Category Archives: bike riding

70-mile ride and parades!

First off, thank you all so much for your comments on my 100-pound anniversary.  Nothing like tooting your own horn, right? 😀  Guess that is what a blog is all about.

So, yesterday was a really long bike ride and I needed to decompress last night, so I saved the recap until today.

We wanted a somewhat early start.  I fueled up with some custard steel cut oats cooked with a banana and topped with PB and J.

Plus half of a granola bar.  We filled up the bags with water, snacks, and sunscreen.  I got all decked out.  John said I looked like I was ready to ‘kick his pants.”  So, here is me trying to look all tough.

These are the sunglasses that I won over at Ginesa’s blog.  They are pretty nifty, I have to say.

We had a 70-mile route planned out.  It was bright and sunny.  I applied sunscreen 3 times during the ride today.  There was a headwind going south for about 12 miles or so, but we made good time.  Long empty road for a while:

Nice size bike lane, though.  Then we hit the first hill.  My goal today was really not to walk up any hills.  I could stop and rest, but no walking.  We crested the first big hill and saw an apple orchard:

They are open all year and serve cider donuts and coffee.  Must come back here for that!  This was around mile 14? Had a date to get a bit of sugar in the blood stream.  Love the dates.  We climbed some more hills, and then I needed a little more energy:

Have I mentioned how much I adore coconut water?

We got to Saratoga after 24 miles.  It was lunch time!  We tried a new place called Cupcake Lab.   They serve breakfast all day – you know I was all over that!  I had a breakfast burrito grilled on the press:

After we finished the entree, you know a cupcake was going to be had!

Springtime strawberry.  Strawberry cupcake with strawberry icing.  It was good and the perfect size, too.   As we left, there was a parade going on.  Not quite sure what it was for, but it was a big one.  Here are some bagpipers that went by in front of us:

We watched about 5 minutes of the parade and crossed the street when we could.  With tummies full, we continued on.

After we hit mile 45 and just getting into the hilly part of the Lake George section of the ride, I started to get some self doubt.  I had gone 60 miles before, but not with hills at the end.  I was totally dreading the hill we affectionately named “the b*itch” because it is a long slow climb and then a steep ending.  We stayed at the bottom of that section while I was feeling a little overwhelmed and scared about making it, sort of feeling a little tearful.  Silly, I know, but endurance events really bring out some strange emotional responses – who knew?  I knew that climb wouldn’t be fun at all, but I decided to give it a shot after waiting a bit.  Finally made it to Lake George at mile 55:

This is always such a pretty shot.  You come through the path and the trees to this.  There was also another parade going on here!  It was a firefighters parade and it was almost 4 hours long.  Can you believe that?  We came near the end.  We sat and had snacks in a flower garden:

I think John was choking on his coconut water here?  I had a pear.  I got my second wind at this point.  I seem to have some sort of sticking point around mile 40-45 in our rides, then I am okay.  I also knew there was a big ice cream filled carrot waiting for me in another 9 miles!  :mrgreen:

We knew there was only 15 miles to go at this point, so we pressed on.  I actually was feeling much better and climbed the 2-mile hill back the other way pretty steady.  That second wind is really an amazing thing when it happens.  We stopped at Cooper’s Cave at mile 64 for some ice cream.  The real deal.  I had to choose carefully, because we only get the real stuff infrequently.  I had some pumpkin pie ice cream topped with wet walnuts:

Dear lordy that was so good.  I think I reached nirvana when I took a bite.  After 64 sweaty, hot miles of biking, it was sublime.  Look at this face!

After that bit of blissdom, we pushed it out home.

Ride stats:

Mileage:  70 miles

Average speed:  12.7 mph

Top speed: 29.0  mph

Time: 5 hours 32 minutes (not including stops)

Calories burned: 2160 (even knocking of 10% for slowed metabolism, that is still 1800).

Assessment:  This was a tough ride.  It really makes me understand the enormity of 100 miles.  We need to tack on another 30 miles onto this ride.  It really is a test of endurance, both physically and mentally.  I’m still not sure exactly *why* I want to do 100 miles, I just do.

