Tag Archives: biking

The green, green trails of home

Would you like to come along on 2 rides?  The weather was a little hit or miss this weekend.  At first, we were going to go for a longer ride on Saturday, but there was rain coming on radar.  Then we decided to go for a shorter ride and get it in before the rain came.  We chose to go through the streets to Crandall Park.

John is watching the kids across the street.  They were driving/pedaling a big pink jeep, which was cute.

Crandall Park is about 8 miles from home.  It is next door to the Y, where I used to go when I was training for the triathlon.

It’s actually right next to the main road, but you wouldn’t know it.  It looks very secluded.

You can just make out the road in the background

The water is full of fish, bluegills and something else that is much bigger.  Bass maybe?

Funny, you can fish here if you are a senior citizen or under 15, but not in between.  I am thinking a Memorial Weekend picnic here is in order (Mom, Dad?)

We got home 17  miles round trip.  And it started to rain just as we got home!

Sunday we decided to bike farther to breakfast and try a new bagel place.  I fueled up with a protein drink before heading out the door.  It was cloudy and really humid today.  We decided not to stray too far from home today as rain was forecast for the mid afternoon.

The path to Lake George was exploding in green.  Here is where the path leaves Glens Falls and enters the Adirondaks.  This is about 7.5 miles in.

That building to the left is an ice cream shop.  One of the many.  We actually don’t go here often because they serve Edy’s ice cream, which we can buy in the store, plus no yogurt. They do have jazz concerts on Sundays in the summer, though.

I stopped a few times to take pictures because it was so crazy green!  Almost like the Emerald Forest. This is the top of a hill before going down and curving around.

Time for a quick sugar snack at mile 11.  I was getting hungry by this time and super sweaty from the humidity.

I love ginger! Note the thread on my gloves.  They are already falling apart.  I am so hard on my stuff.

We had a bit more of a climb and then a 2 mile free for all down hill.  I hit 28 mph!  The nice thing about early Sunday mornings is that only dweebs are out that early, so John and I had the path pretty much to ourselves.

We arrived to Lake George at 16 miles. We both decided that is too far for breakfast.  The new place that opened in Lake George?

An interesting concept.  This place was really long and narrow.  A little odd. Not much seating, but in an Adirondack style.

I had a cheddar bagel with cream cheese.

They ran out of coffee before we each got a cup, though!  Had to wait for it to be brewed.  Nice fresh coffee, but having to wait after biking 16 miles was hard.  The bagel had a nice flavor to it, and they made them there, which is nice.  I would have liked a chewier crust, though.  Not sure if they boil these bagels or just bake them.

The Lake is about ready for tourists.

All the cheesy t-shirt shops are open now.  Lake George is an odd mix.

They do have an awesome bakery  – the Lake George Baking Company.

We each got something to go to have later.

We headed back, this time climbing up for 2 miles.  Powered by bagel!

Wouldn’t be surprised if the city of Oz showed up at the end of the path.

At mile 30, we stopped at a garden center that I have been dying to go into every time we bike by.

I drank some coconut water:

I then proceeded to almost hyperventilate at all the flowers.  This is one of those nurseries that is just a joy to go to because their displays are wonderful. And they had 11 greenhouses.  11!!!  We only looked at 3:

John reminded me that it could rain, so I made a plan to come back later on my own by car :mrgreen:

We then headed home and reached there at mile 38.8.

Ride stats:

Total miles : 38.8

Ride time:  3 hours 6 minutes

Average speed: 12.4 mph

Top speed: 28 mph!

Calories burned:  1164.

I was really hoping for a longer ride today, but the weather was iffy, although it turned out to be okay – so we could have gone further.  I did enjoy going back to the garden center, though.  :mrgreen:

Oh, and my item bought at the bakery?

An almond horn!  One of my favorite cookies.  We had lattes at home with our snacks.

Question:  Is your area green or dry right now?

Surprise sunny day

It is spring! Here is some evidence:

Aren’t they beautiful? These are from my parents’ lilac bush.

They make the house smell so nice.

