Category Archives: Battenkill

Bagels and biking and bread!

Triple B today!  I woke up early today because of pain.  Just a momentary gripe here, but I will be so glad to finally wake up pain free – or just be pain free period.  This is getting really old.  It’s better mind you, a lot better, but not much fun.  Patience…..

We headed out to Panera Bread, where I had a french toast bagel.

I really took the time to slow down and eat, too.  Sometimes I wolf my food down because I am hungry and it tastes good 😀

Then we went grocery shopping, with me on crutches.  I can’t walk long distances without the crutches yet, although I can get around the house and such without them.  After checking in with work and it being slow (as in dead), we packed up some food and headed out to catch the Battenkill pro bikers along their route.  This bike race is 124 miles long.  Lunch in the car for me was some broccoli slaw sauteed in coconut oil, 1/4 cup of rice and 1 egg/2 egg whites scrambled.  With some hot sauce.  This was quite good!

Poor bikers – it was a cold day and rainy.

We had a cup of coffee and I ate my strawberries while waiting for the bikers.  We were excited!

Poor John, I always cut his head off :D. We actually timed it pretty well (or John did, I should say).  It was quite exciting.  I have never seen a live bike race before.  I have been to plenty of running races, but the tempo of this was so fast compared to that!  Here is a video of the main group.

You can hear me start to freak out about how close the bikers came to us and you can hear them hit their brakes around the curve.  It was a hard left curve. We were on the curb and not even in the road and they came so close!  I actually got a little scared 😳

That was a rush.  They were so colorful, too. I can’t believe how close they ride together at that speed.  Average speed is around 25-30 miles an hour on this course.

Then other small clusters came by.

They were also going fast.

Ooops  – missed the biker here :mrgreen:  He just shot right past my camera.

One lonely Trek rider, way behind.

It was all over so fast.  Next year, I want to go to the finish area, but it is another 1/2 hour away, so we couldn’t do that today with my work.  I want to ride so bad!

Also noted were some lovely azaleas!

Had to get back to work, although it would have been nice to hang around and see the bikers come through again (they do a double 62-mile loop).   Got to work and there was some to do, so I got busy.  John made lattes and I had a snack to go with:

Granola nut clusters.  Addictive!

John made up some of the 5-minute healthy bread from the book I bought him:

It was perfection!  I had a slice with my dinner salad:

I am going to have to work some of this into my eating this week.  So good.  John is happy because the recipe worked!  There is more dough in the fridge, so he can bake whenever he wants.

Pear for dessert:

Well, that fun today comes at a price of having to work late tonight, but it was worth it!

Tomorrow I will talk about me being in Shape and more pictures from the photo shoot we did a couple months ago! 😀

I am also going to venture to the gym for the first time in almost 2 weeks to do some light lifting.  I need to get back into some routine again.

Livestrong and the Battenkill

It’s my weekend!   A little chilly this morning, so I made some banana oats topped with Nuttzo and pineapple preserves.

Read the free weekly paper and then went out to the cancer center at the hospital, where they were hosting 4 of the riders from the Livestrong Trek team for the Battenkill Bike Race this weekend.  The Battenkill is a premier bike race, and we are lucky to have it so close by.

These guys are so young (and cute).

4 countries represented here: Canada, England, Australia, New Zealand.

There was a question and answer session with them about biking, the Livestrong team, training, and racing.  Some interesting points:

  • Bikes must weigh a minimum of 15 pounds (for safety)
  • This team will do 70 races in a year. 😯
  • They don’t go into each race thinking to win, as each rider has different strengths and you can’t be in peak condition all year long (lightbulb went off here for me).
  • Riders are invited to join the Livestrong Trek team based on their previous year’s performance on the pro circuit.  It’s quite an honor to be offered a contract.
  • They begin to eat a lot a couple days before the race and a lot during each race.  Nothing crazy, just more of their regular food.
  • The most common bike injury other than road rash is a broken collarbone. Ouch!

One of the Trek bikes.  It is so light!  It’s like picking up a 15# dumbbell.

Getting up close and personal.  Thin tire!

Seat looks comfy, no?

They said that while this seat looks gruesome (their words) the longer you ride, the more a padded, wider seat would chafe.  ‘Nuff said.

This bike has a computer on it that can tell the rider how many pedal strokes they are doing at any given time, GPS, calories, speed, RPMs, distance, energy output and more.  It can be downloaded onto a computer and they can analyze an entire race from start to finish.  Amazing.

After all that and I found out I touched a $10,000 bike (eeeeeeeeeeee) 😯

I cannot wait to get back on the bike now!  If work is slow on Sunday, we hope to be able to catch some of the race in person.

Came home and made a yummy lunch of greek yogurt, bran buds, strawberries and a drizzle of honey.  Not pictured is the medjool date I munched on.

I did a mini upper body workout today:

  • Wall pushups:  3 sets of 25
  • Tricep kickbacks:  3 sets of 15 with 12# DB
  • Overhead press:  3 sets of 10 with 15#

Then I walked.  I also walked a lot at the hospital today.  I had the forethought to take the crutches, and I was glad because I had to walk a lot more than I expected with parking.

After some guitar practice, it was latte time!

We just have a Mr. Coffee espresso maker.  Only was $25.  The espresso isn’t the best, but it foams milk like a son of a gun!

John wanted to take me out to dinner.  He kept asking me – it must be out of pity for me LOL.  So, we went to Arthurs where we split a plate of fries 😳

And I had a turkey and broccoli grinder with mustard instead of mayo.

I just love warm and toasty sammies!

Going to be a quiet evening at home tonight.  Is it too early to get into jammies on a Friday night after dinner?? :mrgreen: