Back at it

I had a good weekend.  It started with a fun party for Cody at the house that involved a game of glow-in-the-dark ultimate frisbee that was, I would venture to say, a spectacular success.  Especially since no one was seriously injured, which seemed like a very real possibility when you have 30 adults running around a dark field littered with hidden rocks, bushes and furry black dogs, and with nothing but a glowing dollar-store necklace to illuminate them.  Well, not quite.  I think our saving grace was the enormous full moon that actually lit up the field pretty well.  Anyway, glow-in-the-dark ultimate.  Awesome.  And it helped work out the rest of the crap left in my lungs from 2 weeks of sick.  And I made chili, that everyone seemed to enjoy, despite the fact that, uh, I just dumped everything in a big pot and cooked it for a day.  Master chef here.  Right.  Secret ingredients or something.  And cupcakes!

This was the tiramisu batch, which was probably the most photogenic, what with the marscapone/whipped cream topping.  Yeah, and sometimes I eat cupcakes full of wheat, sugar, and butter.  Yum.

Anyway, while the party was incredibly fun, by far the highlight of the weekend for me was getting out for 3 hours on my shiny new bike on Sunday, with some 3x8 LT intervals.  They hurt!*  I wanted to quit a thousand times, my HR was sky high and my power really dropped off by the last one, but I woke up this morning feeling better than I have in 2 weeks.  Physically, yes, but mostly it helped my head a ton.  Motivation, enthusiasm, morale, and overall cheerfulness have returned.  Excellent.  But I've decided to bail on Battenkill, since I feel like I need to regain any  lost fitness to jump into a race like that.  Instead I'll head down to Plymouth for the little Myles Standish State Forest Road Race.  It's shorter, and closer, and generally less demanding.  But I need to race my bike!

*I feel compelled to add that, yes, of course they always hurt, but aiming for the same power range I was training in 2 weeks ago, after 2 weeks of no intensity at all, was unusually, but unsurprisingly, difficult.  But my new bike is rad!