Sometimes Weekly Roundup - 6/16

First off, Happy Birthday to my best friend, training partner, and one of my most loyal readers - Sydnie!

Here are the ramblings from the past week:

I took this shot last weekend in Central Washington on my final over distance ride of my Coeur d'Alene training block. 120 mile bike + 1 hour run all solo. Last weekend, my friend Heidi asked me if I ever get bored training by myself and I gave her an indifferent answer. But then two days ago when I had a much shorter ride, I was bored out of my freaking mind. So it goes, the shorter stuff is sometimes harder than the longer stuff. I'm pretty sure we've all been there.

I posted this picture to "the Grams" this week after picking some delicious produce in the urban gardens near my office. Seattle U is all about sustainability and has gardens around campus free to harvest. By the way, this is what strawberries should look like, not the huge, overgrown ones you see in grocery stores. I then whipped up these Smitten Kitchen bars.  

 

Friday night was one of two graduation parties for the weekend and I was showing up empty handed, so I picked up a dozen cookies and growler of IPA. Taking advantage of not having a seven hour training day on Saturday, I had some bevs and it kind of made me think about this article. In terms of food and drink, it was B+ nutrition.

 

 

The second graduation party of the weekend was at a place called Sound Spirits, a distillery in Seattle with really delicious gin cocktails. The bartender had really funny candor and it was a fun place to tour, hang out, and raise a glass to our friend Annabelle to congratulate her on her grad school graduation.

 

I've been slightly obsessed following RAAM this year as my friend John Bergen crosses this epic adventure off his bucket list (picture taken by John's crew). John has been a friend and mentor of mine since 2010 when we both raced Ironman Kona. I sometimes call him my "Ironman big brother" and had a chance to crew for him at Ultraman last year. There was a great write up by one of his sponsors, nuun, written here. And if you like to geek out on this type of stuff, check out how Christoph Strasser is doing compared to the rest of the field. Incredible!