Category Archives: bike riding

4 score and 8 miles of biking (AKA 88 miles)

Dang what a day.  This was a long tough ride!

The plan was for 80ish miles today.  We got up early and had a nice breakfast.  I decided to have some banana custard oats to fuel up.

Topped with Teddie peanut butter and strawberry jam.  I also had 1.5 cups of almond milk.  Approximately 500 calories before we left the house.

Packed up our bike bags to head out.  I brought along a granola bar, a pear, coconut water, dried pineapple, and one of my favorite ride snacks:

Dates!

We checked weather.com and the hourly forecast had 10% chance of rain.  It was a gorgeous morning when we set out.  At 10 miles, we stopped so I could take some pictures.

This was a side route we take, but normally going the other way, so this was fun to ride it in this direction.  I also had one of the above dates at this point. John had to fiddle with his tire as he either ran over a rock or stick and it made a bulge in his wheel.

We were making pretty good time.  We continued on for another 9 miles and stopped at mile 19 for a potty stop and a snack:

Anyone in NY will recognize Stewarts!  This is the convenience store you want to stop in if you have to use the restroom.  Always clean.  See what a gorgeous sky there was this morning? Too bad it didn’t last.  We passed through Saratoga and on to Ballston Spa, where John asked for a stop for a map check, which always makes me nervous.  He is the map planner for our rides.

We were trying to wind our way to the Zimm Smith mid county trail.  We hit at at about mile 30 and then stopped shortly thereafter for a snack.

Can I say that I adored this path?

We were on it for around 7 miles and it was awesome!

I was starting to get hungry at this point. We knew it was going to be around 40 miles to get to Clifton Park and all the food choices.  It ended up being 42 miles and I was about bonking at this point.  I should have stopped at mile 40 and had a date, because the last 2 miles was an upward climb! Of course with it being the holiday, some places were closed.  And the one pasta place we wanted to go to was gone.  So we went to Mocha Lisa’s, which is a place I haven’t been to in a while!

John happy with 42 miles:

I was feeling pretty good.

Mocha Lisa’s is a neat coffee shop with a lunch menu.

Lunch was a chicken and pesto panini with roasted red peppers and provolone.

Excellent!  I tried not to wolf it down.  After this, I had some more dried pineapple.  We filled up our water bottles and continued on.  We were going to loop up a different way, but we enjoyed that bike path so much that we backtracked to go back on it.  At mile 57, it was time for some coconut water.

We had stuck these in the freezer overnight and this was slushy cold and delicious!  I think coconut water might be an acquired taste for some – but I lurve it!

I saw these really cool wild lilies along this path.  Actually, there were tons of wildflowers and it was so pretty.

Of course, it cannot be an official ride without one of these 🙄  :

Ugh!  Actually, to be fair, this flat was a leaking patch.  I am not sure why John didn’t change out this tube with a new one before such a long ride.  You aren’t really supposed to ride on patched tires – they are just supposed to get you home.  Anyway, he put in a new tube and we headed out.

I started to have some chain problems around 60 miles.  Every 12 pedal revolutions and my chain would go ‘clunk’.  It was like a link was sticking or something.  We lubed up the chain, but it was weird for the rest of the ride periodically.

Mile 66 and we made it back to Saratoga.  Both cupcake places were closed for the holiday, but Saratoga Coffee Traders was open!

Giant iced coffee and a 7-layer bar.  I made sure to eat and drink this slowly so my stomach wouldn’t cramp up.

We also played a little coffee trivia game:

Yum!

Food tastes so good when you are working hard.  This was at about 4 hours of ride time by this point (not including breaks and lunch).

Sky was looking a little ominous as we left.

As we headed out, John got another flat.  Can you believe it?  We pumped up the tire and got to the nearest gas station.  We checked where the leak was in the new tube and I examined the tire and found this embedded in it:

It was like some tiny metal pin or something.  Good thing we found that because he had to use *my* spare tube and it would have gone flat as well.  So, we got that all fixed and continued on.

At mile 70, it started to rain.

Apparently 10% chance of rain really means 100% chance of rain.

Thanks weather.com…

After the rain lessened, we started going again and then it really started pouring!  This was at about 6 p.m., too.  We waited for about half an hour, but we knew that we had about 18 miles to go and were going to cut it a little close to get home in daylight.  We just sucked it up and kept riding.  We rode about 10 miles in rain.  Not fun.  My toes were squishing in water as I pedaled! I have to say, though, that I was feeling pretty good. My legs were strong and not really too tired at all.

At mile76, we stopped for a quick snack.  I probably wouldn’t have needed something if we didn’t have that half hour rain delay.

We stopped 1/3 of a mile from home to pick up some ice cream and then rode the last bit home.

