T is for Triathlon

My dear friend and regular cooking partner, Cynthia, is now an accomplished triathlete.  She swam 750 m in chilly water, biked 20 km while dodging deer in the park, and topped it all off with a 5 km run in about an hour and a half.  Incredible!  We spent a weekend at Smith Mountain Lake for her race and C is for Cooking served as her...I'm trying not to giggle...sponsor!  I laugh because this sponsorship really didn't involve any money.  We stayed at my in-laws lake house and if you're wondering about meals, I honestly didn't do that much cooking.

Basically, it comes down to the shirts.  I had a dozen tees printed at Crazy Horse Studio in town and we wore them to the race.  The goal was that Cynthia could spot us easily in the crowd between her transitions and at the finish line.  It worked!  We were a mini sea of green.

After Cynthia's race, I did whip up a meal for us to eat on the deck and enjoy some sunshine.  I marinated chicken breast tenderloins in oil and vinegar, grilled them, and then smeared them with a yummy teriyaki BBQ sauce.  I also grilled a bit of asparagus in a metal basket while the chicken was cooking.  I chopped up a head of bok choy and created a dressing with soy sauce, sugar, oil, and sunflower seeds.  My old roommate, Steph, taught me how to make the bok choy dressing & it's one of my very favorite salads.  In addition to the chicken, asparagus, and bok choy, I also set out a bowl of sliced cantaloupe and leftover rice pilaf with fresh mushrooms from our farm box.  Cynthia felt refueled, so we set out for a boat ride.  I always love the first trip out on the water after a long winter.  Thank God for spring!  

Summer is almost here.  We have 18 days of school left and a few more standardized tests to administer.  I'm trying to maintain a certain energy and keep high expectations until the last day of school, but I'm definitely weary from the SOL tests and endless review.  I'm finding myself wanting to bake and bake and bake, but I don't have time to write about what I create, nor do I need to eat all those baked goods!  I'll try to muscle through to the end of our school year and view Cynthia as an inspiration.  She powered through that triathlon; I can power through the last 4 weeks!  

"The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand."     - Vince Lombardi