I'm Gelling, Are You Gelling? @ Phoenix, Lagunitas and Bon Tempe Lakes

Ok, there was just a gimongous Reese's Peanut Butter Cup on the TV Screen. Miguel's watching a soccer game he recorded and I glanced up to see it and it was beautiful. Chocolate....So yes, it's TTOTM.

Whew! What a weekend we had. Friday night was wholly uneventful. Well, that's not entirely true, I went to the gym after work. During cardio I did my last training session of Week 4 in the c25k running plan. Week 5 was just around the corner. But no more thoughts of that as a recreation weekend was ahead!

On Saturday we got up and picked a ride. We were trying to decide between the Angel Island Loop and a ride out of my Bay Area Biking book, The Three Lakes Loop. Getting the ferry to Angel Island was too much for us so we decided on the Three Lakes Loop. This book has a rating system from 1-5 for difficulty. 1 is a bring the toddler in training wheels. So 2 must be right up my alley, right? Here's the map and elevation gain of the 11 mile ride:




I suppose the elevation gain image of a mountain should have made me take pause but I thought, "ah, 900 feet elevation gain doesn't sound so bad." What the heck do I know? Apparently, not enough. The ride was grueling. But not enough to make it a bad time. I just had to walk a fair amount. Miguel and I estimated that of the 11 mile ride I probably walked between 1-2 miles. Not bad, huh? Oh but what a beautiful ride and beautiful day it was. It was nice and sunny, warm and just perfect. The trails had a nice mix of sun and shade and they were relatively easy from a technical mountain biking skills perspective. All in all we had a great time. It's like that old bumper sticker, the worst day mountain biking is better than the best day at work. And this was far from worst. Alright, pictures!
First, along side one of the three lakes. I think this was Lake Lagunitas:



Happily riding along (er, downhill)...



Not quite so happily walking.... Now this hill may not look like much, and it's not. But after miles and miles of uphill my legs were spent. I could handle a slight incline at this point, but not much. Hence, bikehiking:



I think this image gives you a good sense of the beauty of the surrounds.



See that town down below? I told you there was a lot of uphill!



By the time we got back to the car my heart monitor said I'd burned 1200 calories in the 2 hours and 15 minutes we were out there. I got some APs for dinner now!

After the ride we went to our new hangout, REI. We bought a few bike related accessories and had lunch again at Baja Fresh. This time I only had 1 Mahi-Mahi fish taco since I had a big dinner ahead. We went home, threw some clothes in a bag and headed off to the inn for our anniversary fun. The inn had a pool so the first thing we did was put on our suits and dive in the freezing pool. Then we warmed back up on the lounge chairs and ordered fried calamari and I had a blood orange vodka martini (or two). Ahhh. It wasn't easy going back to the room to get ready for dinner. We were wiped. But we did and enjoyed a nice meal and crème brûlée. I calculated 57.5 points eaten for the day. I get 23 a day so that's more than two days worth of food. Good thing I had 12 APs to balance that out! Plus I had saved all my extra weekly points (I get 35 of those) for just this day so when all was said and done I was fine.

On Sunday we got up and enjoyed the continental breakfast and then went home and got our bikes. We headed into SF on another gorgeous day and ended up riding around the Marina/Crissy Field area. We rode to Safeway and picked up some bread, cheese and turkey meat and then rode back to the grass for an impromptu picnic. My life has really changed since this time last year. It was really fun riding my road bike, even if it was just a leisurely 5 miles.

I noticed though that my shoulders tighten up after not too long on the bike. I'm hoping it's just new muscles being used and my getting used to the different position. But, it could be a sign the bike is not the right size for me. If it's the latter I will have to sell this bike and go on a hunt for a new used one in a different size. It's going to take a while before I'll know.

Oh! I almost forgot the point of my title. By the way, if you're still reading this you are a good friend indeed. I went to the gym today, actually I rode to the gym, and did (in addition to the rest of my routine) Day 1 of Week 5 of the c25k running plan. I've been so busy I hadn't looked up what Week 5 entailed. Well, it's a doozy.

Day 1: Warmup, jog 5 minutes, walk 3 minutes, jog 5 minutes, walk 3 minutes, jog 5 minutes, walk 3 minutes, Cooldown.

Day 2: Warmup, jog 8 minutes, walk 5 minutes, jog 8 minutes, Cooldown. Whoa! 8 minutes?! But wait, apparently that ain't nothin'

Day 3: Warmup, jog 20 minutes, Cooldown.

Alright, well as soon as I heard that 20 minutes madness I decided to take each day of Week 5 and make it a week. So I'll do Week 5 Day 1 for a week (which means 3 times total), Day 2 for a week and Day 3 for a week. Or maybe I'll try and follow their suggestion and see how I do. Because I just looked at Week 6 and they take it back down a notch, so maybe there's some science behind making you jog for 20 full minutes before you're maybe ready for it? I guess I'll decide on Wednesday what to do.

The point of my title though is that I went to the gym feeling crabby, crampy and tired. But I ate one of those AccelGel things about 15 minutes before and once I got going on my routine I was feeling super good! I'm becoming more convinced that they really help. I ate one afterward too.

So I also planned to tell you about some new Points friendly foods I've been enjoying lately but this post has gone on too long even for me. I'll wrap it up now. But first...

Thank you to Kristy and Irene for the Happy Anniversary wishes. We had a really great weekend.