Super Sprinkler Sunday

I rode on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday this past week even though I haven't been blogging. I was completely exhausted on Monday from being in the heat all weekend working at the local swim meet. Consequently, I had major trouble getting my butt out of bed! I felt guilty for missing my morning ride, so I rode bikes with Camden in the evening to get him to baseball practice. For part of the time that he was practicing, I rode my bike around the park and on the streets around the park. It may not have been much (only 2.32 miles), but it was certainly better than nothing! I skipped the top of the bridge on Thursday and Friday because my knee was hurting, and climbing to the top deck of the bridge puts a lot of pressure on my knees.  I skipped Saturday because I already had to get up at 5:30 to get everyone up and ready to go to a swim meet in South Sioux City. This morning the cool air was amazing; I'm so glad I didn't skip my ride! The only down side was that I was a bit of a slow mover and didn't get out the door until 5:45. As a result, I hit sprinkler city at the park. I ended up riding through 8 sprinklers! That doesn't count the ones that just showered my shoes. I was happy that my knee was feeling better so I figured that I could tackle the top of the bridge which I did with ease. I rode a total of 6.18 miles which is my longest ride so far. I continue to average right around 10 miles per hour. I snapped some pretty nice pics over the past week. Enjoy:

I like to call this one "Moon Over the Meridian"

While this has nothing to do with fitness, I am super excited to be getting a new camera on Monday! We ordered the Canon 70D which should be the last camera we need to buy. I am so excited to get it and play around with taking some shots on my bike rides. I will just have to make sure I go early enough that the sprinklers aren't on ;) I am excited to see what types of pictures I can get with something other than my phone!

Rumbling Monday and App-y Wednesday

I was able to go for my ride on Monday, but I was unable to blog because I had to get ready for my second class of the summer. After a very lazy weekend, it was nice to get on the bike. I was worried that predicted storms would prevent me from going, but I awoke to lightning far off in the distance. It was sprinkling lightly and a check of the radar showed there wasn't much more headed my way in the near future. I enjoyed the cooler temperatures compared to my last ride on Friday. I was also able to get some pretty amazing photographs of the storm front that moved through before my ride.

After a lazy weekend, the top of that bridge was a tough one! I didn't want to do it but I knew that I could if I just pushed myself a little harder.
I didn't end up riding my bike on Tuesday, and I realized that it contributed to me feeling more stressed and overwhelmed by the day ahead. My early morning rides really do relax me (which sounds strange because I am working out LOL), and they give me a chance to have some quiet time for myself. This is even more important on days when I am lucky if I spend more than a couple of my awake hours at home. Monday and Tuesday were both very similar in terms of how much time I got to spend at home and how much running around I had to do, but Monday was much less stressful for me because I got to go for my morning ride. If I run into a morning where my bed feels just too comfortable to leave, I am going to try to remember that!
All this time I have simply been estimating the total distance of my ride. My husband has a little computer on his bike that tells him his speed and distance. I did not get this same computer for my bike so I just figured-it's six blocks from my house to the trail-take that times two and that is about one mile. I know the total distance across the top and bottom of the bridge is one mile and everything in between I figured to be about three miles total. On Monday I had a wonderful thought...I bet there is an app for that! I always take my phone with me on my ride for snapping pictures, so why not use it to record my distance? After my ride on Monday, I sat down and browsed the Google Play store. I found an app called MapMyRide. I installed it and tried it out this morning (a few blocks into my ride because I forgot about it!). It uses GPS to track my distance and it records the total time of my ride and uses these two pieces of information to calculate an average speed. The speed calculations don't take my stops to take pictures into consideration, but it could if I just paused it while I took photos (I just don't care enough to take the time to do it). I will run the app again tomorrow morning so I can get a completely accurate distance BUT I am happy to say that I am pretty good at estimating because my ride this morning was about 5 1/4 miles long.

