburg the same day to wrap up final stuff and say goodbye to people, and then I officially left Lewisburg and moved into my apartment in Abingdon on Thursday.  So, I no longer live in WV but I'm not letting go of my "WV hill runner" status quite yet.

Suprisingly, I actually managed to exercise 5 days each week!  No high mileage, but at this point I'm happy just to get out there, even if it's short!

August 1-7

M : last Pub Run 3.3 / 8:48 / 36 ft

R : run 6.2 / 7:44 / 472 ft

F : bike w./ Dan 21.6 / 17.3 mph / 1355 ft

Sa : run 4.5 / 7:58 / 328 ft

Su : bike w/Dan 19.7 / 16.4 mph / 1325 ft

run total : 14 miles

bike total : 41.4

August 8-14

W : run 4.5 / 8:43 / 453 ft (forgot inhaler)

R : bike 13.1 / 17.8 mph / 830 ft (first day in Abingdon)

F : run road/trail 4 / 8:22 / 413 ft 

Sa : bike 11.3 / 18.4 mph / 617 ft

Su : run 4.5 / 7:32 / 246 ft

run total : 13 miles

bike total : 24.4

It has been ridiculously hot here in Abingdon.  90ish degrees, "feels like 96+" doesn't make it super easy to exercise outside, which makes me even more impressed that I got even the minimal mileage that I did this week.  Between all the work I've done unpacking my apartment and the exercise, the few extra pounds I gained months ago finally just melted (sweated) off.  

I'm running at about the same elevation here in Abingdon as I was in Lewisburg (just over 2000 ft), but the neighborhood/downtown hills are definitely not nearly as long or steep as they were in Lewisburg.  If there are some bigger ones, I'm sure I will find them in time though!  

Tomorrow I start teacher week at my new school (Sullins Academy), and I hope to be able to get into a routine of daily exercise like I haven't had for a long time!  

Photos from my last days in Lewisburg. 

Wearing matching glowstick necklaces and having a blast. 

Gonna miss her!

Farewell night at the Pub.

(apparently "Thanks for all the fish" is a reference to a movie I haven't seen...)

I did make a final batch of Potato Leek soup for the Pub on my last day in town!

Saying goodbye to Pony on my way out of town.

Car is all loaded up with the last bits and pieces from my apartment.  

Whatever didn't fit at this point, got tossed!

Some photos from my first 4 days in Abingdon

Home is where the bike is?

Hardly anything is set up at this point, but my bike found it's new place.

Next order of business: hang up the awesome medal hanger I won at the South Peak Hill Challenge

and hang my medals on it!  All my medals from races ranging from 10 mile to marathon.

I came down the road on the left and snapped this photo before turning around and heading back up the hill the way I came.  I'll explore that road leading off into the hills on a future ride!  

This is just past White's Mill Mercantile.  

Found out that Wolf Hill's Brewing Co is only a 0.8 mile walk from my apartment...so I headed there on Friday night to try two of their beers.  Started with the Troopers Alley IPA and finished with this Zazzy's Downtown Ground.  I was told it's a coffee stout, but I'm doubting the "stout" part.  It was a really delicious coffee beer though!  

Blacksburg 10 miler

Happy to say that I have completed another successful race.  I was a bit worried going into it, having no idea how much my food was going to hurt, or how weak my lungs were going to be.  Turns out my race shoes are a lot nicer to my tendonitis than my training shoes are.  So that was a plus.  And at some point during the race, I realized that I don't actually breathe all the way in when I'm running.  So I started focusing on breathing in as far as I possibly good before exhaling.  And I imagine that helped my lungs not quit on me like they did at Beckley back in October.  So that was another plus.

I wasn't sure how many people were in front of me for much of the race, but there was an out and back portion with the turn-around at mile 7, so that gave me a chance to count the females ahead of me.  I was 7th place female for almost the entire race, but 6th place started walking around mile 8 so I decided to pick up the pace and fly by her.  Around that time, the wind was really picking up, pushing against me.  So I put my head down and pushed back.  For some reason, I find it easier to push the pace when I am pushing into the wind.  It was weird, but that wind actually did help me finish the last 2 miles a lot stronger than I would have without it.

I had absolutely no idea what kind of a pace I was running.  I wasn't wearing a watch, and there were no clocks on the course.  Since I was in the top 10, I assumed I was doing pretty well pace-wise, but I knew I wasn't running my normal top-shape pace.  I was quite pleased to come around the final turn towards the finish and see that the race clock had just turned 1:10.  I finished 14 seconds later.  I am super happy with my finish time.  I would have loved to be under 7 min/mile, but I was not expecting it.  I was expecting to be closer to 7:15, considering how little I've been able to run lately, and how few miles I've gotten.

After the race, I picked up some insoles at the running store, so hopefully they will help my foot hurt less on training runs.

The day in pictures:

Pre-race "selfie."

Sporting my Irish Pub gear...so glad to have a sponsor this year!

I ended up ditching the long sleeve shirt before the race, it was in the high 50s!

Post-race photo.

Super grateful to these girls for doing all the driving on this trip, I don't think I would have made it home alive if I had had to drive home alone. I was beyond exhausted. 

Needed a post-race bacon cheeseburger, and Trish sent me to The Cellar while she and Bethany got Chipotle.  They had such a fabulous selection of beers that are unavailable in WV, I had to pick out a selection while I was waiting for my burger.  The one on the far right is a "Chocolate Peanut Butter Porter." I can't wait to find out what that tastes like...it sounds intriguing. 

