Month: July 2023

Today’s Run Notes

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It’s pretty miserable out there today. Not overly hot, but very humid. I didn’t get out for my run until 9:00, and by then, it was 80°F with a dewpoint of 72°, with bright sunshine (in contrast to recent days, which have been mostly cloudy to overcast in the mornings). My first note to myself is that I really, really have to get out of the house earlier on days when it is this humid. Before 7:00am would be ideal. My chosen route had less shade than usual, because the sun had already reached a lot of areas which typically have shade earlier in the morning. I only made it 4 miles before I had to stop to avoid overheating. My splits tell the story: mile 1 was 10:47/mile, mile 2 was 11:24/mile, mile 3 was 12:22/mile, and mile 4 was 13:49/mile. I walked another 1.3 miles to get home, so my total distance on the morning was 5.3 miles. In spite of the poor weather, it felt like an OK run form-wise. I’m getting better at maintaining a high cadence in varying conditions, even though, similar to Wednesday, my average cadence (177 steps per minute) was slightly slower than ideal.

Noteworthy today was that I ran with my new Xero HFS shoes instead of my usual Vibram V-Runs. I ordered a size 11.5 because the web site says they run small, but I probably would have been fine with size 11, as this pair feels a tiny bit large. Ironically, my Xero Terraflex trail shoes were too small at size 11, but perfect at 11.5. Go figure. Today’s run went just fine. The shoes didn’t feel like they were getting in the way, although they definitely felt “larger” than my Vibrams. I suspect that the HFS will make better winter running shoes than the Vibrams, as I’ll be able to wear warmer wool socks with them. Looking forward to testing that theory out in several months.

No huge issues with my right ankle/foot today. It bothers me more while walking than running, I guess because of the different biomechanics involved. I did some foam rolling, light stretching, and warm-ups before going out. My right calf seems less tight today than yesterday. I’m going to keep trying to improve my ankle mobility. In particular, I’ve been doing more heel walking to try to work my tibialis anterior muscles, which oppose the calf muscles. We’ll see how this goes over time.

Brew Notes

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I brewed my Lost Dog Mocha Sidamo dark roast beans today using this exact recipe, just as an experiment, as it produces great results with my other bag of medium/medium-dark beans. I had brewed a variation of the same recipe with the Mocha Sidamo beans recently, and noted that it seemed a little under-extracted, so it seemed logical to try upping the temperature a little bit and using a tiny bit finer grind size. It turned out… okay, but a little bit weak tasting. Flavor-wise, it seemed fine, so maybe I need more coffee to get the richer taste I’m looking for. Or, maybe this just isn’t the ideal recipe to be using with dark roast. I seemed to get better results using a different recipe that calls for a finer grind and shorter brew time. I found this article, which has some good info about brewing dark roasted beans, and it seems to support the theory that shorter brew times are better. It’s worth noting that I preferred the other recipe at around a 1:12 ratio, while today’s was 1:13.3. I should try brewing both recipes at 1:12, and see which one turns out better. That would mean 17 grams of coffee to 200 grams of water (actually around 1:11.8).

Afternoon notes

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Something is definitely up with my right foot and calf, as I’ve been getting some discomfort in the rear of the foot towards the heel while walking on my treadmill desk. My right calf also seems really tight, which is an issue I’ve dealt with a lot over the years. As I wrote yesterday, I suspect that it is an ankle mobility issue. It has gotten a little bit worse since I started swimming backstroke a few days ago, and I do think my kicking technique needs a lot of work. For the time being, I am going to stop doing backstroke and probably cut down a bit on freestyle, focusing more on breaststroke and butterfly, and see if it calms down. I’m also going to focus a little bit more on exercises to improve ankle mobility. I found this page, which seems like a pretty good resource.

I tried making some iced coffee this afternoon. I have a fair amount of pre-ground Wellsley Farms (BJ’s store brand) breakfast blend coffee with a “best by” date of August 2023, so I’m looking for creative ways to use it up. Since it’s ground fine for drip machines, it’s not ideal to use for cold brew, so I decided to try this recipe for iced coffee. I followed the recipe to the letter, using my electric kettle and measuring everything out with a scale. It’s the closest I’ve come to doing pour-over coffee. I don’t (yet) have a pour-over dripper, so I used a strainer and a regular coffee filter, and dripped the coffee into a Pyrex 2 quart measuring cup. Ideally, I need something a little bit deeper for this, as I had to lift the strainer up at the end to keep it out of the brewed coffee. But other than that, it turned out fine, and made about 24 ounces of iced coffee. It wasn’t all that strong, but good for a summer afternoon. I tried mixing some with a little bit of chocolate almond milk, which was tasty, but the almond milk doesn’t mix well with the water, and I had to keep stirring it to keep it from settling. Real dairy milk might fare better. At any rate, I’ll probably try doing this again.

