Category Archives: ice cream

30 humid miles

It was a *hot* weekend to go biking!  We were going to go down to Saratoga, but most of that ride is on open road and I didn’t want to be in the sun and heat for that ride.  So, we were going to try to hit up 40 miles closer to home on the paths.  The plan was to loop south and then turn around and go to the lake – with an ice cream visit tucked in there.

Ride prep: Bike checkup before leaving the house.  We always do a tire check.

Then pack the bags that go on our bag racks.  I found a good way to tote my sunscreen.  I have a large bottle and then fill a small jar that goes in my bike bag.

Saves space and much cheaper than buying travel size sunscreen – since I go through so much!  This is my 50 SPF.  Thick cream and greasy, as I have said before, but it works.

Two water bottles.  One for my water cage and one goes in my bag.

All ready to go!

We decided since it would be an ice cream ride that we would leave after lunch.  We should have thought through that a little more with 90 degrees and humidity.  🙄

The first part of the ride going south was on open roads and in the sun.  We had gone a few miles when I took the lead and John told me my bag was open in the back.  Duh.

No shade to be seen!

I made sure to take small sips of water often to avoid having a ‘water baby’ and have it sloshing around in my stomach.  I was sweating profusely by this time and the combination of my sunscreen coating and the humidity and I felt like I couldn’t get cool at all.  Uck!  Even my forearms were dripping sweat.  After 12 miles, we pulled off onto the 1-mile Betar byway  and into some shade so I could cool down.

I could have ridden this 1 mile stretch  30 more times and been perfectly happy.

After cooling down a bit, we continued on.  Back to downtown Glens Falls and then we hit the bike path there.  Again, I was starting to feel really hot.  Why were we biking at 2 pm?  I don’t know.  At mile 17, we stopped for a bit of dried pineapple and to cool down again.

Helmets off to cool off faster.  I never take my helmet off for short stops, but I did this day.

John has dubbed this spot “Decision Point.”  It is a section where the bike lane sharing the road becomes just path only.  This is just before the climbing stretch to get to Lake George.

With the heat and humidity, we decided not to do the climbs to the lake.  The heat was wiping me out and we didn’t want the ride to become a dirge.  So, it was time to turn around and head to Martha’s, which was a couple miles away.

Great Escape was full of people.  That tall thing is the Sasquatch ride, which does a free fall thing.  Not my cup of tea.

More my cup of tea was my sundae!

The scholarship sundae.  I had red raspberry ice cream, which was topped with raspberry sauce, hot fudge and cookie crumbs.

It’s almost as pink as my shirt.

My hair was soaked, as was my shirt.  I had gone through both bottles of water by this point and refilled both of them at Martha’s.

John had apple pie ice cream with caramel sauce.  Equally yummy!

A slight cloud cover began to form, which was nice as it made the rest of the ride not so meltingly hot.  We took the path home from here and then wound around a bit so we could get 30 miles in for the day.  That’s a good ride.

I kept sipping bits of water all the way home. I was all crusty from salt when we got back.  I felt like a personal salt lick.  Ewwww!

Ride stats:

Total miles:  30.7

Average speed:  12.5 mph

Calories burned:  908

Water bottles consumed:  4!

We have decided any time it is this hot to just get up early and go out for a ride and not plan any kind of lunch or ice cream.  That is why we went later and really hadn’t thought the heat would affect us so much.  It was more me than John, though.  I would have been better if we had not done the first part of the ride in the sun and gone straight to the path. Humidity and I don’t play well together.  At least we don’t get a lot of days like this around here.

Hopefully this weekend will be a Saratoga ride. I am wanting a cupcake ride!

Ice cream in March.

This was today!  It’s like summer.  I only needed a light jacket this morning to go to the gym.   I did Workout A today and I am already feeling stronger.  The goal is to increase the weights or reps on a few exercises each time to challenge yourself.  Maximum of 12 reps per set, though.  I did 3 sets of 12 pushups and 3 sets of 12 with the  stepups.  I also added weight to the bird dog.  I am feeling strong!  I get so sweaty doing these workouts, too.

The bank was lucky this morning because their drive-through windows were closed and I had to go *into* the bank on the way home from the gym.  I asked the teller why the lanes were closed and I heard someone say “Oooops!”  She had forget to turn on the open signs.  I let them I wouldn’t have subjected them to a post-gym me if I could have helped it!  😳

I had my pumpkin protein drink leaving the gym, so I wasn’t in too much of a hurry to eat, which is nice.  I made up a 1-minute waffle and did the ricotta and honey thing again.

Yep, I like it.

Had a good work day today. I cannot stress how grateful I am for my job!  Almost exactly 1 year ago I was going through that indecision with work after having been laid off by one of my jobs and received an offer with another company, which led to my current company giving me full time and enough incentive to stay. I am so, so thankful for that.  For as long as it lasts.  This industry changes so much that my job could be gone tomorrow, so I will just be thankful every day that I work here.