I really heart my biking buddy, too:

I don’t know if I could do it without him!

Metric Century Ride

Doesn’t metric century sound so much more than 60 miles?  Woke up to a gorgeous day today and a fabulous bowl of oats.

Pumpkin custard oats sweetened with molasses, fresh cranberries (okay, frozen), and topped with toasted pecans.

That and some coffee seemed like a good starter fuel for a long bike ride!

We packed up water and snacks and mapped out a route to take.  Should have taken a little more note of elevation.  We ended up going up to about 900 feet elevation.  We had done part of this route before last fall.  It’s pretty hilly on the way there.  And very pretty.  Top of one big hill.

Stopped in Greenwich, where there were some pretty flowers:

This was 16 miles into the ride. We had snacks.

Plus a few date balls. Then we headed up to Cambridge.   Which way would you take? Up or down?

We went right, which looked down, but was not!! This was really tough.  Serious upward climb of around 400 feet in the next 10 miles.  I didn’t have to walk up any of these hills, and I was really pleased at that, but it was early enough in the ride.  It was really, really hard though.  Then there was a huge and scary down hill, where I was over 30 mph.  So scary.  We got to Cambridge ready for some lunch!  This was about 25 miles in.  We stopped at this little hole in the wall, which was a little scary:

However, I was pleased to see that they serve breakfast all day (yay!) and was even more pleased to see my cheese omelet:

That was some serious wheat toast there, too – not junk! I ate every bite as I was hungry at this point.  It’s always amazing how sometimes the places that look the worst have the best food.  We then walked to a health food co-op so I could pick up some coconut water.  That was a neat store, too.  Wish it were closer to us!

We decided to loop around instead of doubling back, as we thought we could avoid that giant hill that we came down.  Hahaha!  This is the Adirondack area, after all.  It was looking good for quite a while, then about mile 35 or so, we hit the.worst.hill.ever.  Ever!!  It was very steep and probably around 3/4 of a mile up.  You know you are in trouble when you are less than halfway up and in the lowest gear you have 😀  So, I had to walk up some of that hill, as did John.  If you look hard, you can see the orange dot that is John near the top:

He made it further up the hill than I did.  After we got to the top, we then slugged some of the coconut water:

This stuff is like magic to me.  I don’t know why.  I have never had gatorade, so maybe that would give the same result, but I don’t want to switch!  I started to get my 2nd legs here and made it up all the rest of the hills back to Greenwich so that we could stop for another treat!

This was at 41 miles in:

This is their version of a single scoop 😯   I think this probably has to be 600 calories (and yes, I ate it all).   The flavor was ginger with some ginger bits in it.  So freaking good!  I don’t eat real ice cream all that often, but when I do – it needs to be the good stuff.  This was from the Ice Cream Man in Greenwich, featured on Food Network.

We were a little tired at this point.  This was a very ambitious route to take.  Way too hilly for the distance we were doing.  But, we pushed onwards towards home.  After all, it was only 19 more miles at this point :D.

It’s definitely a beautiful ride.  So green around here now.

Took another break at 49 miles to have some coconut water and a little sit:

She’s lookin’ a little droopy!

We then busted out the last bit.  John was really starting to flag.  It’s funny that I get a second wind, and he usually does not.  However, I drafted off of him for a lot of today, which I truly appreciate (Thanks, honey!).  The last hill to home, I walked up about 1/8 of mile and John went straight home, but the mileage was at 57 and change and I really wanted 60, so I biked just a little further before coming back home.

Farthest mileage ever!!

Stats:

60.5 miles (or 100 KM!!)

Average speed: 12.4 mph

Top speed:  35.4 mph (so freaking scary – and this is with brakes!!).

Calories burned:  1800 (says machine, probably closer to 1500.  Still a lot).

Assessment?  This was a tough ride. Really tough.  Some parts of it were just not fun, but overall it was a great day to ride and we feel pretty good about our accomplishments!  Only need to tack another 40 miles onto this ride to reach 100 :mrgreen:   I am crossing this route off the list, though.  Too hard!

