Category Archives: family

“Home” Duathlon and family feast.

Sunday morning!  For those that missed, I mentioned on Friday why were are not doing the official duathlon, but are doing it on our own at home.  Making it official for us, though!

I started off with my usual race combo brekkie with extra PB:

I wore my bib number from last year’s duathlon.

Funny that I was nervous for this.  Shows that I was taking it seriously.  Transition area set up:

There is coconut water in my water bottle for the bike, regular water in the 2nd bottle.

The temp said 39 degrees when we started, but at least it was sunny! We set off on the run together, but John soon pulled away. He is speedy McGee compared to me.  The run felt pretty good.  We altered the course just a little bit and in doing so, added an extra hill.  It was a little tiring!  2.3 miles in and it was transition 1:

This was supposed to be a thumb’s up, but my thumb didn’t want to cooperate I guess LOL!  I forgot to note the time when I stopped running, but I looked at my watch later and it was at 24 minutes, so I estimate I finished the run in about 22-23 minutes. Even though I was really sweaty, I was so glad to have this jacket on.  The first part of the bike ride was downhill and 40 degrees plus sweat and 24 miles per hour is really cold!  I was really trying to push the ride, but there was a headwind for the first 7 miles, so that was tough.  I hit a red light as I was going out of town and pulled up next to a motorcycle.  The guy looked over at me and said, “Wanna race?”  Har har.

I realized that I had forgotten to put my protein bar in my pocket at that point.  Oops.  Lucky thing that having started this from home breakfast was much closer to race time than it would have been.  I also knew I had a bottle full of coconut water.

John and I crossed paths around the turnaround point.  I was a half mile to the turnaround when he was coming the other way, so I was about a mile behind him.  Once I hit the turn around, I could really book it because of a tailwind.  I ended up the 16 miles going an average speed of 14.5 mph in 1:08.

Hopped off, changed shoes and munched on the rock hard cold protein bar that I had forgotten.  I ate about 3/4 of it while changing shoes and then set off for the other 2.3 miles.  I was tired at this point, particularly my left leg.  Just that last nagging thing from the herniated disk.  I had to walk a little bit on the 3rd hill of the run, I was tired!  I was annoyed at the person who designed this route.  Oh wait… it was me! I passed by our house with one more block to go, and John had finished and cheered me on 😀   I also found a dollar, too! 2.3 miles later and I was done!

Finished up in 2:03 including transition times.  I was pretty pleased, although I just do not have my pre-injury run speed back at all.  I am missing about minute or more per mile speed still.

Reenactment of John crossing the finish line:

I took first place in the women age 40-45 category!

Then we had to come in and make an apple cobbler to take to my parent’s house for dinner as my uncle and his wife were coming up, or so we thought.  After we got that in the oven, my Mom called and they lost their power!  We offered to have them bring the food over and we would host the dinner.  Good thing our house was fairly neatened up.  John and I are pretty easy going, and actually like entertaining so we didn’t mind at all.

We quick set up a table:

It actually was nice because we just had to slide the pork roast in the oven and reheat a few other things.  That’s the way to host a dinner!

My mom’s famous german potato salad.  It’s her curse because she always has to make it for every family gathering.  Yum!  I was really hungry, even though I snacked on nuts, crackers, and cheese.  Maybe it was 2 hours of exercise or something…

The brothers:

My dad, mom, Bobbye, and my uncle Dick:

It was so nice to see them.  We have had a lot of family doin’s in the last month.

The only downside today?  I lost the football picks.  Boooo.  That means I have to buy John dinner this week.

Now we are going to cart our dessert over to my folk’s house and my sister’s family will be heading over there as well.  More family!  Good thing I took today off of work.  Here is dessert:

Interesting tidbit I found out about my family.  Genealogy tracing of my paternal side of the family shows Johnny Appleseed (John Chapman) making an appearance in there.  How cool is that?

John and I are both noticing stiff quads now.  I will wait and see if I want to go to the gym tomorrow.

It’s off to cobbler time!

Question:  How well do you handle unexpected company?