Lunch was more like a dinner for me.  Ground turkey cooked with BBQ sauce.  I shall also again profess my love for baby broccoli florets!  They always have space waiting in my freezer  😆

Pixie is loving this warm weather and the sun spots that move around.  She abandons the lap, although this morning it was cooler and she was with me.

Are you taking another picture of me??

Snackage.

Latte with one of the chewy coconut things I made almost 2 weeks ago.  They have lasted a long time because I am not eating extra when I am not nibbling.  Imagine that.  There are only 2 left, though.

With the warm weather, I wanted a cool dinner.  So, I made my latest love, which is the apple cranberry topping on the 2% Fage.

This is surprisingly filling, at least for a while.

The seasonal ice cream shops have been opening early this year and today marked the first day for Rookies, which is 1/3 mile from our house.  So, we took a walk down there after dinner to have the first soft serve cone of the season!

Everyone else had the same idea!  I have never seen this place so busy.

I got a kiddie cone with eyes!  This is maple flavor and oh so good!

The eyes were 2 different colors, too. One yellow and one white.  This size is perfect for after dinner.

Now that the ice cream shop is open, the weather is going to go downhill. 😀

Not so manic Monday

I am glad everybody enjoys the ride posts. Of course, not all of where we ride looks like the road to the Emerald City, but I really am not going to take a picture on a busy road getting to the path.  Or maybe I will some day  😀

Monday rolls around again.  I cannot believe how crazy the weather has been across the US.  Whether you believe global warming is caused by people or just a naturally occurring event, you have to admit this is some scary stuff.  At least we are just rainy up here.

I am still on my T/TH lifting schedule for the time being until I deem otherwise.  Just too tired after long weekend rides to do any lifting on Mondays.

So, I settled in for breakfast:

Banana custard oats with some peanut flour and strawberry/rhubarb pie middle (guess that means it’s jam).  Does this look like an eye to anyone else?

Oats on Monday, you ask?  Well, the Magic Bullet blender has finally crossed over.   😥   RIP blender, you were very good to me for over 5 years.  No protein waffles or pancakes until I get a new one or find the best way to use my immersion blender to do it without making a mess.  And figuring that out pre-coffee could be mighty scary indeed.

Today just seems rather blah.  I also have a sore throat,which I have had for a couple days now.  I don’t know if it is pollen or what.  Nothing else, just the sore throat, so it makes me a little cranky.  I haven’t had a sore throat or any type of illness in a couple years.

I made up a quick lunch of an egg sandwich with hot sauce, sore throat or no.  These are some sourdough rolls I made over the weekend.  Good, but not the fluffy type I was going for.

And blueberries are back in bigger packages, finally!  I think that means it will be time to pick my own soon.

John made me a latte today, and I had couple of these:

Dates – nature’s candy!  Funny how I keep buying dates with the intention to make more protein date balls, but then I just keep eating them plain (or with nutbutter).  Ever do something like that?

Simple dinner for a simple day this evening:

Grilled chicken salad – post cashew eating.  They would have added a nice crunch to the salad.

Both of us were done for work, so we headed down the street for a little Monday treat:

It looks like rain, but it was just cloudy all day.  We walked home to enjoy our treats on the porch:

Coconut malted.  Interesting.  I love malts and tried it with the coconut softserve flavor today.

Now it is off to do some guitar practice and enjoy a quiet, non manic Monday night.

Question: Do you like shakes or malts?

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…..

8-miler, running thoughts and ice cream

Well – last night was ice cream at Friendly’s!  I got a happy endings sundae with butter crunch ice cream and peanut butter sauce.

friendly

It was very good and I enjoyed every bite!  Plus it was nice just to get out of the house for a while.

So, this morning was the 8-mile jog!  Here is me fresh as a daisy before going out.

lori

Well, maybe not so fresh 😀

I fueled up with the other Odwalla bar that John got me before I went out.  This was tasty.  I packed along a POM juice, a bottle of water, and a few dates with cashew butter to have during my run.

odcc

Went down to the track to do 32 laps (snore!!!).  Luckily, it was cloudy for 1/2 the run.  I did 4 miles straight, then stopped and drank the POM juice.  I got an instant rush from that (it is straight juice, after all!).  Then I continued on.  The sun came out after that and it started to feel really humid.  I felt like I was running even slower, which wasn’t true, it just felt like it.  Did 2 more miles (6 at this point), then stopped for a date and some water.  I had to really charge myself up for the last 8 laps.  There were maintenance people there working on the football field inside the track and on the school roof – they probably were getting a kick out of hearing me talk to myself.  The last mile was fairly hard, more from the point that I just wanted to be done.  Finished in 1:35:15.  Just about a 12 minute mile pace (or 5 mph). I was so soaked in sweat when I was done, I literally could wring out my trisuit (yuck!!).

Check out the GoWear fit  – it gave a calorie burn of about 1000 for this run.  Even if I knock 10% off of that just for fudging sake (mmmm….. fudge…) that is still 900!  You can see where I took the 2 stops.

gwfAnd yes, I do eat more on days like this.

