Tag Archives: biking

Rainy ride and some carbs

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

Breakfast began with coffee brewing and some protein waffle making.

Topped with banana/maple syrup mash.

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is potato soup and the tomato and mozzarella panini.

Really, really good.

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

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

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

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

Finally reached home:

Hope this computer is waterproof 😯

Ride stats:

37.8 miles

Avg speed:  12 mph

Top speed:  29.2 mph

Calories burned:  1152

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

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

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

She has absolutely no shame……

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

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

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

Hope you all had a drier day than we did 😀

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!

I’m cool like that

Hump day for me!  Yeah!  I got some good sleep and was hungry for breakfast.  I decided on pumpkin cream of wheat.  I think my pumpkin stash might make it until fall.

This bowl contained whole grain Cream of Wheat, 1/2 cup pumpkin, cinnamon, 1.5 tsp of molasses, 2 egg whites, topped with crystallized ginger and toasted almonds.

This bowl actually only lasted me about 2-1/2 hours and I had half of a Luna Protein bar to tide me over to lunch.

Not sure I am that crazy about these?

Speaking of lunch:

Egg salad!  I have been wanting this for a while, but keep forgetting to hard boil eggs.

So, the appetite seems strong today.  I ended up eating the other half of the mid morning snack in the afternoon.  Just before drinking this:

I added 7 grams of whey protein isolate to this to give me about 6 g extra of protein.  Could not even taste it.  Nice.  Isolate is the whey way to go.

So, my new bike jersey arrived!

LOVE!!!! And let me tell you – when they warn you to order a size up for European sizes, do it.  I got a large and if I had gotten a medium, I would have popped out the seams in front…..

I couldn’t wait until after dinner to go for a ride.  I finally broke out the “noodles” for dinner:

The package said to rinse and parboil to reduce the “authentic aroma.”  No joke.  So why did I proceed to smell the freshly opened package?

Nas-tay.  I rinsed copiously and added to a sautee pan with sweet potatoes, broccoli, chicken and some BBQ sauce.

Verdict?  They are completely tasteless, which is fine, but the texture was rubbery.  Not like pasta at all.  Not really like anything I have ever eaten, except maybe those pink erasers when I was 5.   So now I know.

John and I got geared up for a post dinner jaunt.  Ready for a ride to yogurt 😀

Bright sun, it makes me look like Casper.  These are my new bike shorts as well.

We rode 15 miles round trip and I was getting a lot of looks on the bike trail with this shirt.  With my gold helmet and clip shoes – I don’t think I have ever felt this cool in my whole entire life.  Note that I really am not cool, but who knew you could buy the feeling for about $75 and free shipping?? 😎

Stop for the treat:

Coconut yogurt topped with pineapple.  Quite good, although this pineapple was pretty sweet.

I almost didn’t want to take my jersey off when I got home.  I swear it made me faster today.  Hope you all like it, because you’ll be seeing a lot of it this summer :mrgreen:


Come bike with me!

Happy Monday! This is the last day of my 4-day weekend, sigh.   There were a lot of great comments on yesterday’s post, so click here if you haven’t read it.  Guess we just never know until time passes whether the weight will stay off.  I think the important thing is to not become complacent.

Anyway, no gym for me today because I wanted to ride!  Not going to strength train on a heavy riding day.  I fueled up with some protein pancakes and cafe au lait.

I added 1 tsp of coconut oil to the batter to help slow down the digestion on this meal a little bit.  Then I showered and got ready to ride.  On days of a long ride, here is what I do.  First thing when I get up, I drink 2 big glasses of water.  First thing before I do anything else.  That way my body will rehydrate what it needs and get rid of the rest before I hit the trails.  Then I eat a good breakfast and let that settle for a while.  Sometimes I will have a snack if the ride is a little later in the morning, like I did today  – which was a homemade granola bar.

I rode solo today, so there are some very important things that get packed into my bike bags:

Tire repair items.  This includes the wrench if I need to remove the back tire, the tire lifters on the left (forget the real name of these, but they wedge the tire out), a spare tube, and a CO2 cartridge and nozzle.  These things are always in my front bag.

My back bag contains these items:

Okay, the helmet goes on my head, but these include sunscreen, a bottle of hand sanitizer, pain reliever, phone (very important when going alone), 2 water bottles, one of which is in my bottle cage, and a map (because I was taking a new route).

Also extremely important:

Not necessary things I bring include snacks, my camera, a brush, and a cap.

