Woodsy

Barrels of fun

 
Barrels at Ken Wright Cellars, photo courtesy of Joe.

One of the great Northwest holiday traditions is to spend Thanksgiving weekend in Wine Country.  And the weekend before Thanksgiving if you can swing it.  Now that I'm back on my 3-and-4 day weekend schedule, I felt I could almost justify these extra days spent wine tasting.  I'm still not quite sure if I like wine.  Must keep tasting.  I think it's an aquired taste.  And I'm willing to try anything once, twice...twelve times.

 
Artsy picture by Joe.  These are not all my glasses.

 
Hesitant to taste from the barrel, but I'll give it a try.  Four tries- that's it.

I purchased one bottle of wine from Ayers, my favorite stop on the weekend-before-Thanksgiving excursion.  I won't bother reviewing the other wineries to offer my insightful comments such as, "these wines were good". A lot of "OK, nothing special".  Or the ever popular "poured by cute guy".  After a few years of experience, there are some common themes I can taste.  Red fruit for example, but don't ask what kind.  I might even use "earthy" on occassion.  Lisa noticed one wine described as containing "forest floor".  We agreed that forest floor is really tasty! 

Even if I'm using the sip-and-dump approach, I am bascially totally worthless after a day of winery-hopping.  Full of bread and cheese.  So on the second day of Thanksgiving weekend, this is the third day total for those who are counting, I decided to limit myself to two wineries with Maggie and Lisa.  We went to taste Owen Roe wines at the Horseradish in Carlton (Yum!  another popular adjective) and then to Carlton WInemaker's Studio where we hit the mother lode with eight winemakers and 30 different wines to taste.  So much for two quick stops!

 
Displaying our haul: a case of wine and complimentary wine glasses.
 

Food log

Until I can finish my race report, thought I would throw together this food log to make sure I'm not missing anything.

Day of race (it's important to get calories in during the post-race window)
Pizza  < 1 hour after finishing
Latte'  < 1 hour after finishing (thanks Tom and Sarah!)
Beer  < 4 hours after finishing.  With more pizza.

Next day
Cookies- ate one during the race too.  Wait for next blog.
Ice cream - we made stop at DQ on the way home from CDA :)

Week after
Chips- just finished the bag.
Krispy Kreme doughnuts (2)- but since they were eaten right after masters swim practice, they don't really count.
Beer (1) - obviously been slacking on my alcohol intake, that will have to be remedied this weekend.  I have yet to consume my two favorite M's: margaritas and mojitos.  I <3 M&Ms. 

That reminds me, chocolate is obviously missing here too.  Also, today I was craving a BIG cinnamon roll.  I've still got some boxes to check and luckily, I'll be working out again soon!  Can't add too much mass to that a$$.

Today is the day

Eggnog lattes have arrived at Starbucks.  There may be something else going on in the country today too ;) 

Just a quick post- I miss my blog but work has been busy.  Not that I ever blog at work of course!  Attended various social functions last week, believe it or not.  Will post as soon as I get pics.  Unfortunately for my training all of those functions involved alcohol, but was eventually able to rock my long run yesterday.  Clearly all that carbo-loading paid off.

Some of you know that I'm a full-blown Facebook geek now, and you can be one too.  So "friend me" if you dare (link on bottom left).  Have to blame my brother for getting me into that, along with my crackberry addiciton.  He is a bad influence!  Facebook has replaced some of my blogging; it's like mini-blogging I can do from my phone.  The mobile Typepad application is not very user-friendly, but maybe they've fixed some bugs since I last tried it.  Off to the pool for fun with paddles.  Horribly inept at using those again, but I'm getting back in the swing.

A Total Crock

What the hell is a cacciatore?  All I know is that it sounds pretty gourmet so I am once again going to bust out my slow cooker this weekend, probably for the 3rd time in 3 years.  Alert the fire department!  Coincidentally, yesterday the fire detector in the living room began chirping for a new battery and this morning the one in Lindsay's room started too.  Anticipating what is to come?  I hope not!  According to my trusty Wikipedia (with my own notes in parenthesis):

Cacciatore means "hunter" in Italian.  In cuisine (not just food, "cuisine") "alla cacciatoria" refers to a meal prepared "hunter style" with tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, herbs, often bell pepper, and sometimes wine (liking it).  Cacciatore is popularly made with braised chicken (yes) or rabbit (oh no!).

I think this rabbit could use a hearty meal- note size of the head relative to the body.  Training for a marathon or something?

The sobering truth

Tom, Sarah and I haven't been out lately so last night's HH was a good opportunity to catch up.  I got to complain about my first outside ride of the season and Sarah gave us the scoop on her VO2 testing.  This is entertainment for us.  Had my usual 2 beverages, sometimes it's 1.25 or 1.75 but last night it was a solid 2.  And by that I mean these were 2 full glasses of wine.  Excellent. 