Ride stats:

Miles:  88.7

Ride time (excluding stops and breaks) 6 hours 40 minutes

Average speed 13.2 mph

Calories burned: 2745

If we hadn’t had a rain delay, we could have just done 100 miles, and we had thought about it earlier until we had the tire issues and the rain.  If only there was an hour of daylight left to finish it out.  John may not do 100 miles with me, but I am ready to finish that task and get back to normal riding.

Pixie was happy to see us and check out my shake.

After the best shower EVER!!, we are now watching more biking:

Time to eat some leftover pizza and a few more carbs tonight.

Hope you all had a happy 4th!

50 mile cupcake ride!

I am putting this post up today since I know you all enjoy my ride recaps.  I will do the birthday shenanigans post on Monday.

We decided on a later start for the ride since it was just going to be a cupcake ride.  I figured we could eat lunch at home and then I would have an excuse to get 2 cupcakes 😀

Breakfast was banana custard oats topped with coconut butter and peach jam.

What a yummy breakfast!

I had a chance to putter around the garden for a while and practice my guitar.  Normally we are on the road by this time, so it was nice to have quiet morning.

We ate lunch.  I added more carbs to fuel the ride.  This sandwich is on homemade sourdough.

Then we suited up to head out.  I got my bike out only to find ANOTHER FLAT TIRE!!  😡  (@#*!$@#).  At this point, I really was ready to go lay down in traffic.

I took a cue from what the guys in the shop did and pulled the whole tire off.  We marked the tube location, found the hole, and checked the tire.  Sure enough, I found a hole in the tire with a shard of rock embedded in it.  The path we were on last night had some fresh cinder put down, so I imagine that is where it came from.  I put a scab on the inside of the tire and we put in a new tube.  All was well.  Here I am trying to be enthusiastic before starting.

Other than that, it was a fantastic day to ride!  Perfect temperature.  It was sunny and I used my new sunscreen.  No burn today :mrgreen:

We took a quick stop at mile 11, where I slugged water and decided to have a date.  It’s all green and pretty now.

Here is mile 15 at a traffic light.

Note the light is green.  I was taking pictures and we almost missed the light!

We had a bit of tail wind and arrived in Saratoga with a pace of 13.8 miles per hour.  Nice!  It was time for the Lab!  I ordered a guatemalen coffee and eyed the case.

Then I saw these – french macarons!  I new I had to get one of those with my cupcake.

The cupcake was uber fresh and Almond Joy.  Delicious!  I love the buttercream here.

My macaron was pistachio.

This was seriously one of the best cookies I have ever eaten!  I don’t know if it was the 21 miles I had just ridden or the fact that it was pistachio (which I love) or what.  Maybe all of the above?  I think it probably was a bit chewier than a macaron normally is, but I really liked it.

I am making these for Christmas!

We headed on out to home.  There was a bit of a head wind, but it wasn’t enough to make me whine, so it probably wasn’t all that much.  I got my second wind at mile 30 and I was raring to go!  We usually stop at mile 30, but kept on going.  Took a new route coming home.  It goes through farm country and very beautiful.  We stopped at mile 33 for these pictures and some coconut water.

The rest of the ride was nice and relaxing.  At mile 42, I peeled off from John and went for a longer ride.  He headed home.  I wanted to round up to 50.  I rode on the path.  We don’t always ride on this part of the path, but it sure is pretty right now.  It is on the canal and the logging companies used to float trees down the river.

Very green right now.

I hit home right about 50 miles.  Good timing!

Ride stats:

Miles: 50

Ride time: 3 hours 42 minutes (not including breaks)

Average speed: 13.5 mph

Top speed 25.1 mph

Calories burned: 1456

This 50 miles was soooooo much better than last week’s 51 miles.  My legs feel good.  I am not quite ready for 100 miles, but I have a good base going on now.

I will see you all on the other side of 42 to 43!

Question:  Have you ever had a french macaron?

May Wrap Up and curse of the tires.

Can you believe May is over already? We also seemed to have leaped right into July with this weather! Since I had no bike tube, I had to drive to the gym this morning. The bike stores were closed yesterday and places like Target don’t sell the type of tire I need (presta valve).

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Barbell squats 3 sets of 10 at 65# Lower Body
Straight Arm Lat Pull down 3 set of 10 at 50# Back
Horizontal Wood Chop 3 sets of 12 (each side) at 20# Core
Calf Raise 3 sets of 12 at 110# Calves
Low Back Extension 3 sets of 12 at 80# Low Back
Barbell Bench Press 3 sets of 8 at 55# Chest
Nose Breakers 3 sets of 12 with 20# bar Triceps
Good Mornings 3 sets of 10 at 55# Hammies and low back
Biceps Curl 3 sets of 10 with 25# EZ Curl bar Biceps
Bent Lateral Raise 3 sets of 10 with 12# DBs (24# total) Shoulders

Nice workout today.  I am seriously thinking of bringing the workouts home.  I looked at some stuff at Dick’s yesterday to price that versus being in the gym. Then it was to home. Already warm out, too!