The roads were wet this morning, but the sun came out. I didn’t trust it to last, though. I headed out to the gym for a nice lifting session:

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Low Back Extension 3 sets of 15 at 80# Low back
Dumbbell Pull Over 3 set of 10 with 20# DB Back
Biceps Curls 3 sets of 10 with 30# bar Biceps
Pushups 3 sets of 10 Chest
Calf Raise 3 sets of 12 at 110# Calves
Nosebreakers 3 sets of 10 with 25# bar Triceps
Pliet Squat 3 sets of 10 with 35# DB Lower Body
Reverse Crunch 3 sets of 15 Core
Bent Lateral Raise 3 sets of 10 with 10# DBs (20# total) Shoulders

While I was there (and feeling chubby, I might add), a woman said to me “Lori, you look like have you lost weight” I was uncomfortable with that for some reason. I think because of my own feeling at that point. I told her I didn’t think so, but maybe it was all the biking.  Then I thanked her for the compliment, which is what I should have just done in the first place.

Of course, I really do *not* know what I weigh  since I have not stepped on a scale since March 31st.  I have days where I feel thinner and days where I feel heavier.  I think once May is up, I am going to weigh myself again.  I think the nebulousness of just going by clothing isn’t helping my psyche. I am starting to second guess myself.

Headed on home hungry.  I made up a 1 minute muffin/waffle, topped with some peanut flour and homemade strawberry jam.

I made the PB flour a little more liquidy so it would be a bit runny.  Raise your hand if you think I wolfed this down.  Come on – I want to see all of them up!

Today turned out to be a really nice day.  We were expecting rain all week and the sun decided to come out and play all day!

I took advantage of that and took a break from work to mow the lawn. It felt so good to get outside!

Lunch time salad today:

I had a packet of this dressing.

This packet will last me for 3 salads, even though it is a ‘single’ serving packet.

John made up some lattes today, which I enjoyed with a dark chocolate mint cup.  The last one.

Then I was a little hungry, so I had a ramekin of cereal.

I stopped at this, though, which is a victory for me.

When dinner time rolled around, I fell back on a standard.

Using my perfect omelet technique *patent pending*

We watched some of the Tour of California during dinner, which got us both hankering for a bike ride!  We checked the radar and saw the all clear for at least a couple hours, so we hit the trails for some of this:

This is tiramisu cheesecake yogurt.  Yes indeed – it was tasty!  It felt wonderful to be outside again!  Too bad tomorrow is back to rain.

Question: Do you have a fall back meal you rely on?

Biking to the birthplace of the US Navy

Happy Mother’s Day!  We had another very full weekend. Saturday was bike day for John and I.  We went to a completely different place this time.  Basically straight north.  I always talk about Lake George, but we also are close to Lake Champlain and the Champlain canal, which is the route we went along:

We are at the bottom of this, which is along the canal.  It was a gorgeous morning, mid 50s and sunny.

It’s now starting to get green around here.  Trees are budding out!  We had a tiny bit of tail wind on the way to Whitehall and we made great time!  This is more flat than most of our rides, so that helped.

First stop was around mile 12.

I actually did not need a snack here.  We left shortly after breakfast and I had a nice tummy full of protein waffles.  Good energy for the ride, I have to say.

We arrived in Whitehall at mile 23 and we had an average pace of 14.6 miles per hour!  Fastest ever!  Whitehall is the birthplace of the US Navy.

Pretty cool.  The canal was quite high from the recent rains, and part of the road was closed due to that.

This is the hull of the USS Ticonderoga:

It was in the battle of Lake Champlain in 1814 and then raised in 1956.

Whitehall is a nice town.  It is a little depressed, which is a shame because it is very cute and right on the water.  It just needs some kind of spark to get going.  Maybe sasquatch scares people away

Whitehall has a history of bigfoot sightings. :mrgreen:

We ate lunch along the canal.  Just packed sandwiches.  No cupcakes today!

Open face PB&J.

Definteley a nice place to have lunch!

Then we headed home.  At mile 30, we stopped for a quick breather:

The skies were looking a little ominous.

Uh-oh…  The wind picked up as well.  We were somewhat slower on the way home.  Too bad we couldn’t keep up a 14.6 mph pace!  It started to spit some rain on us with about 10 miles to go, but it stopped.  Then about 2 miles from home, it really started to rain!  Ugh!  We were soaked when we got home after 45.5 miles.

Other than the last 2 miles, it was a good ride.  Wouldn’t you know that 30 minutes later, the sun was back out again.

Ride Stats:

Total miles: 45.7

Average Speed: 13.3  (slower on the way home)

Ride time: 3 hours 25 minutes

Top speed: 26.2 mph

Calories burned: 1481

Happy Mother’s Day to my mom!  The best mom 😀

And to my sister – Happy Mother’s Day!