20 days til my next half marathon. After today's success, I'm not so worried about it!

Pumpkin Ravioli

It's been awhile since I made pasta from scratch!  But I've been wanting to make pumpkin ravioli and I had some time this evening (for once I wasn't too hungry to wait for dinner to cook), so I made them.

Pasta Dough

1 egg

1/4 c wheat flour

3/4 c + white flour

2 tbsp olive oil

garlic powder

ginger powder

salt

Filling

big scoop of pumpkin

big handful of shredded colby jack cheese

Pumpkin Ravioli, 

with a Pumpkin Cream Sauce*, 

on a bed of Kale, 

with some Pumpkin Chicken** on the side.

And don't forget the Pumpkin Porter!

*Pumpkin, Heavy Cream, Sage, Ginger

**Boiled in pumpkin and Shock Top Pumpkin Wheat Beer

Yes, I love pumpkin!

Stout Stroganoff

I've made Beef Stroganoff with red wine before, I've never made it with beer.  My plan this evening was to make it with Guinness, but then I discovered that I was out of Guinness.  I did have a Breckenridge Oatmeal Stout though.  So I went with that.  1 cup of the beer went into the pasta pot along with 1 jar of beef gravy, one can of mushroom soup, and 2 cups of water, the rest went into a skillet with the stew beef with some garlic powder.  In a separate skillet, I cooked 1/4 of an onion, 2 carrots, and 4 stalks of celery.  When the beef was about done, I added the veggies.  When the pasta pot started boiling, I added egg noodles and cooked them for about 10 min.  When they were almost done, I added 5 mushrooms to the beef and veggies.  When the pasta was done, I added the solid contents of the skillet.  I added a tbsp of cornstarch to the remaining liquid and cooked it til thick, then added the gravy to the pot with everything else.

It turned out to be a pretty good stroganoff.  The beer made it a little bit bitter though.  Funny how I never notice the bitterness of the beer when I drink it, but it definitely came out in the food.

On a side note, blogger doesn't recognize "stroganoff" as a word, and wants me to change it to "strongman."

Um...seriously?

Pita Bread

A few weeks ago, The Beeroness posted a recipe for pita bread.  It had never occurred to me before to make a pita bread, but I loved the idea.  I have made bread and rolls that work for sandwiches, but I haven't loved any of them for sandwiches.  Pita bread is great for sandwiches though, so I was excited to try it out.  Also, I got to try using the dough hook attachment on my mixer for the first time.  Wow was that so much easier and less messy than kneading bread by hand...

Ingredients

1 c whole wheat flour

1 1/2 c white flour

1 envelope rapid rise yeast

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp ginger powder

1 tsp salt

1 c Killian's Irish Stout

Directions

Combine the dry ingredients in the mixer.  Heat the beer in the microwave until it reaches 120 degrees.  Add it to the mixer and mix it until smooth.  It only took a few minutes in my mixer.  Cover the dough and let it rise for an hour (mine ended up rising for more like 2 hours because I was busy).  Knead the risen dough with a little bit of flour, then divide it into 8 chunks.  Flatten each chunk as thin as possible.  Heat a non-stick skillet, and cook the pitas one at a time.  Cook for a few minutes on each side.  

Rip a pita in half, and carefully slice each half open.  

Fill it with some yummy chicken salad.  

I'll be having pita sandwiches for lunch this week!

Diabolical Bacon Cookies

Somebody come save me from myself! I was left unsupervised on a rainy Sunday, and 45 of these appeared in my kitchen.  There are still 42 left...

Ingredients

1/2 stick butter

1/4 c vegetable oil

1/2 c brown sugar

1/4 c white sugar

1/4 c stout beer

4 slices of bacon

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 tsp vanilla

1 egg

1/2 c whole wheat flour

1 c white flour

mini chocolate chips

My new favorite stout (after Guinness of course)

Magic Hat's Heart of Darkness Stout

Directions

Chop the bacon into little pieces.  Throw it in a skillet on medium heat.  When the bacon starts to look crispy, drain the excess grease.  Add the beer, cook until the liquid has evaporated off.  When done, put the bacon on a paper towel to soak up any remaining grease.

In a mixing bowl, combine the other ingredients, in the order listed.  Add the bacon and chocolate chips last.

Put tiny spoonfuls of batter onto a baking sheet.  I got 3 sheets of 15 cookies each.   

Cook at 375 for 6 minutes.  

(Longer if you make bigger cookies)

Enjoy responsibly with some beer.

Olive Oil & Beer Cake

A few months ago I made a Rosemary Olive Oil Cake.  It was yummy, but way too sweet for my tastes.  Tonight, I was itching to bake something, but couldn't decide what, so I organized my recipe box while I was thinking about it.  I came across the recipe for the Olive Oil Cake and decided it was time to try it again.  However, the original recipe called for white wine, and I don't have any right now.  But I did have a bottle of beer that I didn't particularly want to drink.  So I decided to substitute beer for wine.  I also changed the flour and sugar types/amounts from the original recipe.

ingredients listed in the order that I added them to the mixing bowl

1 c Shock-Top Raspberry Wheat Beer 

1 c olive oil

4 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp salt

2 1/4 tsp baking powder

1+ tbs crushed rosemary

1/2 c brown sugar

1 c white sugar

1/2 c wheat flour

2 c white flour

pour batter into a 9x9 pan

bake at 350 for 50 min

I had to cut the cake into 4 pieces in order to remove it from the pan

 For my taste-test...I ate the pieces that stuck to the pan

Delicious.