Breakfast was 30 grams of oats cooked with a small banana.

Topped with peanut flour, which I got a little too liquidy.  Ooops.

I thought today would be slow the day after a holiday, but it was busy right out of the gate.  Yay!  That meant I wouldn’t work at night and could sneak in a yogurt ride (provided I got a replacement tire).

So, as per tradition around here, here is a roundup of my May goals and how I did:

1.  Weight loss/fat loss. I gained a couple pounds.  Not good.  That was after 2 months of not using a scale.  I will be weighing myself more often now.  Not every day, but more often.  I think I still need that tool, which is okay.

2. Go vegetarian for 1 week!  Success! I made it through the week pretty easily.  Much easier than going wheat free.  I made some yummy dishes like cheese souffle, too.  Not interested in being a full-time veggie, though.

3. Finish our half bath/pantry. Yay!  Done and we are happily using it now.  We need to have a renovation party now.

4. Scrub down the house.  Been cleaning the house, particularly in the last week.  Feels so much better and no more renovation dust on everything.  I even scrubbed the kitchen floor on my hands and knees which I don’t think I have done since we moved here 4+ years ago. It looks like new.

5. Do another round of 28-day Body Shapeover.  I have the book out, but I have not started it yet.  I realized with dropping down to 2 days a week and all the biking that I can’t do the program officially.  Not sure what to do here.

6.  Bring back some no-added sugar days once or twice a week. I did these periodically, although I could have done more.

Decent month, although I will say the weight thing bothers me.  Using pants for me doesn’t quite work.  I think I have a wide span of weight before I actually notice it in my clothing.  Guess what is going to be on June’s list of goals tomorrow? :mrgreen:

Hot weather means cool lunch today.  I used up some of the BBQ chicken from last night for my usual salad meal.

This chicken was sooo good! We got thighs and I do love the dark meat.  It just has so much more flavor.

While I was working, John biked to the bike store and picked up new tubes and spares for us.  Hooray!  While he was gone, I had an iced latte:

Plus half of a new Zone bar flavor.

Cashew pretzel flavor.  I got a free sample bar in the mail.  It is quite tasty. I don’t eat the bars as much as I used to, but John is pretty much an addict still. 😀

Dinner time included some wonderful blueberries!  Plus shrimp and broccoli sauteed in coconut oil.

I seriously wonder if I could do an all fruit diet for a few days.  It would be so refreshing in the hot weather!

I was all excited because my tube was replaced on my bike and that meant a yogurt ride!  Got the tube in and pumped up the tire.  All looked great!  I went out before John because I wanted to get some extra miles in and meet him for yogurt.  He gave me a half hour start.

I was so happy to be riding again.  It felt great and I was making good time.  Then at 3.5 miles into the ride, I started to feel that funny shimmy and then I could feel every bump again.  Seriously? Yes – the tire was flat – AGAIN!!!!  This is the third flat in 2 days.  WTF????

I texted John and let him know.  I was going to replace the tube with my spare and keep going, but something is obviously wrong with the tire for there to be this many issues.  Maybe a piece of glass is stuck in the well or something.  I was then getting eaten alive my mosquitoes, so I told John just to come get me.  I was a little pissed, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me from getting yogurt!

This is oriental ginger flavor.  It reminds me of 7-Up a little bit.  I kind of like it.  I am so not happy about this tire situation.  Going to get a new wheel cover tomorrow at the shop and see what happens then.  I so need a cupcake ride this weekend – with no flat tires!

Biking and Bettie’s Cupcakes

Ahhhh…. glorious coolness!  Wonderful breeze coming in this morning through our new windows 😀

I was up early, as per usual, but John was sleeping in after a poker night.   Normally on Saturdays I eat when I get up, then John eats a couple hours later and we go biking.  I would get hungry really early in the ride.  So, I figured I would eat a snack and have a later breakfast.

Toast and jam!  Yum.  I am loving this bread I’ve been eating over the summer.  Doing endurance things really makes me crave carbs (cause I need them).

I poked around blogs and puttered around outside for a while.  Then John got up after a couple hours and I made brekkie.  I am all about the pumpkin after seeing those yesterday! 😀

Pumpkin custard oats topped with some light cream cheese mixed with powdered sugar.  I threw in about 1/4 cup of frozen cranberries while cooking the oats.

This bowl is sitting by a couple pie pumpkins I picked up yesterday.  John said I was taking oats to a higher art form.   Did you know it is National Better Breakfast month?

Packed a few items and headed out to Saratoga.  It was really windy today.  Strong headwind on the way down to the tune of 15 mph.  That adds a *lot* of resistance to the ride.  We stopped around 10 miles in for a little snackie.

