Well as I talked about in the last post, Rock ‘n Roll didn’t go as scheduled due to a stomach ailment. Things are a little better and I would say that I am about 70% of full strength (with meds – need to get off of those soon). But it was definitely the right call not to race as for the 3-4 days after what would have been the race, I wasn’t consuming anything but smoothies. As a result, dropped 4 lbs. in that timeframe, which is a decent amount for someone of my height. I had worked out later in the week at Crossfit and did a couple of easy runs around Green Lake just to keep things moving, and the pain was tolerable. Fortunately I was able to get back into gear by the time one of our close friends came to town for a visit for July 4th weekend. Nat arrived on Saturday morning on an absolutely gorgeous day in Seattle, and we immediately did what any proper host does – whisked him up to Woodinville, where many of the best wineries in Washington state have tasting rooms. OK, we did have an amazing brunch at Barking Frog first. Gotta get some food in the system, right? Unfortunately the one winery that Marc wanted to check out was by appointment only, so we couldn’t visit those folks. We did, however, stop by Pepperbridge, DeLille and Page and properly introduced Nat to some of our favorite wines. He enjoyed all of the places we showed him, but seemed particularly enamored with DeLille. After some wine tasting in the sunshine, we headed back to the house to watch some baseball and get ready to have some friends over for dinner. We decided to do our tried and true rib-eye recipe on the Big Green Egg. I wasn’t sure if there was going to be much difference from when we grilled it on the regular BBQ, and let’s just say that I was wrong. Big time. Our friends each brought some great dishes over like kale salad, sautéed Swiss chard, meringues and “chocolate peanut-butter goodness”. It was a very fun time and some amusing discussions took place amongst the group that really didn’t know each other beforehand. The entire group works out regularly and I received word on Sunday morning that one of the more “hard core” folks had such a good time on Saturday that they needed to “get some grease” at McDonald’s the next morning prior to starting their training bike ride. Guess we did a good job as hosts! J On Sunday, the Mariners were in town and Nat is a huge baseball fan. Actually, he is a Red Sox fan. But we have known that since the start of our friendship and have embraced the rivalry and what that brings. We ended up having nice weather for the game and I showed Nat some of the really cool features of Safeco Field, where the Mariners play. Then we ended up meeting another friend of ours, Erik, for dinner at the newly opened and much raved about RN74. It’s named after one of the main roads in the Burgundy wine region in France. The owner, Michael Mina, has a restaurant in San Francisco with the same name, which Marc and I have been to. For a place that was opened 3 weeks ago, the quality of the food and service was really top notch. I have been to a number of places when they were just getting their feet wet, and they definitely had kinks to work out. We really couldn’t find anything to criticize. The team took great care of us and ended what was a really fun day. Oh yeah, we actually got to start the day with a run and then a visit to Elliott Bay Books in their new Capitol Hill location. So yep – outstanding day with Marc and close friends. Nat had to leave early on Monday unfortunately, but we hope he comes back soon (and not alone)! My next 2 races are pretty close to each other, but they are not typical “races” as in a 5k, 10k, half-marathon. Both are relays, which encompass a completely different line of thinking and training. And the running is going to be at the hottest part of the day in both relays. So I asked Kim of TN Multisports to get me back on track, and she assigned me a pretty tough track workout yesterday. Since it was a pretty warm day by Seattle standards (high 70s and complete sunshine), I decided to hit a different track that had no shade and waited until about 2:30pm to do my workout. My stomach was a bit upset, but my legs felt good and my cardio seemed strong, so I was happy with the effort. I am hoping that my stomach will continue to trend in the right direction in getting better, and then hopefully getting off of the meds that I am currently on. In preparation for the relays, I am also going to have to start doing something I have never done before since I started running – double running sessions. It’s more of a mental thing, but it needs to be done. Stay tuned as I try and tackle that challenge.