Twenty Mile Bike Ride

Protein Pancakes with blueberries with a peanut butter yogurt topping

I started out this past Sunday making protein pancakes with Evan. We added some frozen blueberries to them and mixed up some peanut butter powder with yogurt to top them off. They were a little bit too dry but overall a pretty satisfying breakfast!

Woo! Stats!

Afterwards I set out on a twenty mile bike ride. I chose to follow a route I had attempted to run back when I was training for NJ. I wasn't feeling the run that day though and ended up stopping at mile 17 and catching a ride back to my house. I decided to ride it in reverse so that I would have more right turns and wouldn't have to cross as many roads.

My favorite

There are little creatures in there

At first I took the ride pretty seriously, trying to go fast... then I realized what a gorgeous day it was and I started just enjoying it. I even stopped a few times for pictures. The route took me past some farms and lots of wooded areas. I love that I can ride five minutes away from my house and be out on beautiful country roads.

While riding I focused on smooth shifting and I am definitely improving, especially on hills. I now no longer dread going up pretty steep ones. I may go REALLY slow but I at least know that I will make it... eventually. I am still having some issues when I was try to downshift major gears (or whatever they are called). Often when I went from 3 to 2 it would get messed up and I'd have to downshift into 1 to fix it...which then meant that I prematurely downshifted and was stuck practically crawling up the hill.

Overall, the ride was great. My legs definitely got a workout but I wasn't overly tired or sore. Now that I've adjusted my bike seat and handles my ride is much more comfortable. I like that I can see little improvements every time I head out on the bike. The one thing I am learning is that I need to get clipless pedals. The standard pedals I have now are pretty inefficient.

 When I got home I ended up gardening for a little while and then Evan and I went out to pick up ingredients for dinner. We had grilled shrimp marinated in a cilantro garlic mixture and haddock that was grilled on a cedar plank. It was very good. I am more and more surprised by Mr. Dudzik every day. Eating fish? Whoa!

This was definitely a perfect way to spend a sunny Sunday.