Showered and ate some leftovers for dinner.  The lentil rice dish topped with some of that broccoli/quinoa from yesterday.

At first I wasn’t really that hungry because I drank so much water, but as I started eating, my body just woke up to hunger!

Tonight is some serious vegging, and a visit from the parentals, if we can stay awake LOL.  Plus probably some toast and nut butter.

I’m thinking tomorrow is a rest day…..

Making the food pretty.

Slice of Life Giveaway ends on Friday at noon!

Last day of my work week.  Yay!  I woke up a little too early today, and went down to make coffee only to find we didn’t have enough!  So I was on the porch at 7 am roasting coffee in my jammies.  John forgets to tell me sometimes when we are really low (or he tells me and I forget).

I decided on some pancakes today!  Just for something different.  Even though they are the protein ones I usually have.

Doesn’t this picture look extra good?

Topped with more Wymans.  I swear I should get a kickback from them.  I would love to tour their farm some time.

Got right to work.  With medical transcriptionist week, my company also has been doing little medical knowledge quizzes and stuff, and I have entered a few.  Well – my name got drawn out of a hat to win a $25 Visa gift card.  Yay!  It’s my lucky week 😀  So, I shouldn’t complain too much about the elephant.

Lunch time consisted of a little parfait.  The usual greek yogurt, strawberries, all-bran, and honey – only I layered it up.  I thought it would look really pretty in my glass bowl.

I also had a couple dates with nut butter because I hadn’t had much fat yet for the day.

Speaking of nut butter, I got the nicest surprise from Susan in the mail today:

More nut butter!  She made this maple pecan peanut butter and sent me some.  Notice the finger swipe in the container.  Cannot resist… it’s futile.

Thank you Susan!  I do hope to meet you for coffee and a bagel some time 😀

Afternoon latte after I finished up work for the week.

Yippee!  Can you tell I am happy it’s my weekend?  One thing that has happened since I started blogging my eats is that I take time to make the food look nice.  It’s such a habit now and it really does make the meal seem so much more enjoyable that way.  We do eat with our eyes first.

I went out into the garden and found a home for my new babies that came from Bluestone Perennials.

Astilbe and some more rudbeckia.  Hopefully they will take and bloom!

Dinner time was courtesy of Buitoni. I received a coupon for free pasta through the FoodBuzz Tastemaker program.

Whole wheat!  John whipped up some homemade marinara sauce.  He likes his chunky, but I pureed mine.  Not sure why, but I like smooth sauce.

This was 1/2 a serving of pasta, as it was a little hefty in calories for me.  320 for a whole portion.  I do love cheese ravioli.  This was quite good, too.  The ravioli were on the smaller side, so the portion looks bigger because of that.  You could tell it was whole wheat pasta, but still pretty tender.

It was so warm today that we decided on a post dinner yogurt ride.  Safety first:

We decided to go for 15 miles.  That is what I like to think of as a maintenance ride to keep the bike legs.  I needed a good ride anyway to gear up (harhar) for Saturday’s planned big ride.  My leg hurts today more than usual.  I don’t know if it was running the other day or if it would just be doing this anyway, but it’s really annoying today.  Can this thing be done with already? 🙄

My yogurt:

Tiramisu cheesecake flavor.  I nixed a topping tonight because I need to reign it in a little bit looking over the blog recently.  Tasty.  Time to relax!

Question:  Do you plate your food nicely?

Bagels and beautiful day.

Gorgeous day today!

We woke up and wiggled our legs to see how they felt after yesterday’s ride, which was pretty good.  So, in pre-coffee insanity, we decided to bike to bagels this morning.  My legs aren’t really all that sore, and my back feels pretty good.  We headed on out to Panera Bread.  8 miles there.  Funny how 8 miles seems like nothing after 45 miles LOL!  Might also have been the cereal, M&Ms, and toast I had last night, too 😳

Deliciousness ensued.

I was little more tired for the 2nd 8 miles home, but doing pretty well.   Yesterday, Jan posed a question to me in the comments:

I love riding my bike but wondered how you started to build up to such long rides? I seem to tire out quickly. The longest I have gone is 15 KM. Do you have any suggestions on how to start to build my endurance?