I am really happy with the app-it audibly updates me every mile-telling me the distance I am at and what my average speed is. When I am done, it gives me this little screen with a summary of my ride. This did make me laugh a bit...anyone want to guess what mile I hit my challenging ride to the top of the bridge? All in all, it was a nice morning ride with another beautiful sunrise :o)

Self-Confident Friday

The past couple of days have been very busy! I attended the Yankton Area Mental Wellness Conference at Mount Marty on Wednesday and Thursday, and my husband was out of town for work. Because it was just me and the littles (Cohan is working with Grandpa), I had to skip my ride yesterday morning. I was right back at it this morning-although I was a bit slow to get going because I didn't set my stuff out before I went to bed last night!
A big difference from my prior two rides to today-heat! Both Tuesday and Wednesday were nice and cool-I wore sweatpants and a hoodie-today was 80 degrees when I set out to hit the trail at 5:40! This prompted a quick change of clothes before I headed out the door. Thankfully, once the breeze hit my face, I didn't think about the temperature for the rest of the ride.
One of the lovely parts of my early ride that I had forgotten about was waiting for me when I got to the park this morning:

I don't think I would have minded the sprinklers except for the fact that I had my phone and I would prefer not to get it wet-my old bike had a zippered bag on the front so it was a bit more protected than it is in my basket.
When I started my ride this morning, I was tired and it was 80 degrees so I gave myself permission to only ride on the lower part of the bridge (I did the same thing on Wednesday). I think I once said this in an earlier post, but I am going to say it again-always give yourself permission to shorten the END of your workout but not the beginning. If I cut or shorten the beginning of my ride, I can't go back in time and change my mind, but, if I tell myself I can shorten the END of my ride, I give myself time to change my mind. I was SURE I was going to cut the end of my ride short this morning until I crossed the bottom of the bridge. I convinced myself that I still had plenty in my tank and I could push myself to get up that long hill to get to the top. Actually, I did one better-I stopped half way up that slope to snap a picture that I wanted to take Tuesday and Wednesday. Both days I told myself that if I stopped I wouldn't be able to make it all the way up the slope. Today, I told myself that I could do it, and I did. This shot was totally worth the extra burn in my legs that it took for me to get going again:

 

I love the contrast of the dead tree silhouettes with the leafy living ones. I'm glad I finally stopped and got the shot. 

I have also been working on eating better and snacking less. I took some tomatoes and pea pods as snacks to the conference so I wouldn't eat as much junk. I did better on Wednesday than on Thursday but one day of better eating is better than no days. I'm just really trying to make myself more aware of what I am eating and how much. Small changes can gradually lead to big results!

Some other pics from my morning ride:

Camden had his first outdoor swim practice this morning so I took it as an opportunity to get another work out in. His practice was only supposed to be 45 minutes long and that seemed like a silly amount of time to drive home and come back. I took my water bottle and walked roughly 2 1/4 miles. Add that to my approximately 5 mile bike ride and I'd say my day is off to a very nice start!

Heat, Fish, Bugs, and Cucumber Salad

It is going to be a blazin' hot day today. It was nearly 76 degrees when I went for my ride this morning and that does not include the humidity. The bugs were out like crazy this morning but the beautiful sunrise made up for it. A cool thing about it being such a buggy morning-there were tons of fish sitting at the surface of the river! As I rode along the trail and into the park I saw ans heard the fish splashing every few feet. Sometimes they were hanging out in little lines just waiting and other times they were all spread out. I wish that I could have gotten a picture of one of the fish jumping up to nab a bug but I guess you just had to be there.

You can see the splash of the fish going under. Also, if you enlarge the pic and look carefully you can see all the little places where there are fish just under the surface-there are quite a few in the upper right corner.

As I mentioned earlier, the sunrise was very beautiful today. The sky was filled with pinks and purples (which you can see reflected in the water above. I had to keep stopping along the way and snapping pictures. 

It was such a great morning to be outside. What I really need to do it bring my actual camera instead of my phone and maybe I can take some pictures that I can hang up in my house as art :o) These picture really only have resolution to be printed up to 8x10.

Last night I read my latest issue of Women's Health magazine and I was happy to see a nice little article about tips for women cycling. I was also happy to read that I already do many of the things suggested-I have my seat and handle bars in the correct positions and I have a wider seat. I have to say that I didn't really learn much from the article other than the fact that I am doing many things correctly but I enjoyed it just the same.