We went to the Albany Tulip Festival, and I will do a post on Monday with that as it deserves its own post with a lot of flower pictures.  I was going to try to squeeze that into this post, but it would just have been too long.

Preview of that:

Make sure you come back to see a lot of tulips tomorrow!

What’s blooming and lovin’ the leftovers.

Woke up to a chilly, but beautiful sunny morning. It was almost 40, so I knew I would bike to the gym today!

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Cable Squat to row 3 sets of 10 at 60# Full body
Bent lateral raise 3 set of 10 with 15# DBs (30# total) Back
Pushups 3 sets of 10 Chest
Planks 3 sets of 70 second holds Core
Calf raise 3 sets of 12 at 110# Calves
Low Back Extension 3 sets of 12 at 80# Low Back
Cable Triceps pull down 3 sets of 15 at 30# Triceps
Arnold Press 3 sets of 10 with 10# DBs (20# total) Shoulders
Hammer curls 3 sets of 10 with 10# DBs (20# total) Biceps

Good workout today.  Still a little cold on the way home and I was ready for some coffee and steel cut oats that I soaked overnight.

I used 1/3 of a banana mashed into the cooking water, then I sliced the rest and sauteed in a little butter and cinnamon.  You must do this.  So very good!  Plus a drizzle of coconut butter on top.  I was a super happy camper eating this morning :mrgreen:

Just a wonderful gorgeous day today.  We even had to mow the lawn for the first time.

That’s pretty much all of our lawn right there.  Only a strip down the side of the house.  It takes 10 minutes to mow.

Lunch was some leftover souffle with a pear.

So good.  I told John I want souffles all the time now.

Pixie just doesn’t know what she is missing with not eating people food.

She looks like she cares, right?

Work slowed up, so I went out to take some pictures of this week’s tulips.  These are some kind of apricot ones.  I really need to write down the names of the ones I get LOL.

The pretty inside:

I have 2 groupings of this color:

There are a bunch more buds on the other tulips as well.  I thought I had planted some daffodils, but maybe the squirrels got them.

Then John and I took a ride for some frozen yogurt!

I didn’t even need to put on my hat today after taking off my helmet.  Lucky me.

It was fairly windy out today.  Guess that is what is pushing in the warmer air.  16 miles of biking today!

Tonight’s dinner was more leftovers.  I have to say that I am about ready for some meat!  John made a shrimp poboy for dinner and I really wanted one.  Instead, I cooked up a yukon gold potato and put some of the palak chole over it.

Pretty good.  Getting a good carb load for a longer ride tomorrow.  We need to build a better base before increasing mileage.  We jumped from 45 to 66 miles and that was a bit much.  Tomorrow will be in the 40 to 50 mile range.

Sunday is bagel day with my mom for Mother’s Day! See you on the flip side of the weekend!

Question: Are you a leftover lover?

66 Miles to China

Another weekend just zoomed by!  There was some gardening, some listening to music, some bagels, and oh yes – a bike ride!

We decided on a longer ride, but with shorter breaks.  The plan was to go after an early lunch.  I started out the day with a big bowl of banana custard oats:

John mapped out our ride.  Here is the elevation map:

The first 2 “bumps” are to Lake George and back around.  Since the plan was for 65 miles, I wanted to front load my calories for the day as I have trouble getting in enough calories during the ride.  Shortly before the ride, I had some chicken.  Preride calories were around 800 total with breakfast.

We set out on the path:

At mile 15, we arrived to Lake George.  The lake was very high from all the rain and snow melt:

Normally you would see the legs on these piers.  We had our first snack here:

Me and my best friend:

Stores were sprucing up getting ready for the season.  John said you could just feel the lake getting ready for the tourists.

We didn’t stay long.  Just to snack and make a potty stop!  We then left and headed back up the long hill and to Saratoga.  We had a nice tail wind on the way down there and make quite good time.  Normally the wind comes from the other direction.  We stopped for another snack at mile 32:

Pear Power!  Legs were feeling good, although my quads were kind of achy, which was weird.  What a gorgeous day, too.  Mid 60s.  If  not for the wind, I don’t think a day could have been more perfect for riding.

At mile 42, we reached Saratoga.  Of course, you know what that means!