My best advice is strength training (okay, raise your hand if you are surprised at this answer).  Squats, lunges, dead lifts, etc.,  all work your lower body.  That will give you the power and strength to ride.  I would also suggest riding hills and doing intervals on the bike as well.  The more you do that, the stronger you will get.  Takes time, though, so be patient.  It’s just a matter of being consistent with training (at least every other day).  When I started biking, it took a long time to build up distance.  It was only last year that we started going more than 30 miles in a day.  Hope that helps?

It was back to work today.  Sigh….  It’s not all that busy today.  I am liking the ‘do.  No curling iron needed, and hardly any brush!  Mostly finger styled. Short hair is just so easy, just some shellac to keep it in place:

Lunch break included a bowl of yogurt with pumpkin and protein powder, topped with all-bran.  Hello fiber!

And a pear that looks like it went about 10 rounds with Mike Tyson after being in the bike bag yesterday.

It’s funny, even though I am working – I always feel guilty when John does work around the house on Sundays, like I should be helping LOL!  Not sure what is up with that.  Guess I should just enjoy watching him work 😉

He made lattes today:

and I also had some of that yummy cheese from yesterday:

Work today just went excruciatingly slow.  Ever have those days that just drag on?  Maybe it’s because it is the first day of the work week or that it is so nice out.

Made a quick dinner tonight of a scrambled egg wrap with laughing cow and hot sauce.  We forgot to get hot sauce yesterday when shopping and I am almost out 😯

I am going to go out now and do a little work in the garden this evening to enjoy the beautiful weather, and the Tour of California bike race is on TV!  Go Lance (or Levi)!

Since I haven’t mentioned Pixie in a while, I will leave you with a video of her actually sucking on her toes.  Cuteness abounds!

This week there will be a product review and giveaway, plus a nut butter tutorial, and the date ball recipe.  Maybe I need to take a day off of work to get all that done :mrgreen:

45-mile ride and carb loading!

Thank you all for the nice comments on my hair.  It’s going to take some getting used to again.  A year ago my hair was about this length.  It grew a lot!

I had a nice carby breakfast to get ready for the bike ride today.  Banana custard oats topped with some of that fresh made peanut butter and some jam.

Yum!  Plus a couple cups of cafe au lait.  I am going to do a nut butter primer this week some time.  Just gotta find the time to put it together.

I made up some protein snacks for the ride.  These are a mix of dates, cashews, unsweetened coconut, coconut oil and brown rice protein powder.  Formed into balls.

These are flipping good!  They are just begging to be dipped in chocolate, too.  I love these!  I’ll have to figure out an exact recipe for them and post.  They are calorie dense, but good for fueling.

We were debating on where to ride today.  This was going to be my first long ride (more than 20 miles) since I hurt my back.  It was pretty windy today, but we decided to head down to Saratoga.  I was a little bit nervous because of how hilly it is.  We took this same route a few days before I hurt my back  about 6 weeks ago.  I told John that I was worried I would be holding him back, and he said that we were a team.  I almost cried at that.  We did pretty well.  It was quite windy, and a headwind to boot.  Perfect temperature, though!

( I love John’s legs. 😳  )Snack time!

Those date balls.  So good.  The bike route going this way is part of the main road, so it is just a wide shoulder.  We got to Saratoga and stopped at the farmer’s market.  I wish the Glens Falls market was like this one.  It’s quite large and lots of fun stuff!

I would have gotten some greek yogurt if we weren’t riding!  These are alien and scary:

Celeriac.  I should try this sometime, but I don’t like celery that much, and that is what it is supposed to taste like.

We did buy some cheese, though.  Had samples of it.  This was sooooo good!

Spendy, so I only got a 1/4 pound.  I think eating it with some crusty bread will happen at some point this week.

We were pretty hungry for lunch at this point, so we stopped off to Uncommon Grounds to have one of their fabulous bagels!

Banana nut bagel with honey walnut cream cheese.  Now *this* is a bagel.  Worth every carby bite.  We then spent some time in town, and John got a new wheel put on his bike.  We ended up riding a few miles around there and stopped to get more carbs for the ride home.  This is a german chocolate cake cupcake:

We split this cupcake and lookie what was in the middle!