Today’s ride was to Lake George, but I went a different route, which was mostly off the path:

I was a little nervous, as the shoulder was kind of narrow for a chunk of the ride, but there was not much traffic.  I went this way to add miles onto the trip while going to the lake and because we thought it would be more flat (not).   Had a snack after mile 15:

I moved away from that trailer there as it had horse poo in it and was fragrant 😡  It was the only pull off spot, though, because of a guard rail.  This trail went up the lake on the non tourist side, so I got to see some beautiful houses and the accompanying views that they have:

Sigh… gotta start buying lottery tickets!

Reached the village after 21 miles.

Beautiful day, although there was a pretty stiff head wind, which you can see with the waves.  Americade is just getting started, which is a motorcycle haven.  I had forgotten about it.

I was the only thing on 2 wheels not powered by an engine.  Lake George gets really loud during Americade.

I had lunch of a half sandwich and a vegan tomato soup which tasted like a rich marinara sauce.  So good!

Plus a packed granola bar:

The view from my table:

(see the wind?).  After lunch, I looked at some of the landscaping:

Aliums in bloom:

Then I decided to head home, as there was some thought of rain in the forecast for later in the afternoon.  I decided to take the path back instead of the way I came.   It was like the Emerald City.

Isn’t that crazy green?  Took a breather after 30 miles:

34 miles done.  Okay, who didn’t see this coming?

This was Angel food cake yogurt topped with raspberries.  Swooooonnnn!  I almost fell out of my chair it was so good.  Surprisingly, I did not finish this.  That has never happened before, but it seemed like a bigger portion than normal and my lunch actually stuck pretty well.

After that rest, I headed home.  Is it possible to have a love affair with a pair of shoes?

If so, I am having one with my clip shoes.  I adore them.

Ride stats:

Total miles:  40.1

Top speed:  25.7 mph

Avg speed:  11.4 mph

Ride time: 3:40  hours  (not including breaks)

Calories burned:  1180

I felt great after this ride.  Not really that tired, even though the hills themselves were tiring.  No walking up any hill today!  Woo Hoo!

I munched some cashews while dinner cooked:

John grilled some chicken and caramelized some onions for dinner, so I decided to spread some laughing cow on top of the chicken and top with the onions.

So freaking good.  These were vidalia onions, too.  I wonder if I would like plain old onions caramelized or not.

What a great way to cap off my extended weekend.  Back to the grind tomorrow, though.  At least until I win that lottery 😀

Cupcake snack calling my name right now……

Brick in training

I am glad you all like the lifting move of the week.  It’s fun to do and keeps the blog from getting boring, you know?

Today is a scheduled run day for me, but I decided not to do it in the morning because it looked like it was threatening rain and I didn’t want to go to the gym and treadmill it.  So, it was breakfast time!  I was concerned that the day would start off bad because of this:

(mmmm…. waffle runoff…..)

But they turned out fine.  Protein waffles with the yummy banana/maple syrup topping (recipe).

I started work early.  Excited to finish up early to start my 4-day weekend.  Yay!  Busy, too.  Busy days go by fast, though!  Soon enough, it was time for lunch.  This was supposed to be an egg sandwich, but the bread John made got moldy (that’s what happens with homemade sometimes).  So I had the egg/laughing cow/hot sauce by itself:

This new bottle of hot sauce has one of those tiny shaker holes on it.  Not gonna work for me, so I just unscrewed the lid and poured.

John has been the foodie king lately.  He made up some of what he calls chocolate chip protein power cookies, which uses brown rice protein powder in them.  I’ll see if I can’t get the recipe from him.  They were pretty good –

Especially with my latte 😀

I finished up work and decided to go out for the run.  It was cloudy the entire day except for the 1/2 hour I was outside and running.  I was so incredibly sweaty because of the sun and humidity.  Nothing like running at 4:30 pm, right?  My leg did pretty well, although my knee had a sharp pain around 2.5 miles and I thought I would have to stop, but it subsided into a bit of an ache so I finished out 3 miles.  That was weird.  Felt stronger, though.  No galloping run this time, so the 5K race next week will be a go.

I decided to flex my post run power a little since I was wearing my trisuit to run in:

Loose skin on the bottom, nice bicep on top!  Flexing actually helps pull up the loose skin.  Wish I could go around all Arnold all the time LOL!  John said he was married to a lifting geek…..

Cooked up some BBQ shrimp for dinner.  Need a trip to the smokehouse – we are out of chicken!!

Had a babybel with it (that white thing) because the shrimp was only 2.5 oz and we ran out of that, too.

Sweet tooth satisfaction:

Homemade chocolate fluff.