One thing that I mentioned that I still need to work on is food-I am still working on this! I did find a great recipe for one of my favorite things that it worth a share. I love cucumber salad! It is cool and refreshing and the perfect summer snack. I had never actually made it myself before a couple weeks ago-after discovering how easy it is I am kinda kicking myself for not doing it sooner! The version that I made is only worth 2 Weight Watchers points for the ENTIRE BATCH! I could eat the whole thing in one sitting but I usually try to save some for the nice people that I live with :o) I adapted this recipe from a recipe that I read on Allrecipes.com

Cucumber Salad

3 cucumbers peeled and thinly sliced

half an onion thinly sliced (or more or less depending on your level of love for onions)

salt

1tbs vinegar

1tsp sugar

1/4-1/3 cup of non fat Greek yogurt (depending on how big your cucumbers are)

1tbs olive oil mayo (pretty much the only kind we use)

some dill weed to taste

Salt the cucumbers and let them drain for at least 30 minutes (putting them in a container to drain over night in the fridge works too. Mix everything else together then add the cucumbers and enjoy! I usually put it in a bowl that seals up nice and tight so that I can just shake it all around to evenly coat everything-it is much easier and quicker than trying to stir it all up.

Today starts week 2 of Couch to 5k and, as I said before, I plan to run over lunch so that I can fit it in even though I have to work. I will share more about how that goes later today.

More pictures from this morning:

Catching Up Day 2 of Couch to 5k

Saturday morning was my second day of Couch to 5k training. It went pretty much as well as the first day. I have a few observations after a couple days of this:

1. I do not hate this-I actually feel pretty good when I am doing a cycle of jog/walking. If you see me at the Summit Center you may even see a smile on my face! I find all this pretty unbelievable! I know I am not all out running yet but really it is an amazing feeling to me to just enjoy this.
2. I can do this-Today is day 3 of my Couch to 5k training which means that I complete week one today and shift to week 2 on Wednesday. I already feel like I am on my way to really doing this!
3. This feels great-I am not the kind of person who enjoys being sweaty and gross but this makes me feel good about getting sweaty. I know I am doing this whole things for good-to get fit and honor some really great people. I am thinking I may even say I like getting sweaty now :o).

I went for an evening ride on Saturday because of an early morning thunderstorm (with thunder that shook our bed) and I enjoyed it for the most. The weather was really nice and I ventured across the bridge. The only real issue were the bugs! YUCK! Thankfully, I do not encounter an over abundance of them in the morning. I did have a very cool sighting-I saw a young doe near the creek. Once it spotted me it hopped off but it was quite the sight to see! I could still see the faint white spots on its back so I knew it had to be pretty young.
I didn't ride on Sunday. I didn't want to worry about it when I was focused on getting ready for church because we became members of First United Methodist Church yesterday. I went swimming with the boys in the evening and I swam laps during the pool break. We had a really fun time. By the time I got home and got the boys in bed it was 9:00. I could have gone on my ride but I figured some time with my hubby was more important.
My ride this morning was pretty uneventful. It was cloudy but warm. I usually see quite a few stray cats on my morning ride and today was no different. While I usually only see a couple per day, I know that there are several just because of the number of DIFFERENT cats that I see in any given week. As I was finishing my ride this morning I had another cool animal sighting-I saw a badger. It is actually the first time I have ever seen a badger in person. I was pretty close to it because I spotted it as I was rounding a bend on the trail. It quickly hurried off into the grass. I am so happy to be back to riding! :o)

From Nebraska

From the Bridge

Morning Greeting

Taking the Low Road

Another day, another ride! The mornings have simply been wonderful the past few days-it is nice and warm and you can feel summer in the air. This morning I had to run an errand on my morning ride so I rode through town rather than taking the trail. The street that I had to ride to just happened to also be the street that led to the bridge, so I decided it was a good morning to ride the few extra blocks around to try out the bottom of the bridge. I have to say I like the bottom better for the lack of giant hills, and I like the top better for the magnificent views and the openness. I am pretty sure I will be tackling the top tomorrow because it is so beautiful. The bottom feels a bit too closed-in making it difficult to get a great picture. Either way I think I will continue my bridge rides as I have really enjoyed these past couple days.

In other fitness news, I have been reading a lot about this whole "Couch to 5k" program. My interest is quite peaked because as you all know (if you read my very first couple blog posts) enjoying running happens to be one of my goals...one that I have tried and still loathe. I planned on participating in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure again this year which is a 5k run/walk. Last year I walked it for the most part-there were short bursts of running but they were SHORT as they made me want to lay down on the sidewalk and die. My friend Lindsay and I said that we would run it (or run half of it?) the next year which is this year! IN SEPTEMBER! While I could totally blow off this pact that we made, I am thinking that this whole Couch to 5K thing just might be exactly what I need. Not only will it accomplish one of my fitness goals (hopefully) but I would feel awesome being able to RUN a 5k-and I would be doing it in memory of my grandmother Sandra. She never ran a 5k but she was a wonderful woman who always showed us her love in her own little ways. She died at age 56 of breast cancer-all the more reason to stay fit and take care of myself. In summary-this whole Couch to 5k thing sounds like it may just be worth $1.99/$2.99 but before I do that I think I need to work on getting some music on my phone...that is a whole new problem! Anyone use a C25K app for their phone? I have a couple in mind that I am trying to decide between.