So this morning I wake up with a HANGOVER.  Are you kididng me?!  I don't use this term very often so please forgive- WTF?  Why can I not hold my liquor anymore?  So my long run ended at 6 miles with a promise to try again tomorrow.  What has this Ironman done to me?  Do I have to build up my tolerance again along with my endurance?  I didn't expect to face with this kind of recovery plan.  Swimming, biking, running and now drinking.  But let's be logical here.  What is the real limit?  1 drink?  1.5?  Would any kind of alcohol have this affect or is it only red wine?  I have heard of this "red wine headache" effect, despite it's extremely high antioxidant content :o)   So rather than cutting back I decided not to take any drastic countermeasures quite yet.  How about 2 glasses of WHITE wine?  So began experiment #2, at dinner tonight.  I will let you know the outcome tomorrow.  Now excuse me as I got a tip to check out some pics on Amanda Lovato's blog.  Pictures of bikes and stuff.

Party on

The 6-week post-IMC celebration continues, truly another show of endurance.  Let's review the debauchery.

Monday night after the race, members of the Bert/Charlie/Tim house hosted a celebration in Penticton.

   
Stocked up!

  I think TIm and I are looking so serious because we're already thinking about next year -CDA for me and IMC for him.

I went home to Montana for a few days after the race, but the party started in Portland without me!  Got the update via text message photo:

 
Beth and Bobbi Jo observed our Friendiversary.  Sorry to miss it! 

NO worries, Mom broke out the bucket o' margarita at home.  Then on Sunday night Joe and Sandra honored us at the 2nd annual Ironman DVD Potluck.  Still in Montana, but I was at a wedding.  An outdoor wedding in the mountains, with a keg.  So there.

And the tradition continues with an M-dot cake.  What flavor of cake do you think- lemon lime Gatorade?

Two weeks later Tom, Fara, Beth and I did the Tour de Lab.  A "recovery" ride through the west hills visiting all three lucky lab pubs with beer and a pint glass provided afterward.  We got shafted at the first aid station and didn't get any tail, but did get ears and nose by the end.

 
Not so easy to drink with the nose, but I managed.

"Big Dogs" Fara, Beth and yours truly.

Not to move too quickly into his marathon training, Bert is serving as social coordinator for the group planning such events as 

Red wine and Ice cream for Recovery.
Roll on to Kona- Bowl your way to a sub-11 hour Ironman.
IMC Support Crew dinner coming up next Friday the 26th.

I'm trying a lot of new restaurants.  And right now I'm boarding a plane in Minneapolis to Grand Forks, ND for my Grandma's 90th Birthday celebration.  This could be the biggest party of all.  Then next Wednesday night is GNO+ at the HUB, and Oct 4th is an end-of-season fancy dinner.  Then, I might be done.  Might be.

Seasons change

Latte Alert!  In case you are not aware, Starbucks is serving Pumpkin Spice Lattes which means that fall is officially here.  More importantly, it is a sign of things to come: EGGNOG LATTES (cue celebration).  Go ahead-  give a shout out, jump up and down, pump fists in air and so on. 

This also means that IMC recovery is officially over and it's time to start training again.  In anticipation of lattes to be consumed...

Loaded

and half-baked. 

How I got (carbo-) loaded:  Beth, Bobbi Jo, and Fara sent the future Ironwomen off to Canada last night with a fantastic dinner at Gino's, an Italian restaurant in Sellwood.  There was no A/C so we had the place pretty much to ourselves!  After a couple glasses of, er...antioxidants I went immediately to bed at 9pm, forgoing the Olympics and even managed to sleep for a few hours in the sauna that is my condo.  

And speaking of heat, did my last big bike/run workout yesterday.  A Bald Peak-Roy Rogers "brick oven".  By the time we finished at 11:00a we were baking nicely!

Forgive the lousy Crackberry photo quality.  My camera is in the "do not forget" pile for Canada!

Post-race celebration plans are already in the works

Cure for what ales you

Last Saturday evening several friends and I headed downtown for a holiday tradition: the ale fest.  Ten to twenty dollars buys you a *not so* cheap plastic mug and tickets to sample different beers, many dark and christmas-y.  Or if you're like us, you get tired of waiting in line and don't bother to sample.  Just say top 'er off and be done with it.  The Civil War was on Saturday too, the annual stand-off between the Oregon Ducks and Oregon State Beavers football teams.  Ducks and Beavers, that's right.  It's bloody I tell you!

Beth and I kicking off the season in style.  Leopard print is back baby!

Beth, Fara and Bob reveling in the Beavers victory.  They are not drunk.  Well OK, Beth is.

The tent is heated so you don't even need the body heat of hundreds of your closest friends, but it's available.  This weekend was the crappiest of crappy as far as weather so we were glad to be under cover of a tent.  Food offerings included pizza and...pizza, yeah that's it.  There were no embarrassing moments except for Beth's incurable hiccups ;o)  Oh and by the way, it's STILL raining.

Klub

Inquiring minds click below for a recipe you can make at home.  I remember watching my grandpa eat it and thanking GOD I didn't inherit that gene.

http://community.eons.com/groups/topic/352608-Recipe-for-Buzerd-to-make-for-new-date

I don't know "Buzerd" but he's sure to be popular with the women.

If that one's no good, here's another.  Read the prep instructions...mouuuhhahahaha (evil halloween-ish laugh).

http://www.hungrybrowser.com/phaedrus/m0220M06.htm#1