I decided I wanted to start my weekend off with a library trip, and John said he would meet me for yogurt afterwards, but then I decided to bike instead of drive!  A pseudo brick in the making!  I have to say that I was pretty tired, though.  I could feel my right leg pulling the clips of my shoes more.  That’s how you get lopsided thighs :mrgreen:

I picked up this book, and had some pistachio frozen yogurt.

Total bike time: 13 miles.  Put the run and the bike a little closer together and it would have been an official brick.  I can’t wait for the duathlon this fall!  Burned a lot of calories today and ate okay, too (little snacky).  Weekend has officially started – woohoo!!

Have a few nice flowers for the Friday blooming series tomorrow!

Post picnic and pizza.

Hi all!  I basically skipped a breakdown post for Saturday.  I had the blueberry sauce post scheduled (or so I thought) and when I got home last night, it hadn’t.  So I just uploaded that and decided to take a blog break.   I was pretty fatigued after our Memorial weekend picnic.  It’s amazing how a houseful of  people can make you so tired, even when it isn’t even your house!  I ate way too much yesterday.  Didn’t win this throwdown:

I also ran yesterday morning for a longer period of time.  I went out for 2.5 miles.  I was doing pretty well until the last 1/4 mile, then I just had no strength in my left leg at all and I started having a galloping run.  No pain during running, which was good.  I stopped then because I didn’t want to put undue stress on my right leg (and make it any bigger than my left than it already is!).  There is hope for a race in 2 weeks, I think.  I will be 2 weeks stronger in the left leg.

Anyway, on to today.  It’s bagel day!  We biked to Panera Bread (and we were up way early, too).  It was a gorgeous morning.  Blueberry bagel:

Nice relaxing morning since we had extra time and were early.  Unlike most people, I have to work today and on Memorial Day, but that’s okay.  We found a wallet on the side of the road on the way home, too.  It had all these credit cards, driver license, and business cards in it, although it was kind of exploded on the side of the road.  I called the number in the wallet, apparently it is a police officer, and am waiting to hear back.  Person lives in NYC, not sure what the wallet was doing 6 hours north!

It actually was really busy with leftover work. I think a lot of doctors uploaded dictations before leaving for the holiday weekend.

Lunch break and I was feeling undecided.  We had an ultra ripe banana, so I just decided to make cream of wheat with that.

Still having a little trouble snacking today.  Blueberries, chocolate chips, crackers.  Not sure what is wrong with me the last couple days.  I certainly have not moved forward in my goal to lose 3 pounds this month.  I really struggle with what goal is because I have never really been at goal.  My smallest adult weight was actually about 15 pounds heavier than my current weight when I was in my mid 20s.  I was told my goal weight then should be 105 pounds.  (Can you believe that??).  Of course, I never made it there and just went back up.  I have bounced around in a 10 pound range for the last couple years, and maybe this is just where I am supposed to be, even if I feel like I should be lower, and certainly look like I could be lower.  I am glad that I have maintained it so far, but I don’t know why I can’t officially call it.

Anyhoo, John made pizza for dinner.  I piled my pan roasted broccoli on top of it 😀

This was so good.  I am a lucky, lucky girl.

Making more soap tonight and a trip for a malt 🙄

Somebody needs to kick my butt for me.

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…..

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?

Why you should be biking!

Last day of my work week – happy, happy day!  I was up early to eat (of course).  Fairly clean eating day commenced:

Love those protein waffles.  I noted that these blueberries did not taste as sweet as they normally do, and I think it was due to the sweet stuff I had yesterday.  Interesting….

Lunchtime was a tuna salad wrap.  My wrap was  a little wet from being in the bag (and stale on the edges – how does that happen), and it exploded on my plate.

Tuna is once again losing what charm it had for me.  Need a hiatus again pretty soon.  Pears on the other hand, I am still in love with them!

Gorgeous day today, just meant for biking! Speaking of biking, Beth posted an article from Women’s Health about the 7 benefits of biking:

  1. Calorie burn: A 135-pound woman pedaling 12 to 14 miles an hour blasts 488 calories in 60 minutes.
  2. If you live close to your office, you can pedal to work twice a week and burn up to 3,000 extra calories—close to one pound of fat—each month
  3. It works out your whole body (yes – upper, too!)
  4. A study published in the journal Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics found that bike riding improved energy levels by 20 percent and decreased fatigue by 65 percent.  Thank you dopamine!
  5. It’s a low-impact activity.
  6. You can really work some muscles. Pedaling while standing engages your core and triceps as you stabilize your body over the bike.
  7. In one study, researchers had 32 women ride at a moderate to high intensity three times a week for at least half an hour. After a year, they’d lowered their blood pressure and LDL, as well as significantly increased their aerobic fitness.