Cupcake Lab!  Normally we have lunch and then cupcakes, but we ate lunch before leaving.  I have to say that the granola bar and the pear were just barely enough to get us through 40 miles, even after eating lunch just before leaving.  Still learning about how to fuel before and during these really long rides.  I was ready for a big carb hit!  I had 2 cupcakes.  One was Saratoga Whiteout, which was a chocolate cupcake with chocolate ganache filling and white buttercream icing.

With some coffee:

Thank goodness for hats.  No one wants to see my helmet head!

The second cupcake was a Mocha Espresso, which was a coffee flavored cupcake with chocolate bits in it. Buttercream frosting, which may have had a coffee flavor to it as well, but I can’t remember right now.

The pistachio cupcake is my very favorite, but I think this one edged out the raspberry to become #2.  Yum!

After a nice break here, we filled up water bottles and headed back home.  This became a tough leg.  The wind was stiff and in our faces.  Normally we make up a lot of time on the way home because it usually is at our backs.  Our average speed on the way down to Saratoga was 12.6 mph for the first 42.  It fell to 12.2 by the time we finished the last 24 miles!

Stop for my favorite beverage at the top of a hill at  mile 54:

I got my second wind right here.  I knew there would be no problem for the last 12 miles after this.  I sing to myself a lot when riding.  Maybe that helps.  I sing things like “Just keep peddling” and “You can do it”.  And then I was singing “I want to ride my bicycle” by Queen! :mrgreen:

We took one last break at about mile 62. Just to stop from the wind.  It was really brutal. Especially when we got to some open flats.  That was the least enjoyable thing about this ride.  I actually got wind burn on my face.  I finished up my coconut water here, but I had no appetite at all – and I really should have if you think of the calories burned and what I took in.  These long rides suppress my appetite like crazy.

Then we did the last 4.5 miles home!

Ride stats:

Total miles: 66.6 – more than a metric century!

Ride time: 5 hours 35 minutes (not counting breaks)

Average speed 12.2 mph (darn wind).

Top speed:  26.2 mph (wheeee!!!)

Calories burned: 1997  (wow!)

This is what I look like after riding 66 miles.

Now for something you just never see on this blog.  After cleaning up, we decided that a really long ride day was a good day to do this for dinner:

Unassuming sign, but we think this is the best Chinese buffet in town.
I had a lot of calories to take in.  I figured I had consumed about maybe 1700 calories for the day – (guestimating about 250 calories for each cupcake), and with burning almost 2000 on top of a normal daily burn, I had to eat.  I still wasn’t that hungry until I took a bite of food and then my stomach woke up!

Lots of seafood on this buffet, which is really nice.  I had another plate, too!

Crab rangoons are my favorites!  I also stole broccoli out of the chicken and broccoli for both plates. Probably not kosher, but I wanted it.

Okay – I do need some help with my fortune, though.  What the heck does this mean??

I feel like I am missing the fortune that came in front of this one to make any sense of it. LOL!

All in all a great day!

Weekend roundup, rehab, riding, and repast

Happy Easter for those that celebrate 😀

**picture heavy post coming up**

Saturday was dreary and rainy – so that meant renovations!  We are just trucking along right now. Floor tiling is all done:

Still need to grout.  Nice change from this:


To this:

Even without the grout it is sooooo much better!

New lighting fixture that worked the first time we put it up there.

Easiest lighting fixture ever to install.  This room used to just have a light hanging by a cord and a hook that we had to switch on and off.  Now we have a wall switch like real people!

Painting is done in the pantry room.  All this room needs is the wall backsplash and doors for the pantry!

We purchased the sink and terlet for the bathroom.  It’s one of the eco friendly ones that has 2 different flushes for less water usage.  Yay!

We were a little worried about clearance space for the back toilet tank as our plumbing moved a bit during final installation, so we were sweating a little bit.  This isn’t exactly where it is going, but close.  I can taste the end of the project!

Food was spot on for Saturday.  I’m in the zone now, which I will take and ride for as long as it lasts!

Sunday morning the rain broke and the temps were warm enough at  48 degrees to ride to bagels!

I did run over a broken beer bottle about a  mile in and ended up with this:

Fast flat. Sigh.  We patched it and kept going.  It did delay us quite a bit and I was about bonking by the time we got to Panera Bread!  If I had known I was going to get a flat, I would have eaten a bigger snack.

We take the main roads on Sunday rather than the path because it is quiet on Sundays and quicker to get to breakfast that way.

