Third Thursday Third Things - May Edition
A veritable bounty of links and recs
*This post is too long for email! Make sure to click the link at the bottom to read all the recs.*
It’s been a spectacular month of spring becoming summer in the valley. The barrel cactus and yucca are blooming. A hummingbird has made her home on my porch. I did a big spring fridge clean out after seeing this image of Anthony Bourdain’s fridge and found a spectacular rainbow of molds, old foods, and things I refused to even lift the lid on.
The contents of my fridge do not look nearly as cool as Bourdain’s, but it’s always a triumph when I can put a full glass bowl of soaking beans in there without fighting for space.
Speaking of good food:
The Grand Junction farmer’s market kicks off in July (I think? This website is confusing. C’mon GJ).
The Fruita farmer’s market kicks off in mid-June.
And the greatest of them all, the Palisade Sunday farmer’s market, starts in just a few weeks, June 1.
Which is to say it’s starting to feel like summer. And even though I am not generally a summer person (It’s too hot. And the days are too long—it feels manic to have to cram everything in before the darkness of winter. And the weather is almost too good. Too much sunshine. Too much urgency!) I feel different this year.
I’ve been mapping out bikepacking trips, various travel, and finally started training for my first bike race this August, the Lake City Alpine 50 (and then got talked into racing the short lap of the Laramie Range Epic in late July which means I’ll get a 32 mile race under my belt before my big race in August).
I love to see the calendar filling in and to know my friends are meeting me all over the state for our numerous little adventures. Several of them are doing these races with me, which fills me with much excitement/nervousness around actually having to train for something athletic.
The last thing I “trained” for was riding the Kokopelli Trail in October 2023, which involved just riding my bike a little more than usual and saying at least once a week, Man, I should really start training for this. It probably comes as no surprise that my friends and I DNF-ed Kokopelli (though we did make it all the way from Fruita to Moab).
So this year, training is going to look something like this:
8-10 hours of riding a week with one big 20+ mile mountain bike ride on the weekends
A cross-training plan 2-3 days a week, developed by my coach (hellooooo glutes, quads, and calves!)
Trying to eat 120 grams of protein daily (hellllooooo protein powder!)
Trying to eat 30 grams of fiber daily (hellloooooooo bean-based dishes!)
And recovery is going to look something like this:
2-3 days a week of cold plunges and infrared sauna time at my gym
Actually using the Theragun to get blood flow to sore muscles
Drinking enough water (with electrolytes—I really love these)
Yoga and stretching
I finished reading Brendan Leonard’s most recent book, Ultra-Something this week, which made me more excited for the coming races and made me REALLY excited that I get to bike them and not run them.
What I’m really looking forward to, though, is more time with friends, more time outside, and less time with screens. There’s a lot more to life than stewing in news headlines.
—Yeah, but what's in it for me? Why I don't think outdoor brands should be in charge of community
—‘Game Changer’ Is a Fun and Unpredictable Game Show [I will never stop recommending this show]
—‘Book brigade’: US town forms human chain to move 9,100 books one-by-one [these are the only news headlines I want to read]
—Meet the woman who lives without money [I still had questions after finishing this article, but in concept, I love it]
—This really cool wind map [Thank you Heidi for the rec!]
—To Escape the Grind, Young People Turn to ‘Mini-Retirements’
—The Monkey Wrench Gang: A Legacy of Sabotage in an Era of Algorithmic Apathy
—Colorado Mesa University has proven geothermal energy can largely replace fossil fuels in its buildings. Now the world is taking notice [I did not know the pool I swam in each week for dive class was heated in part by geothermal energy]
—Avoiding the Cult of Retirement
—My Therapist Says I Intellectualize My Emotions, But I Just Think That’s So Interesting [I felt really seen/called out by this one]
—The Dumb Phone Diaries Finale: How To Get Out Of Hell
—Dungeon Master Brennan Lee Mulligan Answers DnD Questions [even if you don’t play DnD, you’ll love this]
—Cheating Expert Answers Casino Cheating Questions [this weirdly made me think a lot about how strange it is that we made these rules on when it is and isn’t legal to trick people out of money]
—This performance of Poor Unfortunate Souls
—Bluets by Maggie Nelson
—Ultra-Something by Brendan Leonard
—Lucius’s new album
—This 10% Happier episode about nuance and groupthink
—This Rich Roll episode about making decisions
—This Your Wrong About asking if we keep our houses too clean [Yeah, I listened to this while cleaning out my fridge. I live for irony.]
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