I was trying to take a picture of the date I was going to eat, but the camera was focusing on the date I was with 😀

John took some action shots of me:

I look like a badass, but I am really not.  I just play one on the internet.

Just passin’ by! Bike shorts just aren’t flattering.

After 20 miles, we reached our destination. We were going to go to the Cupcake Lab as per usual, but they were closed for the weekend!  Ooops.  So, we headed to our other favorite – Uncommon Grounds.

I had a banana walnut bagel.  (Coffee roaster in background). Yum.  We walked around a little, and John ended up buying a ring to kind of match mine (since he has lost 2 wedding rings now).

It’s a little nicer than mine, what is up with that?  Anyway, 3rd time is a charm for rings, right?  Good thing he doesn’t go through marriages as fast as he does his wedding rings….

So, you didn’t think there wouldn’t be a cupcake on this ride, did you?  We stopped at Betties – which I believe is going to be on the Great Food Truck Race on Food Network.

Sorry Shelley – I know you are seeing these everywhere!

I had trouble deciding, so I got a peanut butter/chocolate cupcake and a mini thin mint.  The small ones are about the size of a bon-bon.

Very good.  Very dense, too.  The frosting at Bettie’s is much more rich than at Cupcake Lab.

With cupcake power inside (sitting like a rock), we headed home.  It was cloudy and started spitting some rain on us – yay…..  At least we had somewhat of a tailwind!  Stopped after mile 30 to have some coconut water.

Then the last 11 miles home.

Ride stats:


Distance: 41.6 miles

Avg speed: 13.3 mph

Calories burned: 1275

Awesome! I was feeling great.  My legs feel strong.  I didn’t have any chafing issues today (sorry).   Next week’s ride will be tough, but I know I have the distance in me.

I have all of this energy after that ride.  I think it is the cooler weather or something.  The heat just saps out so much energy from me.

I headed on out to the Smokehouse to pick up meat.  I love buying local!  Boneless chicken breast for $2.89 a pound.  Can’t beat that.

John cooked up chicken and I had to make my classic.  Need some veggies/protein after that carb fest I had earlier today.

Tonight is going to be porch sitting with my hubby and drinking some coffee (decaf).  Starting to feel like fall…..

Sunday this ‘n that

I slept great last night!  Probably because  I took a Tylenol PM since my back was bothering me a touch.  I think my disk will probably bother me forever, I guess.  Interesting note,  5 months after herniating my disk and I still have skin numbness in my knee.  I am beginning to think that is permanent as well, although it does not seem to affect anything I do, it just feels really weird.

We were up for biking to bagels this morning albeit a little slow 😀  I was hangry, too!  Day after long bike ride usually = very hungry Lori.

Yum.  Plus my 3 cups of coffee… yes indeed.

More relaxed work day today.  I have officially moved down to part time with job #1 so that will get me more on an even keel.  My life has been so backloaded with work for the last couple of months that I have felt a little out of whack.  I hope to get some blog stuff updated as well.  Another gentle reminder from John that I need to change my age to 42 in the sidebar…. 🙄

Lunch break on the porch.  I held this up by the giant clematis 😀

I have pretty much finished the recipe compilation booklet.  I will get a donate button on my site (amount will be up to the donor).  All monies collected from it will go to my charity ride (and I will forward a copy to those that have donated already!).  That took a while to do, I have to say.  Compiling took forever.  I cannot imagine writing a book from scratch unless that is all you did.

My butterfly visitor was back today:

Snack time (unpictured are some crackers I had):

Spent some time today moving furniture and removing window coverings in preparation for the installment of our new windows this week.  It almost feels like we are moving.  Thank goodness we aren’t.  Don’t want to move again for a long time.

I cannot believe we are coming to the end of August already.  School doesn’t start around here until after Labor Day, but people are gearing up.  And do you know what we saw in the grocery store last night?  Halloween candy!  I picked up a bag of candy corn and just inhaled that sweet, sweet scent… Didn’t buy, though.

Dinner time! Went for extra protein.

Plus awesome baked sweet potato “chips”.  These are great in the new convection toaster oven.

Flexing in work tonight and the Broncos are on prime time!  While I still love my Broncos, the Saints keep stealing their way up in my heart.

Snacks:

We have been going through a ton of fruit lately.  In fact we ran out as I didn’t have any pear to eat with yesterday’s ride! I guess I just eat a lot of it.  I may as well do one of those fruit fasts LOL!

Don’t forget to comment on this post if you want an entry to win the book I’m With Fatty!  And with that I will end this mish mash of a post 😀

Question:  Does school start before or after Labor Day for your area?

Will bike for cupcakes

Unbelievably gorgeous day today!  It was chilly this morning, though.  I was ready for a warm brekkie.  I had forethought last night to soak some steel cut oats, so they were quicker to cook this morning.  Love that technique.