Camp and Pack

Grab a cuppa for a long post! I survived without the internets!  I am chilled to the bone, though.  It rained for most of Friday, but it stopped by the time we (meaning my sister, Colleen, and nieces Logan and Devon) were on the road to Massachusetts:

It was about a 2 hour drive.  The Camp and Pack is for the Alaskan Malamute Rescue of New England. This group rescues Malamutes that are either in a situation where they just don’t fit or in an abuse-type situation and are found new and loving homes.  This weekend is for dog owners of all types to get together and learn and have fun.  It’s definitely a good cause.  The weekend was held at a Girl Scout Camp.  Here was our cabin:


We actually scored because this cabin was a staff cabin and had electricity (but no heat)!  Woo Hoo!  That meant we could see at night – at least inside LOL.  It was, however, flipping cold.  Probably in the 30s and damp.  I was quite cold, even in the sleeping bag with several layers on.

The sun came out on Saturday and we had a nice breakfast.  We all volunteered for chores.  Logan helped serve breakfast:

She did so much work this weekend,volunteering a lot.  She has a good heart.

Yum!  I had to make do with Folgers Coffee this weekend.  D’oh!  I drank a lot, too, just to keep warm.

After breakfast, we went letterboxing.

This is pretty cool.  You basically have clues to find buried boxes and you stamp the notebook inside and sign it with a date.  The official site for US Letterboxing is here.  See if there is anything near you!

Here is a buried clue:

It had us going around the camp and climbing on some rocks:

Plus saw some more of the beautiful area:

And Storm and Honey had a good time:

After that it was lunch time!

Plus some unpictured cookies.  Lots of unpictured snacking went on, we’ll just say that right now.

After lunch I decided to take my new bike on a solo mountain ride:

Hmmm… something wrong here….

Ah – that’s better!

I did about a 9 mile ride and it was tough.  The road was really rough and I was on monster hills.  I couldn’t figure out why I was so tired until I saw the sign that said 12% grade!  Now that is some hill!

I was wiped out from that.  I had hoped to bike more miles, but the hill and rough roads were really hard.

After I got back, it was costume contest!  Honey went as a convict:

Don’t you love her prisoner number?

More costumes:

We had a lot of laughs at the costumes.

This is one mammoth dog.  Meet Ziggy with my niece Devon:

Hay ride time!  Mother/daughter:

Of course, I have to get in the picture:

Dinner was a western theme:

The food was really good.  The most tender ribs!

There was a hoe down afterwards (which I did not partake in, tired).

It was another really cold night on Saturday, but I had an extra blanket and wore gloves to bed :mrgreen:   I felt warmer.

Today was breakfast and a few more doggie things and we headed home.  I had a wonderful time with my sis and the nieces, but I sure am glad to be back indoors!  I am currently under a blanket with some hot tea trying to get rid of the chilled to the bone feeling I have.

Today’s pink item! This is Logan working with Storm.

The Breast Cancer Site

July/August goals and playing hooky!

This post is going to be filled with stuff, so be forewarned!

We woke up and decided to bike to Panera this morning.  Doesn’t it seem like my butt is planted on the bike permanently?

Blueberry bagel.  Yum!

John wanted to get a shot of me noshing, so here it is.

Nomf!!

We took it easy on the ride today as our legs were a bit tired from yesterday.  It was quite a hilly ride.

Started with work when I got home and after 200 lines this popped up.

Don’t like seeing that, because no files means I don’t get paid.  (Job #2 only has files Mon through Friday).  So, I did chores while waiting. After steam cleaning the carpets and eating lunch:

I checked work and still no files available.  You never know if they are going to come in or not.  I decided to write about July’s goals:

So, July goals were :

  • Continue with at least 1 no-added sugar day a week.  This actually isn’t that hard, I have to say.  FAIL!  I actually kinda forgot about doing this. Oops.
  • An 80-mile bike ride.  Gonna do at least that one, and likely finish out the 100 as well.  Kind of need to get that done so we can get back to normal biking :D Eeeep!! Well – we skipped right on over the  80 miles and did the 100!  I feel so awesome about that.
  • Big challenge – I am not going to step on the scale for 30 days.  I weighed myself this morning and that is it for the month.   I did not weigh myself for 30 days and it was not that hard. I actually lost several pounds this month, too.
  • Really practice mindful eating and mindful being.  Did this.  I really worked on mindless snacking, which is really what I attribute losing some weight to.

Not too bad.  The goals I have planned for August are:

  • Compile my recipes into a cookbook, which I am going to give to anyone who sponsors my Team Challenge ride. (Will talk about this tomorrow)
  • Continue working on the no snacking while preparing meals.
  • Again, no weight goal this month, just being mindful of what I am eating.  I am going to weigh myself when I want to, though.
  • I’ll probably add something else after I think for a bit.

