Exercise: I needed that fuel to power my planned 90 minute bike ride that commenced at 6:00am. It took me some time to settle on a route, but in the end my desire to avoid traffic lights took precedence over my desire to avoid bugs, and I headed down into the Rocky River valley for a ride on Valley Parkway.
I avoided the bike trail in favor of the roads, since it was early enough that very few people were driving in the park. Normally, I'm not a fan of the Parkway as the roads are windy and narrow in places, there is no shoulder to speak of, and the section of the road I like to stick to in traffic is pretty rough. Instead, I chose to ride farther into the middle of the lane than usual, which made for a decent ride.
...that is...for the first hour.
Again, I'm not sure that long-distance cycling is for me. That said, it was a beautiful day and I powered through 20.2 miles in just under 95 minutes. The bad thing about my chosen route is that I'm stuck riding back up that bitch, Hogsback, when I'm already gassed from a long ride. I had my heart rate monitor on this morning, and saw that my heart rate peaked at 174 on my ride to the top.
I'm a little surprised that my rides have been so slow. 12 miles per hour is a decent pace on Ol' Bessie (my mountain bike), but I feel that I should be faster on my as-yet-unnamed-roadie. I will try and add some speed work into my routine at least once a week for the next six weeks so that my century time is not horrific.
Breakfast: Coconut breakfast quinoa topped with strawberries, cherries, and shredded coconut.
At which time I headed to the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo with the kiddos for a birthday party of one of the Niblet's besties. Though I said I wouldn't after that bike ride, I pushed both kids up the GIANT hill in the Bob up to the playground area, and my legs were jelly. JELLY, I say.
Snack: I managed to refrain from eating the squishy PB&J on Breadsmith bread, the bags of chips, and the princess cookies and, instead, had a fruit kabob and a piece of string cheese. Victory!
Lunch: By the time I returned home, I was overheated and exhausted and hungry and, after I put the kiddos down for a nap, I was not up for the challenge of chopping veggies for my usual salad. Instead, I blended up a smoothie of banana, spinach, strawberries, blackberries, and Vega protein powder. I dumped the entire thing in a bowl, topped it with a handful or two of Cheerios, and dug in while watching TLC's Say Yes to the Dress marathon. I watched for about five minutes...until my Sweet Pea woke up screaming and it was back to work with me.
Snack: I can only ignore the siren song of princess cookies for so long, and when I loaded Sweet Pea up to take her to Earth Fare, I saw the princess cookies that we'd taken home from the birthday, and I ate this half.
And then I ate the other one and a half (not-pictured). Cookies happen.
Dinner: We headed to our favorite little Italian restaurant with the best red sauce in Cleveland, Caffe Roma, to join our friends for dinner. I started with a salad with their house dressing before digging into my usual plate of cavatelli with marinara (I only ate half of the pasta portion). Not pictured are two mozzarella sticks (damn you, husband!) and a glass of red wine. Fantastic meal!
Dessert: Usually, we try and keep Sunday night our *dessert night*, but it was hot and we had to pass on gelato after dinner (sleepy baby), and so after the kiddos were in bed, we watched the season premier of True Blood while digging into this Snickers ice cream.
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