I did the usual banana custard style topped with some strawberry jam and cashew butter.

My mouth and tummy were happy campers!  I got a chance to catch up on blogs and some emails while waiting for John to get up 😛

We packed up some snacks and got ready to hit the road for a long ride.  I am so happy to go riding!

Headed down to Saratoga today.  It was such a beautiful day for a ride.  I kept saying that until John got annoyed LOL!  (Did I mention it was a beautiful day??)  We stopped around mile 12 as I wanted a snack.  It’s hard to wait longer when I ate breakfast about 2 hours earlier than John did.  Product placement:

This was in the swag bag from the Silk & Satins race. I wanted to see how Craisins did in place of my usual dates.  They did fine.

Does anyone smell ham?  I do:

(He thinks he is so cool now all decked out in the new jersey….)

I started to have chain problems around mile 16.  Uh oh.  I messed with it a little.  There is one link that if it gets the smallest dust speck in it, it tends to stick.  This is after wiping off my hands.  Ick.

It seemed okay after that for the rest of the ride.  After 22 miles, we got to Saratoga.  First stop?  Cupcake Lab!

We wanted lunch and a little something else.  It was nice not to be dripping sweat since the day was so nice.  Did I mention that already?

I love this saying:

Of course, anything that says coffee is all right by me…. My choice for lunch was the breakfast burrito.  I got that forgetting it had sausage in it (I thought it was the local bacon).  They get the bacon locally, but not the other meats.  Not quite sure why that is as the smokehouse they get the bacon from is where we buy all our meat.  Anyway – here is my delicious burrito in a honey wheat wrap with egg, cheese, potato, and sausage.  With a perfect strawberry on the side.

Yum!  I was so hungry that I kind of woofed this down.  Ooops.  Trying to be mindful, but really hard when you are hungry.

We wanted dessert, of course.  How can you go to a cupcake place and not have anything?  Choices, choices.  I wanted a peanut butter frosted cupcake:

We also had the Almond Joy, which I was remiss in gettng a picture of.

And some fresh brewed coffee.

They brew each cup individually with a filter, which I adore!  I got a coffee called Witches Brew.  Very smooth coffee. I would probably brew this a little stronger, but everyone I know says we make our coffee too strong. 🙄

Then the owner brought out a new flavor cupcake to us to try on the house.  How nice is that?  She actually recognized me from my blog.  First local recognition!

This was a coconut cream cupcake.  Vanilla cupcake with coconut cream filling topped with buttercream.  It was really good.  Very coconuty.  Again, I like this size of cupcake because it isn’t monstrous in size.

John proclaimed the almond joy to be his favorite.  I like the peanut butter frosted.  I like anything nutty anyway.

After this, we walked around town.  Big horse.

Saratoga is horse town, as the track runs during the summer.  It is track season now, but downtown was surprisingly uncrowded.  Guess everyone was at the track itself.  Stopped in to Borders just to see if Caitlin’s Operation Beautiful book was there, but it was not.  Boooo on Borders.

We were trying to let our cupcake babies settle for a bit.  I was a little full.  Hopped over to the bike store and got some much needed chain lube.  Chain all better now!  Yay!

Then we rode home.  My legs felt quite good.  After 30 miles, John asked if I was warmed up yet.  Hardeehar.  Such a comedian.  After 32 miles, we took a break for some coconut water.  More product placement!

Maybe Zico would sponsor my Team Challenge ride?? (I wish!!)

Long road behind us.

This is the entry to someone’s driveway.

It’s all gravel.  That has to suck in winter time LOL!

We hit a big hill right after this and I think I drank too much water and coconut water, because I was getting a side cramp that lasted for about 3 miles.  Ugh.  Then I felt fine.

It was an awesome ride today!  Great weather can make all the difference in how a ride feels.  I could do the 62 mile Team Challenge ride tomorrow.  Well, maybe not tomorrow since I did 45 today, but I am ready now.

Ride stats:

45.6  miles

3:25 of actual ride time

Top speed:  24.8 mph

Avg speed:  13.4 mph

Calories burned: 1440 (good thing after those cuppicakes!)

I have to say that I feel so strong right now.  I still have work to do on my leg, but I don’t think I could ask to be more in bike shape than I am right now.  The scale is just a box with a number on it.  It does not tell me that I am strong and beautiful.  It does not know that I can bike 100 miles in a day.  It does not know that I can squat and deadlift in the weight room with the guys.  And I don’t care what it doesn’t know about me – because *I* know it 😀

40-miler by way of change in plans

Woke up to a nice morning for breakfast on the porch today!  I made some protein waffles and did a fun sandwich combo out of them.  I mashed a banana and put it in between the waffles and topped with the last of the chocolate homemade fluff.

Very, very good!

