Summer Gazpacho

Cold gazpacho has been a staple of mine during the warmer months.  Its simple, refreshing, and great for your health!  While there are many different ways to make it, I prefer a very simple version.  Adding in red onion is very common, but I don't like having raw onion breath all day.

You'll need the following:

- 4 to 5 small tomatoes or 2 large
- 1 bell pepper (any color will do)
- 1 cucumber peeled and seeded
- Garlic
- Salt/pepper
- Good olive oil
- Apple cider vinegar (2 T)

Chop everything up and throw in a blender or food processor and pulse until it gets to your desired consistency.  Simple!  I'd say 1 batch of this will store well for up to a week, but I can't say for sure because this only lasts me a few days at most.  Enjoy : )

Ready for emulsifying

Finished product!

Pardeeville Sprint Recap

While this is still fresh I wanted to write down a quick recap...and since I tend to get long winded I'm going to try to keep this short, but no promises : )

I kicked off the 4th of July weekend by working on my day off.  Yes, I know.  Seems strange.  But helping time races usually falls on my days off.  After getting back from the New Berlin 4th of July Dash, I got out for a nice 50-something mile ride.  Normally, I'd prepare for races by watching my diet a little more closely, and staying away from alcohol.  This week was different.  Since it was the 4th, I celebrated with a healthy amount of good ole American JD whiskey.  All I will say is I did not feel so hot on Fri (the day before the race).  I spent most of the day eating fatty foods and setting up for the race in Pardeeville.  Pre-race dinner consisted of a fried fish sandwich, fries, moz sticks, and jalapeno poppers.  It was an all fried meal, because why not?  This is far outside my norm, but we were in a small town with limited options.  To quote America's Angriest Trainer Vinnie T..."you have to put some life into living".  All in all this plan worked, surprisingly.  SPOILER: I took 2nd overall!  My best result yet.  Here's how it went down.

Unlike Lake Mills, I was able to successfully work/race this one.  Once 6:45 rolled around I was done working (race started at 8) so I could get a proper warm up in.  I was able to do all 3 S/B/R which was a nice change.  It was also nice to meet up with a lot of friends before the race!

Photo op with Jen and Candice before the start

My plan was to go out hard on the swim.  I was tired of having results that didn't show the work I've put in the pool during the off season.  Finally I had a solid swim.  There were a handful of people ahead of me that I quickly passed with the fastest T1 of the day.  That's free speed folks.  Keep.  Transitions.  Simple.

To my surprise, I came out of T1 with multiple Pardeeville (and this years) winner Dale Humphrey.  He is an absolute beast, so it was fun passing him out of the first turn of the bike and having the lead vehicle to follow for about 15 seconds.  Short lived but a new experience for me.  I knew he was going to put time into me on the bike so my only goal was to go hard and keep him in sight for as long as possible.  I almost cracked 25 mph on the bike, so mission accomplished here.

I had another quick transition posting the 2nd fastest T2.  The run was pretty cool here.  It started with about a half mile loop around the park followed by an out and back.  I got a couple splits of about 1:18 behind Dale, something I knew I couldn't make up unless he cracked.  So at this point I was only running hard enough to keep the gap on 3rd, who was about 30 seconds back.  He was sneaking up on me without my knowledge, so a big thanks to Ryan G. for letting me know near the run turn around.  Once I saw how close he was I ran just a tad harder to hold the gap.  This run hurt due to the heat steadily rising throughout the race.  My asthma kicked in a little during the back half of the run, which is never pleasant, but is something I have learned to deal with.

Finishing

 All in all a good day!  I had absolutely horrible preparation for this race.  I was doing this for fun, but still wanted a good showing, so I am very happy with the result.  Nothing I would have done differently.

Afterwards, I had to start working again so I hopped on the finisher ticket computers to get people their printed splits.  This was really fun because I got to see how a lot of friends did and I always love the surprised reactions when someone finds out they placed in their respective AG.  Shout out to Braaksma for a 4th OA/AG win, Jen for placing AND her first elite start, Joe B for an AG win, and the Yeomans as well (and anyone else I got to see, too many as usual)!  They did the annual Potosi ride the previous day and still had rock star races.  I would not want to race the day after 106 miles of relentless heat, wind and hills.  Also, BIG shout out to RDE!  The ability to work with them and race their events is a pleasure.  Some of the best run events I have ever been involved with and I feel lucky to be with their team.

Time breakdown:
S - 5:09
T1 - 1:17
B - 36:22
T2 - 1:08
R - 18:51
Total - 1:02:45

Lots of compliments about the Wattie kit, always helps to motivate to go harder.  And thanks to Powerbar for the nutritional support.  I love their products and had it dialed in for my needs.  IM Racine is my first big race of the year and will be here in 2 short weeks!  Time for some taper and to dial in the race intensity!