Weekend Recap - Rodents of Unusual Size

Yep - this is my view.  All day.  Monday morning is here again, and it's isn't pretty.  Actually, it IS pretty cute... as kitty goes from sleeping on my feet, to batting at my knees, to pacing back and forth in front of my work screen.  I'm lucky to be working from home today (we have a car in the shop).  After another banner weekend and very little sleep I'm not much fit for human company.  At least, of the professional kind...

It was a big weekend in the Cupcake Tri household.  On Saturday, I woke early and biked up to Gypsy's house.  It is a good thing that I love Gypsy as my very best tri training buddy, because although she lives only just under 5 miles away, she is up one very big hill and down one equally big hill to get to her house.  Living at the bottom of said hill, there is literally no way to leave her house that doesn't involve your quads burning.  So there's that. 

We tried a new adventure - packing up our swim gear in backpacks and biking to a new swimming spot.  I opted for the lighter approach with no wetsuit, since swimming has been feeling a bit "off" for me lately.  I've not had a pool session in several months, and the "cheating" aspect of the wetsuit buoyancy has somewhat impaired my swimming ability (or lack thereof).  Gypsy, however, in terror of the possibility of anything "critter" touching her biked with a full poofy school backpack with wetsuit in tow.

 

Around the 15 mile mark (for me), we reached out new watering hole.  I locked our bikes onto a tree and we shimmied into our swim stuff.  Really, I was wearing a tri suit, so I jumped in the water escaping the hordes of bloodthirsty mosquitos while Gypsy pulled her wetsuit.

Our new (to us) pond was lovely.  Clear and picturesque, with several enticing islands in the middle... if we could only swim that far.  That proved to be my downfall, as I was correct.  Without a wetsuit, I don't swim so good.  Gypsy is naturally a much stronger swimmer, being a competitive swimmer in her youth.  She is great about pacing me.  She tried to show me some recovery strokes (I don't really know how to do breast stroke or anything else).  I gamely did my best but my bum and legs were sinking and I was sucking wind.  Around the time I decided to kick it in and turn around, Gypsy spied a beaver lodge a good 1/2 mile away.

"Is that a beaver lodge??"  Me:  "Yeah...."  Gypsy: "Do they bite???"  Me: "Yes, their favorite food is human flesh...."  Her: "Oh my god I'm leaving!  They can get you because I'm so much faster!"  Gypsy sprints to the swim out, leaving me in the middle of the lake. 

But only for a little bit.  She stopped and waited for me, and I learned that once again, my sarcasm isn't always totally appreciated.  Funny about training with someone - after a while you know eachother so well there's not much territory that doesn't get hauled over - including teasing.  Gypsy is usually painfully tactful about her stronger swimming and running abilities, so her blatant abandonment of me to flesh eating aquatic rodents was that much more humorous....  I decided to NOT share with her that we'd seen a 4 foot beaver crossing the road on our way to the local hiking mountain just last week....

Once safely on land and neither drowned or devoured, the plan was to bike back home.  We ended up taking a wrong turn (my fault), so rounded out the bike ride at about 25 miles total.  It was Gypsy's little's birthday party in the afternoon, so we both switched back to Mommy mode to get all small things ready....

Sunday morning I had to myself.  Rather, I had an hour to myself, and I decided to get a benchmark run in.  It's been a few weeks since my cortisone shot.  I've been running mostly intervals of jogging and walking, but have recently started spacing them out a bit more, and I wanted to see what I was capable of.  My town doesn't really "do" flat, as you'd like for a perfect time trial, so I went to the rail trail - the closest thing we have to a flat space.  It's actually a gentle grade - down and up.  I had meant to do about 2 miles downhill, 2 uphill (back) and then 2 miles down again (turning around), but I got distracted by an extension of the trail. I ended up running 3 miles down at a paces near the 9:30s, and back up at paces above 10.  Alas, I finished the 6.2 in 1:03:42.  Not the sub-hour I was hoping for.  But I did treat myself to an account at Audible.com and started listening to Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.  I am a huge bookworm, and I've been waiting for this title to come in to the library for literally months.  No more - now I get to listen while I run!  Or drive, or whatever.

 

On the non-training fornt, I've had some small successes as well.  I was all worked up by my post about strawberry cupcakes last week, but rather than making cupcakes (not healthy), at my friend Hummingbird's suggestion I spun the craving into some whole wheat almond strawberry muffins.  My kitchen helpers contributed to their creation, and they fed the family all weekend.  I used this recipe, substituting Greek yogurt for the milk (more protein) and frozen strawberries for the fresh.  Next time I make them I'll cut the sugar even more as they were a bit sweet.

 

Little Yoda helps out

Beans 'n' greens, plus baby carrots from our garden

 

I also made dinner both nights, using some vegetable from our garden (the first of the carrots), some peas.... overnight Little Yoda's cherry tomato plants have gone from tiny to Godzilla sized proportions.  I need a good solid afternoon just to try to reign them in somehow, and separate the cucumbers out of them as well.  Which will likely not happen..... anyway cooking and actually putting into place a meal plan for the coming week always feels like a victory.

 

In the afternoon yesterday we met Legos and her gang at a local state park for swimming and kayaking.  We had hoped to get in an open water swim practice, as Legos is doing her first sprint triathlon, the IronGirl, this coming weekend, but it was too windy and wavy and the part of the park that it was allowed in was closed.  So we did regular swimming with the kids and kayaked around.  My little guy learned to paddle and is actually pretty good for a 5 year old.  I think I see kid kayaks joining our fleet in the very near future....

 

Little Dude paddles the Jedi into the sand

Practicing setting up our tents in the side yard

 

Next week, if I can survive the massive piles of work between me and then (oh and that little sprint tri I have going....) the family is travelling to Lake Placid for a few days.  My coach is racing IMLP and I decided to take the opportunity to gather together a bunch of our friends and call it a high school reunion.  There's the promise of lots of hiking, rafting(?) and other outdoor adventures with the littles, so camping and hiking training continues on! 

 

I truly feel like I could use one weekend for the kids and their stuff, one weekend for my big training workouts, one weekend to catch up on house stuff (like the Attack of the Killer Tomatoes), and one weekend to catch up on work.  Maybe even a day to relax....

 

But none of that is occurring, so.... how was your weekend?  Any tomato tips?  Favorite recipes?  Because I'm gonna need them!