Then I got caught up on emails and blogs while waiting for John to get out of bed.  He was out playing poker again….

I needed a pre ride snack before hitting the road.

Gosh this bread is good.  The plan was to head south to Saratoga as we had cupcakes in mind.  Life had other plans, though 😀  About 6 miles in, John’s derailleur came off:

In doing so, it bent a link of his chain, so it made it difficult for him to pedal.  We decided to not keep going to Saratoga, but instead loop back around to Queensbury and Inside Edge bike shop.  I drooled over some new bikes while John had his chain fixed right then and there.  They only charged him $5.  That is good service.  We had done about 12 mile at that point, and decided not to turn around and go back to Saratoga, or it would have been way longer than we wanted to go today.  Instead, we bike a little bit more and popped into The Silo for lunch at mile 15:

This is a restaurant with a barn store attached to it:

They have a little bit of everything!  I saw a special on the menu board that said Maryland crab melt on a waffle brioche, so that immediately caught my eye.  I probably should have stuck with the breakfast all day thing.

Looked good when it came:

Unfortunately, it was made with fake krab!  I should have guessed by the price, I suppose.  It also had a ton of onions in it, so I had to pick out a bunch of onions and celery and peas (?).  I basically put the crab on the brioche and ate that.  I did eat most of the fries.  The watermelon slice was awesome though!  I have to say I was a little bummed at this meal, as we generally love the Silo.

After lunch, we decided to bike on to Lake George, as it was only 10 miles away.  It’s tourist season!  Lake George is a mix of natural beauty:

and the tacky:

Lots of candy and ice cream shops – here is some dip for candied apples!

We sat in the garden and had some coconut water and blueberries:

Also met the cutest little puppy.  Only 2 months old:

Then I chased this guy around for a while before I got a good shot:

Time to head home.  Since we didn’t get a cupcake, we decided to get yogurt instead.  I had rum cheesecake topped with coconut:

I asked John if he was enjoying his yogurt:

Do all almost 42 year old men act like this?  Maybe it is the result of living with me for so long….

Finally reached home:

41 miles.  Burned 1200 calories!  Woo Hoo!  I am kind of tired, I have to say.  It was a hot day for biking and hilly!  The shower felt amazing and perked me up quite a bit.

I wanted just a bowl of cereal for dinner, but we are out.  Need to go grocery shopping.  So, I made a bowl of cream of wheat topped with nut butter and some chips.  I let this cool way down before eating:

Love carbs after long rides.  I am thinking about doing a 60 mile charity ride in September, which would involve a fundraising drive.  I am not sure, but I might give it a go.  Guess this is turning out to be the summer of biking.  I have just rolled over 1000 miles on the bike since we got the bikes out in March!

Double dip ride and super foods!

Thursday is the new bagel day!  John plays poker on Tuesday nights and can’t get his butt out of bed, so we moved bagel day from Wed to Thurs.  It actually works a little better for me because I am not biking after a strength workout.  I had a protein drink and then we headed out at a nice clip today.  Breakfast outside, even though it was a little muggy!

I just could never give up my bagels.

Good ride home and I pushed it for the last mile going 20-21 mph.  We average 13.7 mph on the way home, which is pretty good.  When you don’t have road bikes, you can’t get huge amounts of speed.  John threw the gauntlet down when we got home that he was never going to wait for me again since I obviously have my speed back.  Guess I can’t nurse an injury excuse anymore. :mrgreen:

Just an FYI on that, I feel pretty good, and my left thigh is getting bigger again.  Now  it is only 1/2 an inch smaller than the right thigh.  I still have skin numbness over my knee, which I am beginning to think is permanent, but the knee itself is fine.  The only thing that bothers me anymore is running.

Worked job #1 for a while.  This job really sucks the life out of me.  The atmosphere is just not good.  If someone makes a mistake, they send out a blanket email to everyone to stop doing it, so we get multiple messages a day on what we are doing wrong, so you just doubt everything that you do.  I keep wondering if I am making these mistakes and it got my confidence down a little.  So when I got taken off QA after a week at job #2, that really justified that I am competent, thank you very much.

Lunch time!  Nothing too exciting, Just tuna salad and Wheat Thins Fiber Select (veggie flavor)

After lunch, I moved up to the bedroom and worked in there with the AC on rather than trying to cool the whole downstairs.  John made me a latte after a while.  I was thinking how decadent it was to work propped up in bed with a latte!  There are some benefits to working at home :mrgreen:

I had an email asking about the superfoods term that I use a lot, so I will do a refresher on those.  You see that term bandied about a lot, but I am referring to the book SuperFoods Rx by Dr. Steve Pratt.  These foods are nutritional powerhouses.  You can click on each on below to see more about each one’s benefits.  Each of these foods also have ‘sidekicks’ which are related, but not quite as good as the original.  Bolded ones are in my diet a *lot*.

