It's All About the Tee Shirt

I'm writing from my Japanese style room in the New Sanno (yep, got one at the last minute), just about to bed down into my futon on the tatami mats. This will make an interesting study, being the first marathon eve when I've slumbered Japanese style. How will it affect performance?

I am ready to go. Bib number and timing chip are properly affixed. Garmin Forerunner and iPod fully charged. The latter is suitably programed with Podrunner mixes and a final hour's mix of Eagles, Abba, and Queen. If I've set it up right, I'll be crossing the finish line to "We Are the Champions!" Finally, after much debate and discussion with my fellow runners on what the weather will actually bring, I've decided on my attire for what should be a cool, breezy, and perhaps rainy day: shorts, long sleeved shirt, running vest, hat...and running shoes, of course.


I've eaten my Mediterranean pasta dinner and consumed my proper amount of water. Power bars and power gels are in place for the morrow. All is ready.


Have I ever mentioned how running a race is much like flying to me. I love the planning and preparation almost as much as the actual event. Judging from the crowd at the pre-race Expo today, the Japanese share the relish.

This Reminds Me of Someone(s)

see more Epic Fails

Vive Le Beouf

I am still basking in the triumph of my culinary foray last weekend. My last post on sauteing mushrooms even set a record for comments on my blog. (Okay, one of them was me, but still...)

Unfortunately, I won't be making a second kitchen venture for some time. Our ship departs next week for another forward forward deployment, and this weekend will be taken up by multiple train trips to/from Tokyo for the marathon: Saturday for packet pickup and the ever-fascinating pre-race Expo, and Sunday for the actual race. The last two times I did this race I was able to procure a protocol suite at the New Sanno Hotel, which is very conveniently located to both the start and finish lines. This year, however, I was not so fortunate. When I put in for a room reservation six months ago they were already booked for marathon weekend. (What a surprise...) Come to find out, quite a few local runners did get rooms, "because MWR reserved a block of rooms for runners from CFAY." Guess I missed that memo while I was previously forward forward deployed building maritime partnerships and engaging in theater security cooperation.

I could have gotten a room at the Tokyo Hyatt, which is literally on the starting line in Shinjuku, but at the current exchange rate the "special deal" of 290,000 yen for one night would be well over $300. I can think of lots of other things to do with that money, especially at the pre-race Expo. Kathy can think of even better things to do with it, alas not at the Expo. So, we took a pass on the Hyatt, and I will commute from home instead. Ironically, even with training it from Yokosuka to Tokyo I will have later arise and show times than I did for the New York City Marathon. There I had to catch the bus for Staten Island at something like 0530, which got me to the starting area in time sit/lay around and shiver for four hours before my start time. Yes, it was worth it in the long run, literally.

I will also admit that I'm not above a little pre-marathon gamesmanship. I enjoyed seeing my boss, who will run Tokyo for the first time (from one of the New Sanno protocol suites), visibly gasp when I told him I was going to commute from home to the starting line. I've managed to wow a couple of other senior officers as well. Actually, I imagine that I will see quite a few marathon-bound nihonjin on the train with me, because they would not have access to the New Sanno, nor would they consider paying anything like 290,000 yen to spend the night close to the start line. So this year will be a uniquely Japanese marathon experience for me.

So what's this all got to do with Beouf Bourguignon? A lot, really. I'm trying a few new things for this marathon, like not obsessing over my training mileage, taking a longer taper/rest period before the race, and Beouf-loading vice the traditional carbo loading. I've a notion to concentrate on protein vice carbohydrates for a change. So I'll let you know if the race turns out as good as the Beouf, which was excellent:

Les Champignons

One is never too old to learn new things.


Since I am officially "tapering" (quotes intended, Kate) for the big race next weekend, I needed some other activity yesterday besides the 3 - 5 hours I've devoted on recent weekends to smashing my red blood cells into schistocytes and helmet cells. (This happens to normal erythrocytes coursing through the arterioles in one's feet after many hours of pounding pavement.)


