Awesome Fridays: June Edition! June Gloom, Swimming, Waves, Puppies & More
Happy Awesome Friday, everyone! Hope you all had a great week. June Gloom is in full effect down here in SoCal. I used to think June gloom was just a saying but this week I’ve learned it’s an actual weather pattern. Who knew? You can read more about it here: June Gloom.
This week was my husband Marion’s birthday. He’s been working really hard lately and has worked almost every weekend since mid-May. Bummer. He was able to sneak away from work for a bit on Wednesday for us to celebrate his bday. I woke up early and made him banana chocolate chip pancakes. I even braved it and made the pancakes with regular mixture instead of gluten-free. After I made his pancakes I had a bit of a sneezing fest and couldn’t figure out if it was a reaction to the gluten or just my mind playing tricks on me. I am not sure but I showered afterwards and all was good. Mostly every meal cooked in our house is gluten-free these days so this was obviously a VERY special occasion. Later that night we went out to Wurstküche, a german restaurant with all types of sausage and beers. I had a mango jalapeno sausage with no bun and served on a bed of sweet and spicy peppers. It was pretty good! Here’s a pic of us from dinner:
Last weekend I participated in the Coast 2 Coast Swim Challenge sponsored by LA Tri Club. It was a great time and I swam 2250 yards to help raise money for kids swim lessons.
I am a bit bummed this week because tomorrow (Saturday June 8th) was supposed to be my first paddleboard race. It was a 2.2 mile fun race starting at the Santa Monica pier. I was really looking forward to it, but there’s a big swell right now in the water and waves are 5-7ft here with 1-2 ft overhead. Not the type of conditions I want to endure for my first paddle board race ever. Being surrounded in big surf with 50 other people on boards ranging from 9-13ft sounds like pure craziness to me. I am sad to sit this one out, but I know there will be another race I can sign up for and maybe even one in still water so we don’t have to risk the ever changing ocean conditions. Here’s a pic of me paddleboarding from last weekend. My friend Christine and I paddled from Marina Del Rey to Venice Pier and back. It rocked. The water is so peaceful!
If you notice in the shot above, my shorts are pretty long. I usually wear them for surfing because the board rubs against your leg when you are sitting and the longer shorts protect you. But this is paddleboarding and I want to look cute and fit and awesome! My friend Christine has this cute pair of board shorts from Athleta called the Breeze Short. I took the plunge and ordered them yesterday along with a cute long sleeve paddleboard top. I will be sure to post pics of me out in the water in them!
My workouts this week have not been as frequent as I would have liked. Here’s what they looked like:
Sunday – Swim 2250 yards at Coast 2 Coast
Monday – Soccer
Tuesday – Manhattan Beach Stairs (these are tough!)
Wednesday- Rest
Thursday- Make plans to swim but fall asleep on couch instead. Bad!
Friday- Either Swim or Run. I am not sure yet. The waves are big today so running along the strand and watching them sounds pretty darn good to me.
Saturday – This was supposed to be my race day. I will probably still go down and watch and maybe run along the beach or something.
In other news, I saw the cutest golden retriever puppy this week and he made me so happy. His name is Ray Charles The Golden Retriever and he is blind. He is the cutest thing ever! I am following him on Facebook now and his posts make me so happy. I grew up with goldens my whole life and my husband and I realllly want to get a puppy this summer. I will keep you all posted when we get one! Thanks to Nicole at Apples and Arteries for posting this link in her blog last week. Too cute!
What about you? Have you ever trained for a race and then not been able to participate? Do you have June gloom right now? Post in the comments and let me know!
I want to come out to CA and go paddelboarding! And then I’ll help you pick out a puppy 🙂 Hope you guys get a pup this summer! Yeah for Ray Charles 🙂
Yes! Let me know if you are ever planning to come to Cali and we’ll get you set up on a paddleboard! We just began our puppy search and we are ridiculously excited. They are so darn cute!