Apples (pears)
Avocado
Beans
Blueberries (strawberries, cranberries, cherries)
Broccoli (brussels, cauliflower, kale)
Cinnamon
Dark Chocolate
Dried SuperFruits
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Garlic
Honey
Kiwi (pineapple)
Low Fat Yogurt
Oats (brown rice, quinoa)
Onions
Oranges
Pomegranates
Pumpkin (carrots, sweet potatoes)
Soy
Spinach
Tea
Tomatoes
Turkey (chicken)
Walnuts (almonds, cashews, peanuts)
Wild Salmon (tuna, clams)
I think I might try to address each of these foods with a recipe – that would be kind of fun.  Or at least the ones I eat.  Avocados will not enter my house!
Speaking of super foods – I filled my dinner with them!
Quick stir fry in coconut oil of chicken with broccoli, brown rice and ginger sauce.  With a side of blues!
I was really hangry for dinner.  Another successful no snacking pre dinner, either.  That made me pretty cranky, actually, as I was really hungry.  I hope it gets easier.
Done with job #1 for the week.  Yippee!  I wanted to do something, so what better than to hop on the bike for yogurt.  Double ride today.  At least I burn off some of the calories of the things I am going out to eat 😀
Rice pudding flavor yogurt topped with raspberry sauce.  Tell me you don’t want to lick the screen?
Ended up biking 25 miles today.  Good stuff.

Question:  What is your favorite superfood (or sidekick)?

100 mile ride recap

Happy Independence Day everyone!  Woo Hoo!  I actually am working today, but sneaking in a picnic.  Long post ahead, fyi.

So, the 100-mile ride yesterday.  Surprised?  So were we!  The plan was for 85 miles.  We started the day with a good brekkie.  I had banana custard oats topped with some extra almond butter and fluff.  I wanted to boost the calories a little bit.

Plus 2 cups of cafe au lait!  We then headed out at about 9 am.  We headed south this time on a nice bike lane for the first 25 miles.  Saw an Osprey, too – how cool!

They put a nest box on the top of telephone pole, and it got put to use!  Yay for being green :mrgreen:

After 15 miles, we took our first snack stop:

There was a lot of food consumed on this ride, I will say….

More long road.  It was nice and quiet today, too.  Must be the holiday weekend.  This is looking behind me, not ahead.

We were feeling pretty good, but I was starting to get hungry around mile 30.  We knew it would be a while before we hit lunch, so we stopped and had more food.

I love pears during biking.  I always get a boost from them and say I am powered by pear!  Ate this while waiting for a train to pass.

Never had that happen before!

I was really fatigued around mile 38 or so.  I actually was wondering about how to get through the rest of the day at this point.  40-ish miles tends to be some kind of sticking point for me.  It also was longer than we normally go without a larger meal.  This wasn’t totally planned to go this far without lunch, but there was no place to eat!

We finally arrived at Clifton Park at mile 42 and hangry for lunch.  We just happened to pass an Indian restaurant featuring a lunch buffet.  Perfect!  I knew I could eat just as much as I wanted without worrying about how big a portion was.

My plate:

I had another plate like this and a bit of rice pudding.  I tried to have mostly carbs and avoid anything greasy or oily.  So good!  I wish this place were closer to home.  (Mom, you need to come to this buffet).

After lunch and a carb fill up, we picked up a few snacks at the grocery store.  We forgot to get coconut water (booo!) and this store didn’t have any, so we got some vitamin water.  Not bad, but not my coconut water.  We headed through some nice towns and on some bike path for another 20 miles to Saratoga.  We knew we wanted to hit the Cupcake Lab again, so that is where we stopped.  With a giant iced coffee!

This was at mile 63.  I inhaled that coffee.  Amazing how much liquid you consume on these long rides, and yet no potty needs!  The nice people at this cafe filled up my water bottle with filtered water, too.  I look surprisingly fresh here after 60+ miles….

While eating the cupcakes, we started making noises about going for the whole 100 miles during this ride.  We were 20 miles from home, so that would have been about 85 anyway.  This ride had hills, but not as many as some of our previous rides, so we were feeling really good.  Plus the nice wide bike lanes we rode and the ones we knew coming up were very relaxing to be on.  We decided to assess a bit later.

Top of a big hill (again looking back).  Our stops started to become more frequent just to get a little more fuel:

By this point, I really wanted to go all 100 miles.  I had my 2nd wind at this point, I was feeling good.  Not to mention the thought of going out and doing this *again* with more miles was enough to make me want to keep going.

John wanted something a little more substantial to eat, so we hit up Mr. Bills (drive-in type place) around mile 85 or so.  He had shrimp and fries, but that was so unappealing to me at this point.   I had my 2nd pear of the day (pear power!) and nibbled on some of his fries for the salt factor.  We solidified our decision to do the whole ride here:

Note the late setting sun.  We were a little worried about running out of daylight, so no dawdling now!