Well, ever since seeing "Julie and Julia" I've hankered to emulate the movie's young heroine by trying my hand at one of Julia Child's famous French recipes. Having cleverly purchased the two-volume set as a Christmas "gift" for my spousal unit (we called such self-serving gifts "footballs" in my younger days), I've spent a bit of leisure time poring over the recipe for beouf bourguignon, which I still cannot spell correctly without looking it up. Those who have seen the movie will recall that young Julie's first effort at emulating the icon of French cooking was to recreate this very dish. Well, gosh, if Amy Adams can do it, certainly I can. My dad used to say, "If you can read, you can cook." My mother, for whom cooking was an avocation at which she excelled, took great umbrage to that characterization. I guess I'm somewhere in between. One must read, understand, and execute a recipe to actually cook. So, after reading the recipe about a hundred times, I finally convinced myself that I could actually do it. Yesterday I figured I actually had the time to try, while my body continued to produce healthy erythrocytes in time for next Sunday's smashing.


To cut to the chase, the beouf bourguignon is peacefully aging in the refrigerator awaiting its dramatic debut this afternoon. (Pause to exclaim: I not only cooked it, I actually just spelled it right for the first time without looking!) Julia suggests that "it only gains flavor on being reheated." Since we are a family totally given to deferred gratification, Kathy suggested we give it full opportunity to gain flavor. 


My staff at work will tell you that I am very outcome-oriented. I don't care much about process for the sake of process. I want results. I study methodologies only to the extent that they achieve the desired effect. Not everyone in my work world shares my desire. Some are perfectly content to wallow indefinitely in process and actually believe they've done something by the end of the day. So imagine my unexpected delight with the process of preparing this landmark culinary creation. In one short afternoon I not only learned new methodologies and processes, but also reaped the reward of a final product at the end of the day. Wow!


The one process that totally mesmerized me was the preparation of champignons sautes au beurre (sauteed mushrooms), which is a separate recipe in itself. In very well constructed prose, Julia Child first describes the desired outcome: "Successfully sauted mushrooms are lightly browned and exude none of their juice while they are being cooked." She then sets the conditions for this outcome: "...to achieve this the mushrooms must be dry, the butter very hot, and the mushrooms must not be crowded in the pan." Finally, and this was what I found most intriguing, she describes the actual process: "During their saute the mushrooms will at first absorb the fat. In 2 to 3 minutes the fat will reappear on their surface, and the mushrooms will begin to brown."


So I meticulously followed the prescribed methods, and, voila! Perfectly lightly browned mushrooms exuding nary a microdrop of their own juice! Instant gratification! Process leading directly to desired outcome! And not one false start, wasted step, focus group, or brainstorming session! This is a consummation I could really like.


I think I may buy Julia Child's two-volume set for some of the folks in our planning directorate....

Tapering

I haven't run in five days. I am neither injured nor depressed, which is often what causes a runner to pile up days of non-activity. I will admit that outside temperatures in the upper 30s with wind chills around freezing have not exactly been motivators. Plus a high ops tempo during our first week back in port has kept me off the treadmill in the ship's gym, or even the bike trainer in my stateroom/office. 


BUT, the real reason for this seemingly uncharacteristic running stoppage is the Tokyo Marathon that will take place in a little over a week. I am certainly not a long distance running expert...this will only be my 6th marathon overall and 3rd Tokyo run...but I find I prepare best by avoiding overuse and minimizing injury in the last two weeks before the big race. This practice flies in the face of the real experts' advice, which suggests a gradual tapering of distance and effort over the last two weeks, so that one stays in shape while at the same time restoring muscle glycogen or whatever for the mass expenditure of calories that will occur on race day.