After figuring out my goals and *still* no work,  I talked with my sister –  and since her husband and kids were visiting her in-laws, I popped down for a sister day!

The puppies were happy to see me.

We did some visiting and she made me a snack of some cheese toast with farmers market bread and cheese!

Her husband is the manager for a state tree nursery, and they are taking part in a study for using bio means for invasive plant control.  This test is for Phragmites, which chokes out cattails.  There is a stand of phrag (that tall stuff in the photo) on the property, so they are housing sheep for a month.  The idea is to see if the sheep will eat the weed if it is available.  This is the pen which these sheep are led into to see if they will eat the weed.

All that bare patch is from them eating the phrag.  They seem to like it.

Baaaaahhhhh!  So cute.  I wanted to hug them all.

We also saw a momma deer and her fawn on the way.

After this, it was shopping time!  I scored 2 new bowls, which will appear on the blog this week.  2 bowls for $7!!  I loves me a bargain.  My sister got a new Droid phone.  Lucky her!  After shopping, we were kind of hungry for dinner, so we stopped at Esperanto in Saratoga.

My sis:

I had the falafel pita with hummus.

It was delicious!  I forgot to get a picture of the cookie we each got to take home.  It was a cranberry oat cookie.

We made a pot of coffee and chatted and ate cookies.  It was certainly a nice way to play hooky!

I am home now, and there are only a couple of files to do.  Guess I am going to have to use some PTO for the day.

On a side note, if you want to help out a fellow blogger, John from Time to Challenge Myself has an entered a stridea to do 40 races by the time he reaches 40.  You can vote for his idea here.

Whew – I think that is enough for today! 😀

Everything’s bigger in… NY??

Woke up way too early this morning.  My gym doesn’t open until 8, and I was up at 6:30.  I had a snack and thought “It’s supposed to be 40 degrees today, I can run outside!”  Well, yes 40 degrees, but not at 7 am!  I did a 2-mile loop and came back to the house.  It was cold and the sidewalks were really sloppy, so I had to run in the shoulder (hope Mom doesn’t read that 😕  ).  Anyway, I decided to just wait and finish up at the gym.  Ran 4 miles on the treadmill for a good 6 mile run total.  Saturday workouts always feel like a Friday, if that makes any sense, in that it’s the last workout of the week for me, so I am ready for a day off tomorrow!  I am very pleased about my mileage this week.  I did a total of 20 miles!  That is a 10% increase from last week.  I will keep it the same for next week, as it is important not to increase too much each week.

With such a spaced out workout, I was ready for brekkie!  Pumpkin multigrain topped with craisins and a bit of pecan butter.

Yay!  It was good.  I was very sad when this bowl was gone (how sad is that :mrgreen:  ).  I finally got caught up in my google reader and with emails and such.  I swear that’s a full-time job in itself, know what I mean??

I was trying to use up some fridge stuff for lunch, so I made an interesting meal.  I mixed together chocolate protein powder (don’t forget to read my post from earlier!) and greek yogurt, and spread it on a toasted Josef’s pita with the last sprinkle of mini chips.

This was  good, although the pita was so crispy I had to use a fork to eat it because it kept breaking apart.

After lunch, it was down to meet my sister at BJ’s Wholesale.  My trial membership expires in a couple weeks, so we wanted to stock up on a few staples.  Afterwards, we popped across to the mall and stopped at a coffee shop that had the perfect name!

It was cute.  The owner obviously does artwork and jewelry, since this was for sale everywhere.

I had a latte and half a cookie.

Me and sister (who sprained her knee – ouch!).

One thing about BJ’s, either everything is in case form or giant form.  Check out these huge bags:

That chocolate chip bag is 72 ounces!  Should last a good long time.  John and I eat a lot of nuts and make nut butters.  BJs has great prices on almonds and pecans.  Almonds were $3.99 a pound!

Football time!  That means we’re in for the night.  I had a dinner salad and cleaned out the rest of the spring mix bag.  Check out this giant bowl of lettuce for 30 calories!

Guess that’s the good thing about salads.

Off to watch more of the games.  There is chocolate in the house…….

Want a chance to win a VitaMix mixer?  I know I do!  Check out Katie’s giveaway here!

And don’t forget to enter the Lose The Diet Book giveaway!  Ends Sunday.