We pressed on and I started singing and generally really enjoying myself.  Was that delirium? I don’t know….

Here is a little video from the path

You can’t hear me very well, but I was babbling on about being tired and seeing through time.  The odometer was reading 7 hours and 15 minutes and the distance was 89 miles.  So close at this point!  We’ll just ignore the safety factor of biking and taking a simultaneous video….

We finally rolled to home taking a few loops to get to 100 miles.

John super happy!

Ride stats:

Distance:  100.2 miles

Time:  8 hours and 9 minutes of ride time (not including stops)

Speed:  12.4 mph

Calories burned:  2975 – Holy frijole!

Assessment:  This was hard, but funny that the 70 mile ride we did a couple weeks ago seemed harder for some reason.  We had perfect conditions today and going that extra bit just made sense to us.  I am so proud of both of us.  Amazing what you can do when you set your mind to it!

Would I do it again?  Maybe.  I certainly could.  However, it just takes up so much time.  8 hours of riding plus stops and we were gone for about 12 hours.  Can’t do much else on a day like that.  It will be nice to settle down to lesser distance rides.  I think 40 to 50 miles is enough for me.

Oh, we walked and had some ice cream at 10 pm last night LOL!  My legs are a little tired today, but really not bad at all,  although  my butt hurts today :mrgreen:

Rainy ride and some carbs

I am glad you all enjoy the Friday blooming posts 😀  I would love to work in a nursery, but they are seasonal jobs around here, but maybe I could work it in. (Like I need another job….)

Breakfast began with coffee brewing and some protein waffle making.

Topped with banana/maple syrup mash.

The weather forecast called for scattered thunderstorms today and it was sunny out in the morning, so we decided to go ahead and bike.  We had a 43-mile route planned out that included new roads for us.  We had some of that yummy bread as a pre-ride snack.

We ended up getting a later start than we usually do.  The first part of the ride was great.  We went along a towpath road.  It was a dirt road and pretty bumpy (which my back was not thrilled with).  But it was just gorgeous.

Here is a little video of the towpath. (link)

We soon had to exit the towpath road and ride on regular roads.  This is where the ride became kind of scary.  There was about 10 miles of too much traffic and not enough shoulder due to either little to begin with or construction.  It was awful.  We hit this stuff around 15 miles in or so?  One of those grit-your-teeth kind of rides and just hope you make it okay.  This road is definitely crossed off the list to ride again.   That’s why there are no pics of this part.  We did take a break and I ate a pear.  Then it started to sprinkle.

Great….  There wasn’t much we could do because we were 20 miles from home, so we had to press on.  The rain became kind of steady and we aborted the plan to go all the way to the lake.  So, we ended up turning towards home and decided to stop at Panera Bread for lunch after 27 miles.

Soggy rider – yuck!  Panera Bread was cold, too.  I was saying to John that they could save a ton of money if they just turned their AC down about 5 degrees.  I had goosebumps, plus I was wet.  Funny how this morning it was warm and sunny and the last thing I would have thought I would be having for lunch was soup and a hot sandwich!  But here it is:

This is potato soup and the tomato and mozzarella panini.

Really, really good.

Check out the name on the receipt.  My name apparently is Ori….

We sat for a while hoping the rain would pass, but it wasn’t looking good, so we decided to head over to Starbucks to see if the rain passed.   That was about 1/4 mile away.

I had some coffee and a piece of raspberry swirl pound cake.  Pretty tasty.

We read the paper for a while and it was starting to look like it was going to be one of those all afternoon drizzles, so we just sucked it up and biked home.  Thank you Weather Channel…. I then began having chain problems, where it would catch after each full revolution of the chain.  Sigh….  I couldn’t get any cadence or any speed for that matter.  I am surprised the chain didn’t come off.

Finally reached home:

Hope this computer is waterproof 😯

Ride stats:

37.8 miles

Avg speed:  12 mph

Top speed:  29.2 mph

Calories burned:  1152

Check out my legs – complete mud and dirt fest.  Those socks are supposed to be white (like my legs 😉  ).

What a mess!  My shower poof turned black getting this off, too.

Here we were getting soggy and risking our lives and Pixie was just chillin’

She has absolutely no shame……

I was trying to figure out what to have for dinner.  No protein source thawed out and no eggs (we need to shop).  I also was craving pumpkin cream of wheat – but not enough that for a serving (again, we need to shop).  So, decided to honor my hunger and have pumpkin oats instead.

I think my body was just telling me to eat more carbs after that ride.  Nothing wrong with a little breakfast for dinner.

Tonight is going to be working on my bike chain.  No more rides until that gets fixed!

Hope you all had a drier day than we did 😀