Banana Cream Pie and Brownies

Monday, March 29, 2010

It was just one of those days when I really, really didn’t want to do anything. I was sitting in my car in the Metroparks with my bike in the back seat. It was overcast and cold out there. I had the book ‘Bowerman’ in the car with me and was reading a couple of pages, burning time so that I wouldn’t have to ride as long. This, by the way, is normal behavior for me. No matter how committed I am to my conditioning, I just run into walls some days and don’t want to do a thing. Overcoming this feeling and doing my workout is an exhilarating feeling. When it happens…which before I began writing this blog was almost never…

And I really needed a good, long day. My sweet Holly has been trying to sabotage my efforts of late. You remember how last weekend she made ‘Grandma Paula’ chocolate chip cookies, which of course I had to eat almost single handedly. Well…Sunday she makes a banana cream pie AND brownies with peanuts. She says it’s for her dad, but that’s a line of crap. She wants me to have to write in here that I’ve gained weight. She’s jealous. And devious. And effective.

So…I ate half a pie Sunday night. Oh…and five brownies. Oh…and half a gallon of milk to wash it down. Skim, of course.

Alright. I got myself out of the car and started to get ready for the ride. It was about 42 degrees and dropping. Poopie. I put on a second t-shirt, my leather gardening gloves, my American Flag skull cap under my helmet and I was ready. Not pretty…but definitely ready. I had planned on a two-hour ride, thinking I hadn’t been out on the bike in almost a week, and needed to start the final prep for the birthday mauling I was planning for myself in three weeks, but pushed that thought aside and decided anything around an hour would suffice.

I started by going up a long, steep hill…which is a good thing when it’s cold since it tends to warm me up. It worked. I had a decent sweat going by the time I reached the top, but started cooling quickly on the flats. By the time I had been out thirty minutes, my toes were freezing and the skin on my knees had that pink/purple color thing going…like your lips got when you were a kid and stayed in the pool for the better part of the week.

But…turn around after only thirty minutes? I mean was I becoming my training partner John? Was I going to be a weenie? This thought pushed me on. When I hit fifty minutes I figured I may as well just keep going. No feeling in my toes, hands numb and major shrinkage. It was too late to salvage anything, so I kept on to the one hour mark.

The ride home was a living hell. Wind in my face and a major downhill added to the chill factor. By the time I arrived back at the car and stepped from the bike, I couldn’t feel the ground under my feet. I wanted to move quickly, but found with numb fingers that taking the bike apart, shoes, gloves and helmet off was progressing rather slowly. I got it done though and when I finally plopped down in the car, I had that euphoric feeling that comes from doing the workout I thought I was going to blow off.

So go ahead and make those desserts all you want, baby. The new me will eat them up…yeah, just like the old me…but I’m going out there and I’m going to burn those calories up and maybe, just maybe…not gain any weight. We’ll see…

Bike duration: Two hours. Hike duration: 40 minutes.

Training Heart Rate: 125 biking. 75 hiking.

Calories burned during workout: 1,800 hiking. 250 hiking.