Senior Citizen Hours

Senior citizen hours are setting in early this season.  All week, I've been crashing by 10!  Normally I'm wide awake until at least 12 midnight, but all I've wanted this was a fluffy bed starting around 10 until 7 am.  That's a lot of sleeping!  It's been a big build week, plus a lot of writing and work stuff, so it makes sense. I'm working brain and body.  

In the height of the season, I go to bed early- 10 pm. I guess I'm building well if I'm tired! 

In dairy news, I tried 1/2 oz of goat cheese this morning with good results. No immediate pain and agony.  Some very delayed possible effects so we will keep taking it easy.  

I refused to do my formal weigh in this morning.  I went to the group and it was great- positive and informative.  But I had looked on my home scale before going and I was four and a half pounds heavier than yesterday.  That is all water weight.  I had a very salty celebration dinner with M and it was worth every hard earned bite, but it led to lots of water weight.  How much?  Well, after eating normally all day and drinking like a fiend outside in the desert in July, I'm two pounds lighter tonight, fully dressed, after dinner.  

I did not need the formal scale this morning.  As they say, "ain't nobody got time for that". 

My friend likes to say that if the scale will mess with your head, just stay off it.  

I didn't need the scale this week.  I needed that long bike ride, my happy M, and the "cry me a river" problem of my work pants getting so loose that I will have to stop wearing them soon.  

A 40% Chance of Rain Is Still a 60% Chance of Sunshine!

Today I checked off part of my Oregon bucket list- riding the 242 highway to the Dee Wright observatory! I've wanted to ride this for over two years but the starts have never aligned. 

Technically, the stars were still not aligned- the forecast had turned cold and called for a 40% chance of rain. But after talking it over, we decided to brave it and see what it was like in real life.  

I am very glad we did, because we saw this. 

Sure looks like terrible weather, eh?

We decided to ride the east side, from the ranger station to the top.  

We suited up, and I was glad for every bit of fleece and wind breaking stitch. I was actually borderline too warm near Sisters, but I knew I'd want all the clothes once we made altitude. 

For the curious about bike fashion, I wore socks, my solid bike insoles (I have mesh ones for hot weather), my Trek women's bike shorts which are super-comfy, fleece tights, a base layer, a jersey, my fleecy arm warmers that I've had for so long that the logos have worn off, and an ear warmer instead of a headband. Bringing beanies wouldn't have been a bad idea.  I had one set of full gloves.  M was definitely too cold in his half gloves, and even I could have used more wind breaking in my gloves.  And I stuffed my wind breaker into a seat pouch. That definitely saved my bacon on the way down. 

A little man-bragging here. It was M's first mountain climb on a road bike. He's only been seriously cycling since we got together and I've always been the more hard core. Riding up a mountain is pretty hard core. He ROCKED it. Nice steady climbing. 

Then we got to the top.  

Near the top is the time that the ride really turned cloudy. Soon after this picture I pulled out my windbreaker. Even so, we were stopped long enough to cool down and get chilly. We went to the top of the observatory. 

How cold was it? 

M had to chip ice out of his cleats. 

The ride down was fast with me holding it in all the way- the road at the top is windy and narrow and I didn't trust myself to open it up for top speed. It was windy enough that my windbreaker was acting a little like a sail!

We got to the bottom.  

Great ride, but I was sure cold! We got back to the ranger station, and high-tailed it to the nearest coffee shop for the hottest liquids they could give us! 

All in all, awesome awesome ride, and definitely a ride that every cyclist in Oregon MUST do. I am so glad we did it!  

Overall, the greatest victory of the day was mental.  Don't you hate that feeling when you talk yourself out of doing something? You convince yourself that it isn't worth trying or that the timing isn't right and next thing you know, a big chunk of life or adventure has sailed by.  We took the risk to at least attempt the adventure and it turned out awesome. (Of course, we would have bailed if it had been bad weather at the start point or if it has been snowing or raining in the passes on the way there. This is your safety disclaimer, Mom!) We just went for it, and the chance paid off in spades!  