Last Cup

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I brewed my last full cup of coffee with my Starbucks medium roast beans this morning, which is noteworthy only because this was my first foray into grinding beans myself. I’ve had the bag since last winter, and started out using a blade grinder and a drip coffee maker. Needless to say, the results were inconsistent — some cups were good, and others were not so good! I soon switched to a good quality burr grinder and a French press, which produced much better results. Somewhere along the way, I started measuring beans and water by weight rather than volume. Then, I upgraded from a cheap electric kettle to an expensive one that lets me heat water to a specific temperature, and I added an Aeropress. I now brew most of my cups with the electric kettle, burr grinder, scale, and either Aeropress or French press. But the point is, these beans have been with me through the entire progression.

I brewed this recipe with the Starbucks beans yesterday and today. Yesterday’s cup turned out pretty good, but ever so slightly bitter. Today’s was great. The difference: yesterday, I dumped the beans into the grinder directly from the jar, and a lot of “fines”, husks, and other smaller fragments from the bottom of the bag got mixed in there, which I suspect imparted a little bit of bitterness. Today, I made sure that only whole beans got into the grinder, and the result was a better cup.

There are still a few beans left at the bottom of the jar, which I’ll probably grind up along with the fragments and use for cold brew. I guess it won’t be too long before I’ll be looking to buy some new beans.

Pillar Climbing

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I drove up to Pennsylvania yesterday to find a geocache at the top of a 30′ pillar. This is the third like this I’ve found, and a popular type of “extreme” cache hide. Most of these old pillars carried railroad tracks “back in the day”, which have since been abandoned, but the pillars (built to stand the test of time) remain, usually alongside or in the middle of rivers. Many of them have caches on top. These caches typically aren’t found very often — while there are a large number of people with the skills and equipment to ascend pillars, and also a large number of geocachers, the intersection of those two sets is relatively small. The cache we found yesterday had not been found in 4.5 years.

Typically, to climb these, you need to shoot a line over the top of the pillar, use it to pull a rope over, anchor the rope, ascend the rope using appropriate gear, and then rappel back down. Sounds deceptively simple, but throw in a fast-moving stream or river, trees to snag the line, nooks and crannies at the top where the rope can get stuck, etc., and setting the rope can get tricky. Ascending up can be physically challenging, and the technique takes some practice to master. Getting up over the edge takes upper-body strength, and rappelling back down can be scary. But it’s a great adrenaline rush, and a real feeling of accomplishment when you succeed.

I’ve used a different rappelling technique with each of the 3 pillars I’ve climbed. The tricky thing about these is that the rope is typically very low — most often running across the top of the pillar, at foot level as you start. The first technique was shown to me by someone with a lot of rope experience. You start by standing up, legs straight, with a low center of gravity, and slowly pivoting backwards until you “pop” onto the wall. It’s really cool, but really scary. With method two, you sit on top, legs dangling off the side, and then kind of roll yourself over into rappel position. Less scary, but fewer style points.

The third method, which I used yesterday, worked out well. We put an ascender on the rope above the rope protector, attached a rope (actually webbing) ladder, and dangled it over the side. I got into position by grabbing the ascender and stepping down onto the ladder to get below the rope. Not sure it will always be possible to rig this, but I felt more confident with this method than with the other two.

Anyhow, every time I do one of these, it whets my appetite to more. I hope to get a group together to tackle another one of these in the not-too-distant future.