Unfortunately, they are building a Walmart on this road, so that might impact our riding on it anymore.  There probably will be too much traffic.

Breakfast time!

The ride home was really fast without having the flat and a nice tailwind to boot!

16 miles round trip.

My Easter treat today?

I can’t have these in the house as these are my very, very favorite candy.  Any chocolate/PB combo.  I bought a single egg so I wouldn’t even have the 6-pack in the house.  It was really good! :mrgreen:

My parents invited the family to dinner on Sunday.

Guess who brought the big bowl of fruit? :mrgreen:

I also brought the coconut bread biscuits, but I think only my dad liked them besides John and I.

My plate:

Yum!  We had dessert later.  There was a vanilla cake with frosting.

I did not have any cake, but I ate a bunch of the little malted eggs.  I like those.  I did have some ice cream and coffee.

I would give myself a C for eating today.  A few too many nuts and the malted eggs, but I am not stuffed, which feels great!

Came home to Pixie all snuggled into pillows.

She’s so cute!

Now for a nice relaxing evening!

Question:  What was the best thing you ate this weekend?

Playing hooky for some froyo

Friday! I know a couple people who took advantage of the sun coming out today!  But first, there was the necessary stuff.

Decided to take it easy on the legs for strength workout today.

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Stiff Legged Deadlift 3 sets of 10 at 65# Lower body
Seated Calf raise 3 sets of 12 at 140# Calves
Barbell Bench Press 3 sets of 12 at 45# Chest
Bent dumbell row 3 sets of 10 with 20# DBs (40# total) Back
Captain’s Chair 3 sets of 10 Core
Upright Row 3 sets of 10 at 30# Shoulders
Lower Back Extension 3 sets of 12 at 80# Low Back

Then it was to home and a wonderful bowl of banana custard oats!  I soaked the oats per the Sally Fallon method

Makes such a soft and fluffy bowl with soaking. Topped with almond butter and orange marmalade.

Well, I did not escape yesterday’s run unscathed. My knee is fine, but my left thigh is really, really sore. Just the top quad muscle. It’s like I had a heavy duty lifting workout with soreness, only just in one part of my thigh. It feels uncomfortable and weak. I am not sure why running seems to have regressed for me.  I was okay through the fall, but then over the winter it began to cause me problems.  It’s a little depressing, I have to say.  I don’t know if more running will work that weakness out or if I should just give it up all together.

I wanted a circular lunch today.  Okay, not really, but it turned out that way. John made protein muffins, which I toasted up.

Of course, then I realize he made these with wheat flour.  Ugh – it is hard to remember not eat wheat outside of my bagels!  Needless to say, this month’s challenge has been challenging.

Did some more work and we decided to take advantage of mid 50s and sun and go for a bike ride.  Playing hooky!  We decided to take our first trip to Lake George.  That is about 30 miles round trip.  Normally we do this on a weekend and have lunch there, but decided to just go there, turn around, and hit yogurt on the way back.

The path to Lake George is hilly!  Steep hills. Phew.  We stopped at mile 11.5 after reaching the top of the hill we call ‘the bitch.’  Cause it is. It’s long and then takes a steep upturn at the very end.  Made it up okay, though!  Fuel –

The top of this hill is  a pedestrian/bike overpass – kind of looks like a cage.

Turns out the day was a little breezy, which made the descent really cold!  I had 2 jackets on and was still chilly.

Reached the lake after 15 miles.

I love the off season because the lake is quiet and peaceful with just a few people walking around.  Much different from the summer.

The turn around gives us a 2 mile upward climb on the way back.  That is tough.  My thighs were burning a little bit.  I knew our reward was coming, though!

Mile 24:

Even though it was cold, we were going to have yogurt, darn it!  I had angel food cake flavor with raspberry sauce.

I loved this, but I was shivering by the end of eating it.  Mid 50s is okay, except when it is windy.  My teeth were chattering!

My biker buddy:

Then we finished out the ride:

Total miles: 30.3

Time: 2:39

Calories burned: 887

It felt good, although my left thigh just was kind of tired.  Overall good hill condition for April, though.  It won’t take long to build that up, if I can ever get outside and ride more.

Remember that chicken from last night’s dinner?  It made its appearance at tonight’s dinner in the form of salad.

Topped with pepper bacon and parmesan pepper dressing.  I love bacon on salads.  We cooked bacon in the waffle iron, too.