And in other news, I was really, REALLY happy to have warm, dry socks waiting for me in the car.  

That was a cold and awesome bike ride!  

Swimming and swimming

I've been in the water a lot this week.  I spent a lot of time doing the poolside drills and kickboard drills as my coach has instructed me.  For the first few weeks, every swim workout left me with really tired outer legs and a frowny face of tired abs. But now the abs feel better and I'm starting to feel my body position in the water. I think my shoulders are loosening up a bit. Or my arms are getting stronger. One of those. 

My fastest time for a length thus far has been 54 seconds... Faster than my previous time, that's for sure! 

In other news, I am still working on the dairy thing. On Sunday, I haplessly stumbled into some hidden dairy in a veggie burger. Curse you, veggie burgers! It was Wednesday before I was feeling normal.  

Today I accidentally got some Parmesan in a dish of otherwise delicious spinach. (The chef didnt realize that Parmesan was on the verboten list for me, poor lady!). It seems to be a mild reaction,but here comes the heartburn and the stuffy nose.  Yeah, stuffy.  Noses seems to be part of the reaction for me.  So now we are trying to figure out if this is a lactose intolerance or a casein intolerance. That means it could be milk sugars or the milk proteins triggering me.  On one hand, the casein intolerance means a lot more restrictions for me, long term.  But I'm a little frustrated by how easily I am being triggered right now.  

Tomorrow is a big bike ride!

Rest Day and Picnic Day

I've been having a sad few days: my beloved Beetle/Bikemobile is in the shop.  Its timing belt broke.  This damaged my pistons.  Now it is getting fixed.  On one hand, HUGE repair.  On the other hand, still cheaper than buying a new car.  Poor Beetle.  

In other news, I found myself REALLY tired this week.  It was a build week, but by Saturday, I was so beat that I took an extra rest day and a giant nap.  Saturday and Sunday I did nothing but walking.  Happily, I'm just two pounds away from my first goal weight, which means I am well on track to hit my "racing weight" by next month.  

This is week Three of the Strict-Dairy-Free Fast.  I was SO GOOD and SO SAD at Pentecost at church yesterday: we get this lovely, sugary, delicious cake to celebrate.  And I turned down every bite because I couldn't know if it was dairy free or not.  Good for my waistline, yes, but damn, I wanted that cake!  I weep so much for the lost cake. 

Then we went to a youth picnic.  I look forward to this picnic, and we were having it at a new venue- instead of at church, at the Wayne Morris Farm.  I thought it was delightful- fire pit, counters, space for a grill, so all in all, fairly easy to use.  Huge field to play in.  

My colleague, in charge of smores, got special gourmet dairy free chocolate so I could have a smore too!  And my other colleague brought several varieties of potato chip, including one that he read the label for to be sure it was dairy free.  And I brought fake vegan cheese (jury is still out on how it tasted...) and gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free rolls, and veggie burgers.  

This is me in the morning, feeling responsible.  I posted this to Facebook in case anyone saw my facebook page without having seen me at church.  

Alas, I did not read the veggie burger labels.  They were VEGGIE BURGERS FOR PETE'S SAKE! Who'da thunk that VEGGIE BURGERS had dairy in them?  

That's right.  

Most of them do.  Shortly after eating what I THOUGHT was my delicious dairy-free meal, I became aware that something was going wrong.  By the time M and I were driving home, my poor tummy was in full blown cramps and turmoil.  Two doses of alka seltzer and a night's rest later, I feel a bit like I have a hangover, and I am much, much more educated.  

I gotta read ALL those labels. Like this.  

Oh, look, there it is.  CURSES!  CURSES, I tell you!

This was the week I was supposed to start reintroducing dairy products to see how I do, so I am going to count that as Attempt #1 and file it under GIANT FAIL, subcategory, Dry Milk Powder.  I'll try some goat later this week, and see what happens.  