Do you need anymore reasons to dust off that bike in the garage??  Not mentioned was just the fabulous fun that biking is 😀 , especially if there is a yogurt shop on the path…

Afternoon snackie before the ride. I had the last of the Kind bars I got on sale:

My least favorite, I have to say.

with a latte:

Then finished up work for the day.  I was ready to ride at that point!  I adjusted my clipless shoes a little bit so they set back just a bit and I think that was much better.  We rode a different way today, down south.  It’s along the main road and fairly flat except the big hill leaving from and getting home to our house.  We stopped at the half way point:


It’s getting so green now!

We booked along really well.  There was a pretty stiff headwind on the way out, but that meant fast speed on the way back!  16.4 miles with average speed of 13.2 mph!  Woo Hoo!  I made it up the hill at the end…. barely.  That hill is really hard when I am 100%, let alone recovering.  I kept thinking, “How slow can I go up this hill and still remain upright?”  But, I squeaked it out.  Really hard.

I slugged a quick protein drink and then we set up  making dinner, as it was well past our normal dinner time.  I made the best shrimp and grits.  I used one strip of shoulder bacon (it’s leaner) and cooked the grits in water, then added a wedge of laughing cow.  I reserved 1 tsp of the bacon drippings and cooked the shrimp in it.  This was really good!  A healthier version of shrimp and grits.

I guess bacon doesn’t really count towards eating clean, per se, but it was sooooo good!

Tonight’s snack will be that protein cheesecake thing, I think.  And some relaxing!

My weekend officially starts……. now.

New biking kicks!

Woke up to a rainy, dreary day.  I slept until 7, which is pretty late for me!  Felt like a nice warm bowl of oats.  Gingerbread oats, to be exact!

With a wee bit of fluff 😀

Then we packed up some old computer stuff to recycle at Best Buy.  Then it was off to get me some clipless pedals for my bike!  I really would like a new bike all together, but budget wise for now I am just upgrading piece by piece my current one.  We stopped at Blue Sky Bicycles in Saratoga.  There were a lot of drool worthy bikes there, and some affordable ones, as well.  But, I was on a mission for shoes and clips.  The staff was incredibly friendly and helpful today.  Surprisingly, the best shoe for me is a mountain bike shoe.

The cleat is sunken below the bottom of the shoe, which makes walking off bike easier.

It also is not as stiff soled as a road bike shoe, which would fit more of the type of biking we do from a comfort perspective.

The pedals that I got to go with are a dual pedal, with the clips on one side:

and a regular pedal on the other.

This way I can hop on the bike to go to the gym without having to wear the clip shoes.  Yay!

I would rather have a different color shoe, but these fit the best.  I cannot believe how comfy they are.  I was expecting something super tight and rigid, but these feel great!

After this, we went on to Chipotle for lunch.  I had a chicken salad.  Skipped the rice so I could get sour cream and cheese (love those 2 items).

I also needed bike shorts.  I am confessing to you all that I do not have padded bike shorts.  I have biked 50 miles with no padding and it doesn’t bother me!  It’s either my bike seat or my personal padding, I don’t know.  However, with a 100-mile ride planned, I think I  had better pad it up.

Hello loose skin 😀  I tried on this bike jersey, too.  Not real crazy about this, but I liked the color.  Didn’t get the shirt. I did get the shorts.  It’s like wearing a diaper.

Latte break!

Plus these cool larabar-type nuggets made by a local company.

Got home and put the clips on the bike (as seen in above pictures).

My and the new shoes!

Work it, baby!  They do give me a stubby leg look (okay, I had that look before…. never mind…).  Short test run followed.  I did good getting in and out of them.  You just need to twist your foot a little to the side and it pops right out.  The hardest part is getting the 2nd foot in the clip while going.  That will just take practice.  It forced me much more to the front of my foot than I normally ride, so that will take getting used to.  The other thing?  I am going to have to raise the seat on my bike!  The height of the clip combined with the extra height of the shoe and being more on the forefoot and I probably need an inch raise or more.  I thought I was going to eat my knee.  It felt so weird.

I really like these shoes.  It is supposed to improve your efficiency by 30% and I believe it.  Even with not having full strength in my leg, I could tell how much more power I had and an evenness to my pedal stroke.

Dinner time!  Small baker with ground beef and BBQ sauce and laughing cow.  It was quite good!

Too bad the weather is so bad today, or I would go back out and try the pedals again.

I will be having a cookie tonight:

With a cup of tea.

Have a happy Mother’s day tomorrow!  I am taking my mom out for a bagel 😀