I’ll be snacking tonight, but not going overboard.  I made a promise to myself that I would eat well this weekend.  Also going to do some stretching!

Happy Earth Day!

Solo Froyo Ride!

I woke up with a frozen yogurt hankering this morning.  I was hoping the weather would at least be cooperative.  I got up and brewed up some coffee and started work early in anticipation of taking a break in the afternoon for a ride!

Breakfast consisted of peanut flour waffles with the blueberry sauce/coconut butter.

I know you all missed the blueberries the last few days. 😉

Confession – I did not shower until much later in the day. I worked in my jammies all morning because one of my favorite doctors uploaded all his files.  He is very easy to transcribe and I can get a lot of files done in a short amount of time (more $$), so I just sat there and typed my little fingers off!  Yay!

I finished his files up about lunch time, so I made up some chicken salad/salad.  This was 1/2 of a granny smith apple, 10 grams of toasted pecans, 2.5 ounces of grilled chicken, and 28 g (2 Tbsp) of light mayo.  Normally I put curry powder in this, but I forgot.  Oh well.

Half  a bag of butter lettuce and I made like a bunny and ate it.

Temps hit around 60 today.  Not like yesterday’s high, but good enough for a ride and sweaty enough for a bit of froyo!  I decided to take the path and see if it was all clear of snow.

Quite clear!  And not boggy at all, which I expected.

Mr. Mallard checking out the canal.

I went past the yogurt place a little and turned back around so that I could get in 15 complete miles by the time I got home.

I had a pistachio Only8 yogurt topped with coconut!

Yummers.

It was actually pretty windy and I was cold by the time I finished this.  Most of the wind was in my face on the way home, so that was a good workout.

This is cinder path and one of the several reasons why I purchased a hybrid bike rather than a road bike last year.

I like biking.  My hair is getting long, too!  John likes the little curl up at the bottom, which I don’t.

I arrived home happy after 15 miles.  It felt great.  Just a little slow, but I am pleased at where my legs are this early in the season.  Totally worth having to work a bit into the evening.  One of the reasons I like my job is the flexibility.

Dinner time was brussel sprouts, scrambled eggs, and socca bread with laughing cow.

Socca is a chickpea flour bread that is easy to do and I really liked it.

I will post the recipe later in the week.

Tonight is finishing up the work and then a trip to the liberry!

Oh, and on the macaroon front?  I told myself I could have one if I wanted.  I broke a piece off of one and that was all I wanted.  Interesting.

Bike + Road = Love

Well, this certainly was a weekend full of biking!  Is there such a thing as a bike binge?  If so, I had one LOL!  All that pent up wanting to be outside with the slow start to spring.

Saturday was for sure the nicer day, so that was the long ride day.  It started chilly, around 45 or so to start, so we bundled up a little and headed out down to Saratoga.   I was happy to be on the road.  In fact, after a couple of miles I yelled “I AM SO HAPPY!!”  :mrgreen:  We took our first break at 10 miles going past Moreau State Park.

I partook of a couple medjool dates (my favorite ride food next to pears).

Note the snow piles still.  In this wooded part, there actually was still a fair amount of snow.  I love the dates!

There was a bit of a headwind on the way there, but that is not unusual going to Saratoga.  It makes coming home easier!  We stopped a couple times just to check on the legs.

Most of the second half of the ride looks like this.

With hills.  This side lane is the wide official bike lane.  Mostly in good repair, although some spots have pot holes.  Can you believe how brown it still is around here? Late spring.

It was a sunny day, though.

I see my pinky sticking out in this photo and I really wonder if I take all of my photos that way?

We arrived at Saratoga after 22 miles to have lunch and er…something else at Cucake Lab!

It is very airy and  comfy inside the lab.

Plus some local artwork:

I like pretty colors….

I had a pulled pork sandwich.

Tasty!   I haven’t had bread like this in a while.  Today was not a wheat-free day, that is for sure.   I was pretty hungry for this sandwich and fairly wolfed it down!

Then it was time for the real reason to come here.  Coffee and cupcakes!

Raspberry.  Vanilla cake with a bit of raspberry filling topped with buttercream.

And the one I think is my very favorite – Pistachio!

Pistachio flavored cupcake with pistachio frosting!  Not overwhelmingly strong, just perfect.  And uber fresh!

We walked around Saratoga to digest.  There was a young boy playing guitar, only it was amped rock and roll on this guitar.  It was kind of funny.