These experts, however, often don't really have a life beyond running and writing about running. We mere mortals with real lives are now on the sixth month of trying to balance those long, and often boring, training runs into our work and family routines. And, since I seek no record or personal best ("A finish is a win"), I've no interest in whether my personal tapering routine will cost me another five or ten minutes off my total time. I lose that much time on bathroom stops during the run anyway. So my goal for these final two weeks is to simply relax and not overstress my mind or body to the point of not being able to enjoy the event for which I've trained since last summer


This non-conformist routine has worked for me before, ever since my first marathon (New York City) in 1986 when I sprained my ankle and couldn't run more than a couple of miles for a full month before the event. It was still a highlight of my life. Every marathon I've run since has been a similar thrill. The joy is in simply doing it, enjoying the crowd and the other runners, and crossing the finish line. Time? Like age, it is all relative.

Not the Cascades, Kathryn

Some more images from our C7F/BLUE RIDGE visit to Hokkaido for the Sapporo Snow Festival. 

This one was a tribute to their professional baseball team, the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters. To be clear, this team did not become champions by battling swine. They are the Hokkaido Fighters, sponsored by the Nippon Ham company. As with their U.S. counterparts, many Japanese professional baseball teams have corporate sponsors. But here the team, as opposed to the stadium, carries the sponsor's name. Can you imagine the Detroit Comerica Tigers? Or the Colorado Coors Rockies? The Houston Minute Maid Astros? The Florida Sun Life Marlins? 



Staying with the baseball theme, this sculpture of slugger Hideki Matsui emerging from the mouth of Godzilla symbolizes his longstanding nickname. Although one could make a case that the reptile actually depicts the New York Yankees, who were foolish enough to let the World Series MVP out of their grasp to join the Los Angeles Angels for the next season. Note also the clever "Go! Go!" which in Japanese would be "5-5", corresponding to the jersey number, 55, that Matsui wore with both the Yomiuri Giants and the New York Yankees.



Meanwhile these children seem to be looking past the dragon sculpture toward the rows of food vendors across the path.

I don't know how these ladies stayed warm, let alone sang. It may have stopped snowing, but the wind chill was in the single digits...and I don't mean Centigrade. 




I wonder what it felt like in this ice block smokers' lounge:

Better to Visit Snow than to Host It

Many years have passed since I sat expectantly by my living room window in Milwaukee, waiting to see the very first snowflakes fall. I don't mean the first snowflakes of that winter. Rather, at the age of 23 having lived most of my life in Arizona, I anxiously awaited my very first ever sight of snowflakes actually falling from the sky and accumulating on the ground. Oh, I had seen plenty of snow on the ground before. Once in a while my parents and I had taken trips to northern Arizona to play in the snow…well after any storm had passed. And I did get to experience the pain of beginner skiing in Washington state one winter break when visiting my girlfriend's family. (I broke her older sister's skis, but that's another story.) But I had never seen the magical transformation of earth and concrete and asphalt to the wondrous white landscape of new fallen snow of which I'd read in romantic books and stories. So there I sat, a first year medical student ignoring my anatomy and histology texts to marvel in this miraculous transformation occurring before my eyes. We got four inches of brand new snow that night, and I rapturously witnessed every single inch accumulate in the yard and driveway outside.

The next morning I learned one those bitter life lessons that the romantics never mention: In order to get to school I first had to remove all that new fallen beauty from the driveway behind my car. And it was a long driveway. Now someone may wonder why I couldn't just drive my car out, given that four inches of new snow is a relatively harmless amount. Well, Arizona boy who had never seen snow fall had never driven on it either, so I quickly got myself into the "high rpm but no traction or movement" conundrum. I also discovered that snow that falls in an industrial city like Milwaukee is not pristine white, but a dingy gray. So, with my romantic notions duly smashed, I resolutely shoveled away and eventually made it to school after only a few really scary moments behind the wheel of my 1958 Chevy.

