ugh! Pants are starting to get tight...

Help - Mayday!! My pants are getting tight & I refuse to buy bigger clothes. I really need to get out of this awful place, also known as Lazyville. I've had zero desire to eat right & exercising has been only a couple bike rides a week which is not going to get the job done. In my mind, the thought of working up a sweat & burning some serious calories sounds awesome but actually getting off my ass and doing it, well that's a different story. 

Ok I am done with this rant of a post!  

Playing catch up with a long, picture heavy post ...

I'm still here but just waaaayyyy behind on updating my blog. So this is going to be a long catch up post.

Where did the summer go? This summer went by so fast & it's rather sad that we really did not do much of anything but stay around the house. I felt bad so I HAD to take my little guy out somewhere. I offered to take him to Kings Dominion's waterpark but he wanted to go to Splashdown instead. For some reason, he just loves this place. It's a decent sized park with a few waterslides, pool & lazy river. It's about a 20 minute drive to the other end our county. We spent Labor Day day enjoying the sunshine, pool & slides. I took him out to Dairy Queen afterwards so he could enjoy his favorite Blizzard.

The next morning was the start of a new school year.

 This is his first year in public school so he was a bit nervous and so was I. He's never been in another school so it will take some adjustments for him to get used to. Not only the size of the classroom but the way they do things. He's spent all of his school life in a small private school & this was quite a bit different. He is used to being in a class of less than 10 students & this school has 20+. So far he seems to have adjusted and is liking his school. Of course it's only been a litle over a week so we shall see.

In other news, my running has been non-existent & biking has been on and off. I am going to defer my Richmond Half Marathon registration to 2015. My heart just doesn't seem to want to be "into" running and in order for me to successfully train I need to have the motivation. I know it will eventually come back.

I did go out on a 10 mile bike ride on Sunday with my friend J. It was a beautiful cool morning. We parked near the airport & rode into DC.

A friend was participating in The Nations Triathlon and we wanted to watch him cross the finish line. He finished up earlier than expected because the race directors decided to cancel the swim portion. The prior nights storm caused some sewage leakage into the Potomac -GROSS!

this guys shirt was cool

our friend ~ way to go!

We chatted after he crossed the finish & decided to go and explore our way to Georgetown. We went over the Memorial Bridge and got back onto the Mount Vernon Trail north. 

I rode on the Mt. Vernon trail many, many years ago and I do not remember it being so busy. It's a nice trail but boy it was crowded with runners, walkers & slower riders in some stretches. This made it feel like rush hour traffic making it not a very pleasant ride. I think the next time I ride this trail I will have to come super early in the morning or avoid it on the weekends.

After going under this bridge, I was assuming this was Key Bridge. We got off the trail and after getting halfway across we realized this was the wrong bridge. We were on the Route 50 & I 66 bridge -oops. The sidewalk on the bridge was quite a bit narrow. We had to turn around and get back on the trail. 

Route 50/I 66 bridge

We got back on the trail and eventually got to Key Bridge & headed over it into Georgetown.

Key Bridge going toward Georgetown

view of Rosslyn, VA from Key Bridge

Once we got to Georgetown we rode down to Dean & DeLuca's and I got an iced Latte. After our quick coffee break we headed back to Key Bridge into Rosslyn. 

Georgetown University in the distance 

pretty colorful kayaks taken from atop the bridge

M Street behind us 

Not sure if this sign is supposed to be helpful to cyclst or cars.

The ride back seemed to be a lot more congested. We did alot of slowing down, weaving among runners and passing walkers on the trail. If it was humid & hot I would have been highly annoyed but I was just happy to be out on my bike on such a beautiful day. 

 We made it to Gravelly Point Park and loaded our bikes into the van. We were able to snap pictures of the planes taking off and landing at Reagan National.

And we finished our day at the Bayou Bakery with a Andouille Sausage & some yummy Beginets

33 miles through Nokesville

Yesteday my friend "J" and I went on a 30 mile group ride hosted by the Potomac Pedalers over in Nokesville. I've heard about the Potomac Pedalers since they are a rather large group but have never participated in any of their rides. They host a very popular century ride called  Back Roads Century that always sells out. I only heard about this particular ride from reading a post about it in a Facebook group that I belong to. It was a free ride to members and non-members so I thought what the heck.

overcast but temps were nice & low

Now, I never bothered to look at the map or to check out the elevation so when my friend J asked if there were a lot of hills I said no I don't think so because from what I have seen of Nokesville and portions that I have driven through it was relatively flat with only a couple small slow inclines. Well, I guess I was wrong, the first 17 miles were quite easy and scenic & I was able to get a few good pictures.

Moooooo

interesting way of decorating 

driveway to a gigantic house 

At just past the 12 mile mark was a country store and that was one of the rest stops. We stopped and chatted, took a drink & grabbed a bite to eat. We befriended a couple ladies who were riding the same speed as us & J took a group selfie.

country store rest stop

break time

group shot

And here is where we got mixed up. We started making our way down the road according to what we thought were the right directions & we even looked back to make sure some of the others were behind us. We even asked is this is the right way & they seemed to agree so we pedaled on. After about 1.5 miles we realized that something wasn't right so we stopped and waited but nobody was behind us. Oops ! We turned around and headed back toward the store where we were relieved to see a bunch of riders still there. We asked one of the guys if we could see his cue sheet since he was riding the 42 mile route & his directions were the same as ours after the rest stop. We just followed everyone else for the next 20 miles.

still trying to smile even climbing his smaller hill.

After the ride we were treated to a huge picnic with lots of food. They had a variety of burritos catered from Baja Fresh along with all kinds of desserts & various home made foods that people brought. It was very nice. We ended up sitting next to one of the ladies who we got "lost" with.

post ride picnic at the pavilion

Baja Chipotle Chicken Burrito

side of guacamole, seven layer dip, chips, ginger snaps, chocolate peanut butter cookie & watemelon

Ratatouille

I went to Ikea to look for a twin bed frame for my little guy & I ended up finding a deal on a nice bookshelf marked 1/2 price. I also purchased some other "necessary" kitchen items like a strainer & a mandoline. Well the mandoline is more or less a new toy. Of course I had to stop at the grocery store to buy items that I could use with my new toy so I picked up some zucchini, yellow squash, eggplant & couple red bell peppers. I searched for some recipes online and came across this one for Ratatouille.

cell phone pic of it just prior to cooking 

 The only thing I did different was that I added a sliced russet potato.Once it was done cooking, we put it over top some rice & it was pretty tasty. I wanted to chow down but I held back because I have 30 mile ride tomorrow morning.

Richmond Half Marathon... Do I run it or do I defer??

This weekend coming up will mark 12 weeks until race day November 15th, 2014. I have been going back and forth on this. Do I want to run or defer until 2015?

My heart says I want to run it but my mind is saying do not risk it. I have until October to defer my registration. I am thinking that maybe I should just give it a try and start training for it & see how it goes. If I'm still having problems with the back of my knee by the deferment deadline then I'll go ahead and defer my registration until 2015.

So I have created my own personal 12 week training schedule.  I've decided to stick to only 3 days of running alternating my non run days with cycling. I am increasing the milage nice and slowly hopefully to avoid any injuries. Monday will be my official start to training beginning with a 2 mile run.

Hopefully this plan works out because I have always wanted to run Richmond. I hear it's a great race.

Bull Run Bicycle group ride #2

Well last night I met up with the same riding group I blogged about on a prior post.I was looking forward to riding with them last week but it got cancelled due to the rain. Last nights count was 53 who showed up to ride. A pretty decent sized group of cyclists especially for mid August when a lot of people are usually out of town trying to squeeze in that last summer vacation before school starts. 

We met up at the bike shop at 6:30 and took off about 10 minutes later. I was able to take a lot more photos this time. You could feel the humiditiy but with the cooler temps it made for a pleasant ride. 

 

taking a break at the halfway point

My best running friend "J" joined us too. She hasn't been riding much this summer and her longest ride was 5 miles just a few days ago. It was a little more than 14 miles & she did awesome. 

"J"

We decided to stop at a wonderful little greek restaurant called Giorgio's  for some Gyro's afterwards. 

Great way to end our fun ride :)