After walking around, we headed back home.  I was a little concerned about the hills coming home, as they are steeper than the way there due to going up in elevation.  I am happy to say we made it up all the hills without stopping!  The steepest hill was around mile 32.  I was in granny gear and just talking myself to the top.  I knew that if I could just keep enough speed to not fall over, I would be fine.  I think I was down to about 5 miles an hour right near the top LOL!  Reward after that?

Hooray for coconut water!  I love this stuff.

After that big hill, the other ones felt okay, but my thighs were starting to get tired.  One thing about trainer, you can do the miles, but hills are another story.

I was ready to be finished when we got home.  Super pleased with the first long ride.  We are definitely doing another 100-mile ride this year!

Saturday ride stats:

Total miles 43.9 (close enough to 44)

Top speed:  27.1 mph(hills – woo hoo!)

Average speed 12.8 mph

Calories burned:  1300 (hello cupcakes!)

Sunday morning we decided our legs were okay, so we biked to breakfast!  It is 16 miles round trip to Panera Bread and back.  I was a squidge chilly, but above freezing.

Total miles this weeked: 60.2 miles! Not too shabby.  I need to be careful, I put 84 miles on the bike this week (including the trainer riding earlier in the week).  😯  Don’t want to overdo it.

This weekend we got the first cupcake ride of the year and the first bagel ride of the year!  Do I hear frozen yogurt ride coming soon?  I think so!

For even more of a bike binge, tonight is Paris Roubaix cycling on TV and the famous cobblestones!

My injuriversary

Ah memories.  One year ago today I herniated the disk in my back.

The worst injury I have ever suffered.  I was on crutches for the first time in my life.

The really annoying part?  I didn’t do anything out of the norm to cause it.  I basically turned to look behind me while I was propping up a bench with my hands in front of me.  That was all it took.  (point learned – always, always, always bring your arms in the direction your are turning your body).

It was kind of odd, because the injury hurt at first, but didn’t feel bad for a couple hours.  Then by the end of the day I could barely move and was crying from the intensity of the pain that went in the distribution of that red line in the photo above.  I didn’t come downstairs for 2 full days.

What I didn’t realize that day was exactly what it was.  At first, we thought it was a pulled muscle and that was the first diagnosis by the doctor, but then as the pain progressed and I began to get sciatica symptoms (aka agony), it was then found out to be a herniated disk.  I ended up with quadriceps atrophy and my left thigh shrank to a full inch smaller than my right thigh – and I could not stop it from happening!  The problem with nerve injuries is that you can physically move the limb around, but without the firing of the nerves themselves, the muscle fibers really aren’t active and will shrink from lack of use.

I panicked a little bit at the thought of gaining weight, but that did not happen.  I actually lost a little weight during the first part of being injured. Interesting, eh?

It was a long recovery, and honestly I never quite got back to normal. That was something I was afraid of and it actually happened.  I think I recovered very well, though.  The key was trying to move as much as I could as soon as I could rather than sitting around. I went back to gentle lifting after 2 weeks.  The only exercises I couldn’t do were squats, anything that was a split leg move, and anything that required bodyweight support like planks and pushups.  So I modified.

I could barely walk, but I was able to get back on the bike in a few weeks, albeit slower than before.  Running took months before it began to feel more normal, but I never got my pre-injury speed back.  I also began feeling more pain again with running since January or so and have since stopped running as of March.

What am I left with a year later? I get an achy back sometimes, especially after running, walking for a long time, or really long periods of biking.  The skin over the inside of my knee and a little of my calf is numb/alternating with hypersensitivity.  (yeah – that is fun and weird).  My left leg is also just a bit weaker than the right, which I notice when doing single-leg exercises.

Something I am also left with?  Fear of another injury.  Having never really had something like this happen before, I didn’t understand chronic pain or lengthy recuperation.  Now I do – and I know how easy it is for something like that to happen.  I am so careful now about how I turn and move with my back, like reaching into the back seat of the car or looking behind me.

I am just very thankful I can bike as much as I want.  I am not sure if running is out of my life completely, but it is on hiatus for now.  I am pretty okay with that as long as I can bike.

Speaking of biking – guess who had their bikes outside today!!!

It was in the 50s this afternoon, so we headed out for a coffee break!

The happy bikers:

Big smile!

A nice 12.5 mile ride.  It was on the roads because the path was mushy and had some icy spots, but a ride nevertheless!  Yippee!!