Scrumptious!  And very rich.  Good thing we split it.  Although truth be told, I definitely probably could have eaten the whole thing myself.

Then we headed home.  Still pretty windy.  I was doing quite well until we hit mile 35.  We had just made a turn and there was a steep hill.  I just knew I wasn’t going to make it to the top without walking some without all my former strength, and my speed dropped too much to make it all the way up.  This time I did cry.  I got to the top where John was waiting and I just was so frustrated about this stupid injury that I started to cry.  John said it’s okay because I am still recovering, but I just said, “but I don’t want to be anymore!”  Sometimes the emotional part of this injury really gets to me.  I know it will take time, but it just takes a toll on the psyche.

Anyway, we rested a little bit so I could compose myself and we continued on.  I knew that the hill to home would not be happening, so we took a different route around.  It added a few miles to the trip, but I was so pleased we took it.  It’s much flatter and this was where my clip shoes shined (shone?).  I felt so efficient and got my second wind.  Yay!  I could have kept going after we got  back.  I found my quads didn’t burn much, which I attribute to the clip shoes.  And I was wearing my new padded bike shorts.  My butt never hurt before riding, and it certainly didn’t hurt at all with the shorts.  Cool.

Arrived home:

Total distance:  45.6 miles (Longest ride of the year to date!!)

Average speed:  12.3 going, 13.2 coming home.  Pretty good with wind and hills.

Time:  3 hours 30 minutes

Top speed: 27.8 mph (Hills and kinda scary!)

Calories burned:  1380  (per odometer, I say 1200).

Assessment:  I feel really good.  My back is a squidge achy, as well as my knee, but it doesn’t feel injured, if that makes sense.  It only gets better from here.  Who needs running?? :mrgreen:

I was pretty hungry for dinner, and wanted a good protein hit.

3.5 oz of chicken with 1 oz of feta cheese and some toasted almonds.  Mixed with BBQ sauce.  The standard salad.  I wolfed this down and my body wanted a few more carbs, so I had a small dish of rice.

Now I am munching on an Attune bar.  I feel like a bottomless pit right now.  I’ll probably have some cereal later to make sure I have eaten enough today.

Hope you all had a super Saturday!

Question:  Do you shop at farmer’s markets?

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:

On the road again!

Okay, not on the road traveling per se – but the bikes are out!

And a note on the sweet potato muffins from earlier, I used the Spark recipe calculator to calculate nutritionals.  It’s pretty cool!

First off, though  – must get to the important breakfast stuff.  Banana custard oats topped with pecan butter and strawberry all fruit.

Delish!  I did a little less oats to see what would happen and it was kind of like pudding.  No running today because of the ride later.  And the blogger run day is on Sunday, btw… 😳

We decided to bike to lunch today, since it was going to be in the low to mid 40s!  Still a little brisk, but you all know if it is above 40, I’ll go.  I was a little worried for John because he has not been doing as much as I have during the winter, but he did pretty well 😀

Filling up the tires:

It was all road riding because the bike path is still covered in snow.  It’s 8 miles each way to get to Panera Bread, so a good ride!  I was hangry by the time we got there, though.  We had to stop a couple times for adjustments.  The first ride of the season doesn’t always go smoothly.

I had clam chowder and a tomato/mozzarella sammie:

Yum!  My date (also yum..):

Me with helmet head:

I so missed riding!  I run a lot now, but if you asked me to choose between running and biking, I would be pedaling away before you could even finish the sentence.    The ride home was a little harder as there was a bit of a head wind, and my sit bones were starting to get a little sore.  Did a lot of standing up for the last couple miles 🙂  Legs felt really good, though.  Total miles: 16, average of 12 mph.  Good first season ride!

I got a little chilled, so I needed a good warmup of a latte:

That’s cinnamon on top.

We were pretty lazy for the rest of the day.  Then it was time for dinner.  Still using up those potatoes!  I did one kind of like the other night, but it was a white potato with some laughing cow cheese and BBQ chicken.  Really good!

