I only drink when I’m drunk

Saw this on a Spotify playlist yesterday and man, I’m hooked.

100% worth it

Actually, I am not really drinking intentionally right now (trying to take a break, for health and you know, those reasons) but I have been very much enjoying my weekends, boozy or not 😉

We have had so many fun times, where to begin…We went to the Cobble Hill the other weekend and now it costs $10 to get in (not worth it) and it was a freaking ZOO with the most ill-behaved little monsters running around. I couldn’t handle it, ughh. I was overwhelmed and couldn’t manage to be in the same outdoors space as all of these little assholes running wild. NO THANKS. Yuck.

Where is the hay seed sticking out of his teeth?

We didn’t stay that long, thankfully (and I cancelled my ideas to go to the Saanich Fair. Do that again? NOPE!). We then had approximately 100 errands to run, haha. Pick up a sweater I forgot at the horse show site, visit a cidery (Valley Cider, it was lovely!), go to Merridale too, and best of all- I bought the most insane Caesar possible. Friends, you haven’t lived until you have eaten the Coast Caesar!

Feast your eyes… And it did cost a cool $40, so maybe make it a once-in-a-lifetime treat eh?

A thing of beauty. It was also a triple, so that meant the rest of my day was very fuzzy…

And then on the Sunday, Ian and I did a long run of 24k and I got changed quickly and went to the James Bay BBQ with my friend Amaka. We listened to live music, I brought Gidget and we ate and ate and ate. Man! The BBQ was incredibly generous- as many jumbo dogs as you can eat (so, like I saved half of mine b/c i was too full), ice cream, freezies, bananas, cake, chocolate chip cookies. It was a feast!! What a great day 🙂

Fun day in the sun with a friend!

Gidget got a lot of treats that day.

Gidget also likes friends 🙂

Ian and I also caught Phillips ‘Dino Sour’ patio party on a random Thursday. I got back early from my lesson and saw a biiiggg lineup…And almost bailed. But then we got in, and while it was busy, we ordered our drinks and got in, and out pretty quick. I had the Dino sour slushy and bought a few sleeves of the other random ‘dino sour’ flavours. One was a very hideous swampy-green cask-conditioned salted plum sour and wow did it look horrible! Tasted ok though.

Dino Sour night!

Race Recap: 10th annual Bear Mountain 10k!

Aka ‘Canada’s toughest 10k road race’…

Was it? Well, it for sure was no joke.  I would NOT recommend running this race to people who are new to racing. You want to get some good hill training and hill racing under your belt before you undertake this one.

I had some experience with hills, after my Gut Buster attempts and my Sooke race with MEC this year, but even after that this one really did a number on my lungs, weirdly enough. I immediately, right off the start, struggled with breathing. I couldn’t get in a rhythm, felt like I was gasping at times, and had a stitch growing in my neck and on my right side that really made life difficult during the race.

As with all races, there was an ebb and flow. It started off tough- the Papa Bear hill was 1 mile long and just kept.going. It was quite difficult, I saw some people start walking and I kind of wanted to as well. We reached the peak and it was quite scenic, though I wasn’t really in shape to enjoy what I was running past.

A lot of downhills at this point- a good opportunity to gather speed, but I was running very cautiously too- I’m a bit afraid of downhills as I have a lingering knee injury and my knee doctor tells me to walk down at first, and then sprint…So, I kind of struggled down, and then sprinted. And yes, this did wonders for my horrible breathing, made it a lot worse, argh!

My breathing levelled out and it was a lot of up-down-up-down-up-down, which you would call ‘rolling hills’ and I called it kind of torture! Psychologically, I was on the lookout for the next hill- the Mama Bear hill. We finally got to it, and it was ok..By that time, after 5k, I was feeling it in my legs and my lungs were still giving me a very hard time. I was actually glad for the long downhill by this point!

We continued on more mild rolling hills but by this point every time we went up, I lost momentum and struggled. I was clutching my side- it really hurt- and trying to breathe as hard as I could into my stitch. I was also coughing a lot and the grossest part was when I’d go to take a big breath, and have phglegm catch in my throat, so instead of a big breath, I’d breathe, and immediately start coughing. GROSS.

So, when we finally met up with Baby Bear, I wasn’t in the mood or shape to do any sprinting, haha. I was glad we were on the home stretch though! As I cruised through to the finish- over some kind of ugly gravel sections, probably the worst footing on what is otherwise a gorgeous course- a TRUCK was parked in the middle of the finish line??!! WTF? So me, and a few other guys I was finishing with, had to dodge this ignorant moron. It was NOT a fun finish, trust me.

Sadly, no finish photos of me either because this bozo decided his massive truck needed to go to the finish instead of me. GAH!

The after party was sooo good though- all the Merridale you could drink, door prizes – that none of us won, booo hoo, and some pretty decent food. I took my time, we did the fun photo booth, and generally enjoyed ourselves. A good day for an excursion-type race!

My time- 53:30- which is fairly ok for this type of race, given my normal 10k times are now ranging from 46:53-47:25. Yes it was that tough!

 

Fun times at Phillips Backyard Weekender!

So, my weekend wasn’t all falling off my horse and going for grinding 15km runs…

We also went to Phillips Backyard Weekend party on Sunday – the day that had the best bands- in my opinion. And it was a blast!

We saw Built to Spill, John and Roy and Dan Mangan and the Blacksmiths.

All good, all of them.

I particularly enjoyed Built to Spill’s retro 90’s comeback style, and then John and Roy were a relaxing listen. I actually found it difficult to listen to them in a big crowd-type atmosphere, as their type of West Coast chill music seems to be best listened to around a campfire on the beach at night with good friends.

Also Dan Mangan and the Blacksmiths- classic. He still had to play ‘Robots’ of course, but cleverly intermingled Robots with another, newer piece that escapes me at the moment. They were good, though I have heard uneven reviews of his performance as of lately. There are no complaints on this end though!

The weekender is an affordable, easy to get to excursion and I highly recommend it. Sunday’s passes cost approx. $35/day and that is pretty reasonable to see the level of bands that were playing. Beers are $5 and the only quibble I have is that Merridale ciders raised their prices to $7, instead of having 1 tix price for all, so I stuck with the beers. I mean, I like ciders but for an extra $2? I’ll stick with the beer, thanks…

Check them out next year, the sound is even better and improved from the past year (some technical issues from what I heard), and we had no bad experiences at all!

Life is too hard!

Gidget is getting all summered-out!

We’re taking a bit of a backseat to riding this week, as my family has been visiting for Canada Day. That means we’re doing a lot of fun stuff like stand-up-paddleboarding, visiting Merridale Cider, visiting the farm, watching me ride Oats (and getting a pony ride off him!) and eating in good restaurants.

Back at work today though, and I have a fun hangover. I’m tired! Like Gidget, I’m so tired haha.

And stand up paddleboarding was fun, but so easy- any moron could do it haha. I am a bit disappointed, as I thought it would be a harder core workout. I don’t really feel it in my abs today, but my pinkie finger hurts (fingie!).

The weather was absolutely gorgeous yesterday though…Ahhh…perfect day for it!

Summer lovin’