Run Notes

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I ran this morning for the first time in 6 days. The hiatus was mostly due to my schedule (crazy holiday week/weekend with lots going on) but I was kind of looking to rest for a few days anyhow, due to a little bit of mild discomfort in my right heel the past 2 or 3 times I’ve been out. It’s not PF (I know too well what that feels like) but I think it’s likely due to a knot in my right calf. Today, I used the foam roller on my calves, and did some ankle mobility exercises before going out. While running, I tried to work on keeping my ankles loose and relaxed, as I’ve also been doing lately while swimming. As a result, my running cadence was down very slightly from usual (probably because I was lifting my feet more), but I had no discomfort. It was one of the better runs I’ve had in the heat and humidity this year. Temperature was 80 with a dewpoint around 70, and I again ran a very deliberate average pace of 11:50/mile. I ran 6.9 miles, and felt pretty good the entire time. For the first time, I tried running with a Sweathawg headband underneath my hat, and while it’s a snug combination, I didn’t get a single drop of sweat in my eyes. When these go on sale again, I’ll probably pick up a couple more of them. I have yet to try the X2 (double thickness) bands that I bought, but based on what I’ve learned so far, I think the standard thickness will work fine for me. The exception might be the mountain bike, but it might be a couple of weeks before I get an opportunity to ride my MTB again.

Medley

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I realized after swimming today that I essentially swam an Olympic individual medley (although slightly out of order) for the first time. I swam 3 sets of 240 strokes each: 60 breastroke, 60 freestyle, 60 butterfly, and 60 backstroke. Backstroke is still decidedly a work in progress. I made it through 3 sets of 60 strokes for the first time, but still feel a little bit uncoordinated at times. At one point, I inhaled a bunch of water through my nose, which forced me to stop and cough it all up. I also noticed some calf stiffness after the swim, particularly on the right side. I am assuming that this is because I’m still not fully relaxing my ankles, which I’m hoping will improve as I get more comfortable with the stroke. I’ve been getting better in that department with freestyle, but I think my kicking could use some improvement with both strokes.

Paddle Notes

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We paddled at Rocky Gorge Reservoir this morning, for the first time since 2020. We used the launch at Scott’s Cove Recreation Area, which is within the magical 20-minute drive radius of home, and paddled about 5.5 miles, looping out to the US 29 overpass and back. With the oppressively humid air and the predicted high of 90°F later today (not to mention the daily thunderstorms), we got out early, putting in at 8:30 and taking out almost exactly 2 hours later. In addition to the humidity, there was very little wind, but fortunately, the sun mostly stayed behind clouds while we were out. On the return leg, we even had some light showers, which felt very refreshing. It was not a bad paddle, and there were several other people out on the water on this quasi-holiday Monday morning. The only thing keeping me from coming here more often is the $5/person fee that WSSC charges for a daily watershed usage permit. It’s not that I mind paying the fee, it’s just that there are other nearby places that are just as convenient and free. With all of that said, it’s a nice place to paddle, and I think I’ll try to get out here once or twice a year going forward.

Brew Notes

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: Lost Dog Coffee “Mocha Sidamo” dark
  • Grind: “Finer end of medium” – 1.5 turns on the JX PLUS 3 clicks, or 48 total clicks
  • 85°C water
  • 16 grams coffee / 200 grams water
  • James Hoffmann’s Ultimate Aeropress Recipe

I’ve used a different recipe with these beans several times, with pretty good results, but I just wanted to try something different. I decided to try yesterday’s recipe, with a couple of tweaks: 16 grams coffee (vs 15), 85°C water (vs 90°C), and 48 clicks on the JX (vs 42, or slightly coarser). Compared to the recipe I’ve previously used with these beans, this one uses the same water temperature, with a coarser grind (48 clicks vs 36) and a longer brew time. The other recipe also uses less water for the brew (160 grams) and 40 grams bypass water. Today’s cup turned out OK, but maybe slightly underextracted. Next time, I could either increase the water temperature to 90°C, or go with a slightly finer grind.

Swim Notes

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We certainly had weird weather this past spring. Early on, it was wet, and then we had drought conditions for a couple of months. Now, the pattern has changed again, and early summer has alternated between cloudy, humid, stormy days and hazy, smoky days, depending on the wind direction. As a result, the sun hasn’t been really strong at all this summer, so the pool water has stayed pretty cool. Today, I swam in 78°F water, which is almost unheard of on July 1. It’s an almost perfect swimming temperature, though.

I’ve finally decided to try to swim backstroke regularly on the tether. It’s the only Olympic swimming stroke I haven’t really spent much time with. My first attempts a few days ago were pretty awkward. I was flailing all over the place, getting winded, and ending up at all kinds of crazy angles to the pool wall. Today, I was able to get straightened out a bit and complete a full set of 60 strokes without gasping for air at the end. I’ll keep working on my coordination, and hopefully, I’ll continue to improve. My goal is eventually to split my swimming equally between freestyle, breaststroke, butterfly, and backstroke.