Did some grocery shopping tonight since we are going someplace farther away for bagels tomorrow.  Now I am ready to have some snacks and movie time!

Question:  Any good plans for this weekend?

NROLW and da bike!

Happy Monday!  It was nice to take a little bloggy picture break yesterday.  Don’t worry, I ate healthy 😀

Today started Stage 7 of New Rule of Lifting.  The final cut.  Each day will be different for the next 2 weeks.

  • Barbell squat:  1 set of 8 at 45 pounds (warmup), 1 set of 8 at 65 pounds, 1 set of 8 at 85 pounds
  • Static lunge with rear foot elevated:  2 sets of 15 with 25 pound plate, 2 sets of 15 with no weight
  • Push ups:  4 sets of 15  (man style!)
  • Romanian deadlifts:  4 sets of 15 at 65 pounds
  • Bent over barbell row:  4 sets of 15 with 20 pound weights

This was a kickazz workout!  Holy cow!  I reduced the weights to start with because of the higher reps, but had to drop the plate (not literally 😉  ) on the last 2 sets of lunges.  Plus, the rest was 30 seconds between sets, so I was breathing hard for this workout.  Raise your hand if you think I am going to feel this tomorrow!!  I had better feel 60 push ups!

Gorgeous day outside.  Came home to some pumpkin Cream of Wheat topped with cranberry sauce and a sprinkle of toasted pecans:

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Slow work day in the morning, so I took advantage and cleaned the bird feeders and put out a suet cake.  Someone else decided they wanted to investigate….

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Lunch time!  Egg salad along with half a grapefruit.

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I haven’t had grapefruit in forever, but they were on sale.  You know how I love a bargain!

We couldn’t resist playing some hooky this afternoon and going for a bike ride!  You can’t let a 65 degree day in November pass you by without spending some of it outdoors.  Did 15 miles.  My back started to hurt a little bit when we stopped on a hill and had to start going up again.  It twinged a little for most of the ride, and then the last 1/4  of the route was misery!  I don’t know what I did to it, but it sure hurts.  Hope it will be better tomorrow.  It was a bummer to end the ride on that note.  Maybe there is another bike ride somewhere before winter??  😕

I soothed myself with a post ride snack:

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Dinner was quick because I didn’t feel like doing much.  Clam strips, broccoli, applesauce, and a few pieces of pan fried sweet potatoes that John cooked up.

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Tonight is finishing up work (due to the hooky bike ride!) and then MNF – Go Broncos!!  I’ll be joined by these 2 (one of whom won’t be watching the game 😛  )

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Question:  Do you have bird feeders?

NROLW, omelets, and pumpkins, oh my!

Packed a lot into today!  I tried to sleep in a little later and managed to sleep until about 7, which was good.  I needed to wait until it was light enough outside to bike to the gym.  Temps were upper 40s this morning, so definitely doable.

NROLW Stage 6 A:  last workout!

  • Negative chinups:  3 sets of 1
  • Wide grip lat pulldown with slow release:  1o sets of 2 at 70 pounds
  • Barbell split squats:  3 sets of 6 at 70 pounds
  • Pushups:  3 sets of 6 with feet elevated.

I was encouraged on the chinups today.  The first one I hopped up to the bar and held myself up for quite a while, much longer than when I first started.  The other 2 were the usual length.   I think given a few months, I could progress to actual chinups.

John met me at the gym and we biked 5 miles to Maude’s Kitchen for my football meal!

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This place is cute as a button inside!  It’s like from the 50s:

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The breakfast menu is made up of dishes that Maude’s children loved.  I think she had something like 9 kids.  I got the biggest kick out of this one:

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I had an omelet with home fries, and John had oatmeal with a side of ham and toast.  Switcheroo for us!

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A most excellent breakfast and I could watch them cook it at the griddle, so it was all fresh!  This spread for the 2 of us was $13.  Can’t beat that!  I was so hungry after the workout and bike ride and ate all but about 1/2 the potatoes.