This scenario repeated itself enough times over the ensuing four years that when it came time to pick internships I limited myself solely to locations where snowfall is rare or non-existent. I ended up in Portland, OR. Although it does occasionally snow there, it never did during my internship year. Yet a mere hour's drive away was majestic Mount Hood and some really cool ski areas where I did learn the sport, without breaking skis or knees in the process. That was when I learned that the best way to enjoy snow is to just visit it once in awhile, without inviting it to come home for an entire winter. That lesson has served me well through the remainder of my adult life, with the rare exception of the Navy assigning me somewhere like Washington, DC……

Speaking of which, while Number One Stepdaughter and friends in D.C. suffered through a megaversion of my first encounter with falling snow, I was in Otaru, Hokkaido, Japan enjoying the Sapporo Snow Festival as a Navy visitor. That was a lot of fun, and even though it seldom stopped snowing the whole time we were there, I never had to shovel a single flake nor drive a single foot. That's how snow should be experienced. Here are just a few pictures that don't even come close to capturing the beauty of that visit.

Beer Tours Then and Now

Around the time the Winter Olympics were coming to Sapporo, Japan, I was a dedicated student at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, the beer capital of America. I had matriculated at the Marquette School of Medicine. However, during my sophomore year, no longer able to sustain itself as a private institution, the school procured state funding. As with all government funding, the Wisconsin legislatrue attached some strings: 1) Change the name to the Medical College of Wisconsin (thenceforward fondly known by its students as "M-COW"); 2) Funding would derive from a 5 cent tax on every bottle of beer sold in the state. This is where the dedicated student role comes in. My clasmates and I strove daily to purchase and consume our fair share of local brews to support our school. But beyond that simple dedication, we often frequented brewery tours and used their tasting rooms for academic meetings. Nothing makes streptococcus pneumoniae more interesting than a frosty mug of Pabst, Miller, or Schlitz, especially if it's at no cost to the imbiber.


About 15 years later I made my next brewery tour while I was doing trauma center surveys for the American College of Surgeons. I happened to be in Portland, OR, scene of my surgical internship year and domicile of two of my children. Aside from the business at hand and getting to see my daughters, this trip was marked by my introduction to microbreweries. The tour and tasting regime was very similar to that of the macrobreweries that I remembered from medical school days: Mandatory meander through rooms of smelly stuff and dry lectures until you can get to the tasting room and the free brewskies. Which were very good, by the way. Microbrews are okay. (I sense that all two of my readers know that already.)


Another 15 or so years passed before my next brewery tour, two years ago when Kathy, Suzi, and I visited the Kirin Beer Factory in Yokohama. We were fortunate to get this tour in English, and the tour guides were cuter than the ones I remember from Milwaukee...but that could just be my aging memory. There was still the pre-requisite smelly stuff before we could finally get to the tasting room for our free samples. But instead of frosty mugs these samples came in the typical Japanese style of very small glasses; so your beer doesn't get warm before you drink all of it. (Never a problem in the Krentz or Sykes families that I know.)


So yesterday as our tour bus approached the Sapporo Beer Museum in Hokkaido, Japan, I fully expected a Kirin-like experience. The Japanese tour guide on the bus did say something that sounded like "lunch", so I figured I could stand another boring tour if it culminated in free food and beer. (Well, not exactly free because it was an MWR tour, but that's another whole topic.) As we were herded into the building, imagine my surprise to be directed straight to the lunch room, to tables of yakinku (Japanese barbecue that you grill at your table) and waiters ready to pour Hokkaido's finest. The deal was all you can eat and all the beer you can drink in 120 minutes. "Do they know they are dealing with American sailors?" someone asked. Indeed they did, because the food kept coming and the beer kept flowing until every American had their fill. And no tour. Ever.


So, Sapporo is now my newest favorite brew in the world. Plus, I believe we can come up with a plausible reason for a party of Sykes and Krentz folk to visit Sapporo sometime. It doesn't even have to be in the cold of winter. The Sapporo Beer Garden is open year-round.