No Rain On My Parade

After being woken up by rain this morning I thought for sure my ride was going to have to be put off, but when my alarm sounded at 5:30 I couldn't hear any rain. I had to drag myself out of bed this morning because I was tired from such a wonderful night with my husband celebrating our anniversary. We usually put off doing anything until the weekend after our anniversary but this year we decided there was nothing wrong with going out on a Tuesday night. I am really happy with our decision because it felt even more special than it has in the past. I will admit I ate too much but it is hard not to indulge when celebrating. We both had steak with salad and a baked potato and then we went to the Dairy Dock to share an ice cream sundae. We ended our time out with a walk across the Meridian Bridge which is slightly over half a mile one way. It was nice to get some exercise as well as go on a little romantic walk with my husband. It also helped lessen any guilt I may have had from the ice cream (or the movie popcorn and fountain pop we picked up on the way home).
This morning's ride was very peaceful. I could see the rain clouds and lightning off in the east which meant I wouldn't get to see a pretty sunrise, but the lightning was a pretty cool sight. My ride seemed pretty smooth and the only part of me that was sore from yesterday was my bum-it needs to get used to the lovely bike seat again. I am still completely amazed by the changes in the landscape in comparison to last year with all the flooding. The changes are quite astounding-I need to take some pictures so that I can post comparisons.
Now for some good news/bad news:

• Good News-I weighed less at the doctor than I did at home on Monday-I think that is the first time that has EVER happened! LOL
• Good News-I do not have a double ear infection like I suspected.
• Bad News-I am having some massive TMJ pain on the left side-the joint was incredibly tender and sore when she was checking it yesterday-not much I can do other than take an anti-inflammatory
• More Bad News-She has no idea why my hearing is muffled on the right side (I thought for sure I had an ear infection because of it). I am hoping this goes away soon as it is extremely irritating and I would rather stay away from doctors for a while-I have seen enough of them in the past few months!

Forgotten

It seems like it has been forever since my last 5:30 am ride so it felt great to get back to it this morning. Last night I eagerly prepared myself for the ride-setting out my clothes, asking myself (and my husband) questions (How light is it at 5:30? How chilly is it? Do I need a sweatshirt? etc.), making sure everything was just right, and setting my alarm (I actually forgot that last thing until I went to bed so I had to get out a flashlight to set it oops!).
My alarm went off without fail at 5:30 but it did not actually wake me until 5:35-I must have needed those last 5 minutes! I quickly got ready and headed out the door. It was chilly but not too bad, the sun was just coming up, I could smell the summer flowers in the air-IT WAS WONDERFUL! I had forgotten all about so many of the things that I loved about my morning rides and also about some of the little hiccups. Here is a review of what was forgotten:

• Sunglasses-they may not be needed for the ride down to the park but they are needed for the ride home!
• The peacefulness-I had forgotten how calming and wonderful the early morning it.
• The sprinklers-I was able to bob and weave around them without getting hit with more than a mist.
• The beauty-the colors of the sky, the birds, the splashing fish-everything was so refreshing.
• Water bottle-it seems the need for hydration just completely slipped my mind!

I also made some realizations about a few other things:

• I still don't like the hills but I don't hate them near as much as I remember hating them last year.
• I love this just as much as I did last summer.
• I am now pretty positive that I have an ear infection.

Okay-that last realization kind of sucks but the other two are pretty good. I would really like to be able to extend my ride so that one of these mornings I can ride across the bridge as I have not yet walked or ridden across it. I didn't want to try it today because Matt and I decided that we would walk across together tonight-Happy Anniversary Babe!
All in all, I would say that I am thrilled to get back to riding and back working toward my fitness goals. I started a new 7 day challenge for Just Dance yesterday and this time I am determined to complete it! I think it is time for an apple and some Belvita so that's all for this morning!