Pink item of the day at our table:

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Pumpkin shopping time at the garden center after I got home (and showered 😀  )

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They also had Christmas lawn stuff out for sale.  Looks like the reindeer got into Santa’s eggnog again:

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I spent about 5 minutes giggling over this outside. 😀

Lunch was pretty delayed and just a Zone bar because of the big breakfast.  I so have Maude’s on my list to revisit.  I spent a good deal of time picking out my pumpkin pattern and contemplating a new career in dentistry 😉

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I used a pattern for a scary clown:

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John did a free form, sort of alien thing:

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Dinner was almost pizza, but then we decided we could cook up shrimp and grits really quickly and it was delicious!

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We just sauteed a bit of lean bacon with some chopped onion, sprinkled flour over it and some vegetable broth, then added the shrimp.  Served over grits. Yum!

We are running a 5K tomorrow on Halloween!  Provided it isn’t pouring rain, but weather looks okay for now.  I am going to try to dress as a bee using yellow duct tape over a black outfit.  I have the antennae made with a headband (which Pixie found to be quite fascinating). It should be interesting at any rate.

Question:  Do you have your pumpkins carved before Halloween?

Brick training day!

I actually slept until 7 a.m. this morning!  Yay!  It’s so hard for me to sleep that late, although I didn’t get to bed until after midnight.

It looked pretty cloudy this morning, so we weren’t sure if we were going to be able to ride or not.

Breakfast was so yummy:

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  • 40 grams oats
  • 4 grams cocoa powder
  • 1 small banana
  • cinnamon
  • Topped with peanut butter and (oh no she didn’t!) a drizzle of chocolate sauce.

Yum!  After dinking around on the computer for a while and checking the radar, it seemed clear and I really wanted to check out the duathlon course since the road was all marked up for the race in 2 weeks (!!!!).  I actually was overdressed for this, as the closer we got to Albany, the warmer it was.  It was probably close to 60 and really humid.  Ugh!  I had on jogging pants and a long sleeve technical shirt.

We started on the bike route and first thing is a big hill, a steep hill!  Holy crow.  This is a tough course.  It is a beautiful course, though, I have to say.  It’s going to be awesome with fall colors in 2 weeks.

With the humidity, I just wasn’t feeling at my peak and was slow on the climbs.  John actually went ahead of me, which is pretty rare.  We stopped at mile 8 to have a snack (Balance bar).  I likely won’t do this on the actual race day, but I needed it since it had been several hours since breakfast.

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Then finished up that route.  After we got back I wanted to do the 2.2 mile run and John decided to go with me!  I about fell over.  Drank some coconut water and headed out.  After about 1/2 a mile, there was a hill…. a long hill…. a really long hill.  Probably 1/4 mile or so.  We managed to plod up and keep going.  This was the big reason I wanted to do the course ahead of time, because I didn’t want there to be any surprises, and now there aren’t.  I do have to say that I am a little scared though.  Remember that I have to do the run *twice* – once before the 16 mile bike ride and then at the end.

I think I can do it – does my face look scared? It is.

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This was after we did the run part.  I was drenched in sweat.  I just don’t do well in humidity.  GoWear fit said 658 calories burned for the bike/run. Sweet.

I think I scared the geese with my sweatiness – they are running away!

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It was time to eat then and we stopped at Pasta Factory:

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Ironically, neither of us got pasta 😀

I did have an awesome pear and gorgonzola salad with walnuts on a bed of spinach.  It was sooo good!

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Shopped for a while and looked at some fun Halloween stuff.  The mall had one of those giant costume stores that seem to pop up this time of year.

Then a stop for a latte!  Yum, yum.

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They made it all purty for me, too!

I am pretty beat.  I feel a mix of both being excited and nervous about the duathlon.  It is going to be tough, no 2 ways about it.

Throwback for dinner!

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Eggs in a basket!  This was fun, since we actually had bread slices big enough to do this with (Nature’s Pride)

So – lucky you guys to have an early post from me tonight!  Tomorrow is back to work for me, and then football where my Broncos take on my dad’s favorite team the Cowboys (booooo!!!).  So we will be watching the game together.

Question:  Ever have eggs in a basket?