McKenzie View Bike and Biking to Work

Yesterday we met up with LifeCycle for another Wednesday ride.  This one followed a totally new-to-me route- riding McKenzie View from the other side!  I've ridden a lot of these roads, but never in this order, so it was really fun to go backwards.

Overall, I felt really well fueled.  In the midafternoon, I started raging for a snack.  Of course, with the strict lactose-free diet at the moment, I am eating mostly at home, or sticking to strict vegan when out to avoid lactose entirely.  (One more week...)  Imagine my delight when I found out that Full City (my favorite coffee shop) has vegan snacks!  One of the baristas was even vegan herself, so she guided me to the vegan products.  I ended up having a big blueberry-nut muffin.  I wondered if that was why I felt so supercharged all afternoon!

The ride didn't feel particularly grueling.  It was a nice easy 40 miles.  I think the ride up the back half of McKenzie (going towards Coburg) is easier than the climb in the other direction.  I didn't realize it til I was on Coburg again, but I'd spent the whole day in my big ring.  So really, nice lovely easy ride.  I felt really good after getting off the bike.

M was about ready to eat anything that stayed still long enough for him to sink his teeth in.  Even after two gels, he was begging for gummy bears.  So we stopped by Chipotle, and then by the grocery to get me more Vitamin B12 and him some gummy bears.  I'm trying to figure out if sublingual B12 or a regular B-complex is the right set of vitamins for me.  We shall see!

Today, we biked to work.  I am still waiting for my Beetle to be fixed.  M wanted to get out of the house for a while.  So we rode to my workplace where I took care of Thursday afternoon things and waiting for them to call me about my Beetle.  (Nothing yet!) I got worried that I would be too hungry to bike home, so I made myself eat a sandwich.

Unfortunately, something in the sandwich didn't agree with me.  I did not check to see if the bread was dairy-free, and ended up with some of the lactose-related problems.  (Upset tummy, headache, acid reflux).  I guess I'll have to be super careful about stuff like that for a while yet.  Either that, or riding home in full rain gear was a little bit of overkill (the rain stopped as we headed out, so it was not a rainy ride after all) and I overheated.  One of those two!

Just enough time now to relax, make dinner, and prepare to watch the finale of The Office!

Working on my Swim Kick

All we did yesterday was go to the pool and work on our kicks.  Back and forth and back and forth.  On the kickboard.  Kicking away.  

My legs continue to be sore this afternoon.  Because, wow, that is a lot of kicking that happens there.  Eeek.  

And my abs... my side abs and my upper abs are creating a frowny face of unhappiness with me, and yet I courageously continue to sit upright.  

That's right.  Booyah.  

But in other news, the pool has an awesome playground, so I got to play on some playground equipment.  How many activity points do I get for all that upper body work?  

Now in exciting news, I think I get to go to REI and buy a toy.  M has said that I can use the dividend this year for me because he got to use it last year for him.  So I'm deciding what else I should get!  I used part of it to get a pouch that attaches to my running belt to hold things like gels and my phone and my keys.  Stuffing that stuff into my socks or under the leg bands of my shorts just wasn't working for me.  

So what else should I get?  Decision, decisions!

Staggering through the hills

So my long day at work didn't quite go as planned.

I thought I'd be able to slip out inbetween services and events and get a swim done.

Instead the to-do list blew up, and in the end, I decided to stay for just a little bit of the event, then slip out early and tackle the rest of the weekend to-do list.

My Beetle remains in the shop.  We pray for its little sick Beetle soul.

So since I didn't get my swim in today (booooo!) I went instead for a run in the hills.

OK, so it was more of a staggering through the hills.  I called it "hill intervals" on my GPS tracker.  That means that I run uphill until I can't, then I turn around and walk downhill until I recover a tiny bit, and then I re-run the section again.  It is miserable.

But it really helps.

And then I did two stretching routines.

And M made seasoned rice and this amazing curry dish.  It was delicious and there was tofu.

So it was not the workout I wanted, but I am content with the workout I got.