Unplanned rest day + a very beery WIAW

This was supposed to be a 50 mile week.  Not.going.to.happen.

I’ve been dealing with pain in the ball of my foot for over a year now.  I recently made an appointment with a podiatrist to confirm that it is Morton’s neuroma and to see what my options were.  Interestingly, since I dropped a certain shoe out of my rotation (per his suggestion), I’ve been experiencing less pain – both in intensity and frequency.  I almost canceled the appointment, but decided I wanted him to take a closer look just to be sure.

While I was there, I mentioned that for the last few days I’ve had some discomfort on the top of my foot.  You can guess where this is heading, right?  After my foot had been tightly squeezed and prodded and he had me jump on one foot, we headed to the x-ray machine.  Thankfully, everything looked good and this is a new pain, so for the moment, I’ve only been temporarily sidelined.

He thinks I’m at the beginning stages of a stress reaction.  I’m taking three days off, then I’ll be attempting RNR.  I’ve been told that if I have pain during the race, I have to DNF or risk a stress fracture.  Gulp.  If the pain comes back (or doesn’t go away before the race), I’m headed to an MRI.

The worst part is I pretty much know what caused it:  too many miles on the treadmill in socks.  Even though I’d run that way for a long time, I’d never run as long as I did the last couple of weeks or as often as I did.  Apparently the 10% rule applies there too.

At this point, I’ll do anything I can to make sure I make it to both the start line and finish line of all 13 races!

Unrelated to my foot adventures…

We had a beer pairing dinner this weekend.  I was so over winter that I decided to clean out all of the winter seasonals from the beer fridge.

I did four courses and paired two beers with each course.  While there were a few successes, for the most part, the beers were good and the food was good, but they weren’t so awesome together.

1st Course:  Cheese course

I paired St. Andre triple creme, Castello blue, and a cheese ripened in beer (pretty sure it was Brugge Rodenbach) with Sierra Nevada Celebration and Full Sail Wassail.  As expected, the very hoppy Sierra Nevada was fabulous with the blue.  The Wassail paired best with the triple creme.  For added fun, we included some garlic and olive stuffed peppers from Trader Joe’s.

Rating: A

2nd course: Chipotle sweet potato soup (recipe here)

We paired the soup with Starr Hill Snowblind and Smuttynose Winter Ale. The soup was really really good, but majorly overpowered the beers.  It was just extremely spicy.  I’m sure there’s a beer out there that can stand up to it, but for these beers, a smaller amount of chipotle pepper would have been better.

Rating: A for the soup, C for the pairing

3rd Course: Pork roast, green beans, and spaetzle  (roast recipe here)

I found this recipe by searching pork and Rogue Santa’s Private Reserve, so obviously we paired it with Rogue.  I can’t remember what the second beer was and I forgot to take a picture. Doh!  The Rogue went really well and the pork was quite tasty.

Rating: B+

3rd course: Dessert

I don’t enjoy baking, so when my friend offered to provide dessert, I jumped at it.  I told her the recommended dessert for the beers I’d chosen were anything chocolate, apple pie, or carrot cake, but to just take that as loose guidelines.  Her choices (yes, plural) did not disappoint!

We paired Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout (one of my top 10 favorite beers) with her nearly flour free chocolate cookies.  We also paired Harpoon Winter Warmer with apple pie cookies.  OMGoodness!!!  I would have been happy just with the cheese and dessert courses!

Rating: A+

In the end, I discovered that pairing seasonal beers is more difficult than pairing beers that fall into specific categories (IPA, brown, porter, etc.)  It was still fun and a great way to spend time with friends. Now to start planning for the dinner we are giving away at the school auction…

Thanks to Jenn for once again hosting WIAW!