It got me really thinking about whether I want to do a 1/2 marathon or not.  I know I could probably finish it, but I don’t know if the desire is there to, and that is very important.  When I was training for the triathlon, I wanted to do it and I was excited for it, even though I was kind of scared.  The 1/2 doesn’t feel that way.  I need to mull it over.  I told myself I would decide when I had done an 8 mile, but maybe I need more time.

Had a fabulously refreshing shower and made a late breakfast of chocolate banana oats!

brekkie4

  • 40 grams of oat bran
  • 1 small banana
  • 4 grams of dark cocoa powder
  • spoonful of cashew butter.

Work is really slow today. That’s the downside of doing transcription.  No files = no work.

Lunch today is a tuna/hummus wrap (last of the hummus) and the last pear.  We really need to go grocery shopping!

lunch7

Neat online giveaway!

Run to the finish -It’s Amanda’s birthday and she is giving away a ton of stuff to a lucky reader!

(Teaser, look for a giveaway on my site next week!)

Lucky me that John fired up the grill and got some chicken going.   He used some Emeril’s seasoning that I got to sample for being a Food Buzz publisher.  The afternoon got busy!

dinner6

The last of the blueberries, and this was a frozen veggie mix.  Down to the dregs now of everything!

Preseason football tonight.  Are you ready??

Question:  Do you watch football, and if so, what team?  Go Broncos!

Ice cream!!

I have to admit, I miss my exercise routine!  Today was just a 30 minute walk outside.  I actually should have done more considering what I ended my day with!

Rest days are just as important as the training days, though!  That is when the body makes repairs and builds strength – not on the actual day you are working out.  Plus, there isn’t anything I could do this week that would get me any faster in any of the events.

Had a lovely bowl of oats this morning:

  • p70900011/2 cup of oats
  • 1 small banana
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • topped with 2 tsp of homemade peanut butter

Today is my Friday!  Got right to work to be done as soon as possible. Lunch was had at the computer – another spinach smoothie:

  • p7090002several large handfuls of spinach
  • 1 scoop Jay Robb strawberry protein powder
  • frozen tropical fruit mix

Plus a Luna bar

p7090003

John went to pick up some coffee from Dunkin Donuts this afternoon, as the dishwasher was running with our latte stuff in mid afternoon.  DD is only about a mile from our house (eeek!). I wanted a skim latte with just cinnamon flavor.  He came back and I tasted it.  They put Splenda in it!! YUCK!!!  He didn’t ask for it sweetened, why on earth would they do that?  So, we ended up trading drinks as he had gotten a decaf coffee with milk.  I cannot abide the taste of Splenda, so I couldn’t even choke it down if I wanted to.  Should have walked back there – but it was nice of John to trade.  I was pouty, so I got some of these to have with it since I didn’t get my latte:p7090004

John kindly grilled some chicken tonight while I finished up work.  Plus extra so we have it at the ready in the fridge!  Yay!

p7090008

After dinner, we did some ‘research’ for a possible new business that John is thinking about, which led us here:

p7090010

And somehow I ended up with this:

p7090009

Cannoli ice cream!  Cheesecake ice cream with chocolate waffle cone pieces and anise flavor.  This was *1* scoop.  Good thing I didn’t get 2!  So delicious, though.  I do love my frozen yogurt, but the ice cream is so good.

My weekend starts tomorrow and I took Sunday off of work, so I get a 3-day weekend!  Yay!  I didn’t want to come back and have to work after doing the triathlon, so that is worth taking PTO.

Question:  Do you ever eat something that you don’t want just to not waste it?

Weigh in day!

Gained 0.2 pounds. So, basically a maintain. Still in the 140s, though! This is going ssssllllooooowwww now.
I lost 4 pounds for the month of June. Went down a whole size, though! Inches changes are much more dramatic at this weight loss pace than they were at 250.

I have just had horrible munchies yesterday and today. I ended up eating foods I hadn’t really planned on. After giving blood today, DH and I stopped for dinner and split a calzone, which I had with a side salad. In the old days, I would have not had a salad and eaten a whole calzone myself! Funny, I still felt hungry after eating that, and I said to myself that I could eat something else if I wanted to after one hour.
An hour and 1/2 later, and I felt not quite hungry, but not satisfied. So we went out for ice cream. Oooops. I had a small, and enjoyed every bite. This place makes their own ice cream, so it was worth it.

I figure it must be PMS or something causing the desire to eat. Or maybe the large amount of exercise I have done this week has something to do with it. Or, maybe it is just the phase of the moon LOL!

Long bike ride today

It was such a beautiful day today! We went for a longer bike ride. 16 miles. 8 miles to an ice cream shop and back. DH wanted to stop there, I did not want any ice cream – since I had Only 8 frozen yogurt yesterday, I certainly didn’t need ice cream today.
He got some, and I had two licks of his and that was it. Funny I didn’t even have any desire to have any.

According to my HRM – I burned over 600 calories on this ride, so I did bump my daily calories up to 1500 instead of 1350.

Today’s stats:
Calorie goal: 1,500 • Consumed: 1,552 • Burned: 633
Net calories: 919
C/P/F ratio: 50/21/29