Back to the grind...

         So, Thanksgiving 2009 is in the books. I hope everyone had a safe and happy Thanksgiving holiday. Ours was very busy. Emily was here last weekend and decided to stay here with us for the Thanksgiving holiday (we were offering better desserts). I was very happy to have her here. On Tuesday, we made a Pumpkin Cheesecake (I told you we had better desserts). As you can see, it was a work of art, and it tasted better than it looked. Emily and I baked some pumpkin bread and banana bread to snack on as well.

      Our Thanksgiving dinner was hosted by Bev's sister Donna. It was an enjoyable time with great food, great conversation and great fun with family. It was traditional fare of turkey, mashed potatoes, mom-mom's candied sweet potatoes, stuffing, corn, gravy, sauerkraut and rolls and homemade cranberry sauce. Dessert was pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin pie, cherry pie and hello dollies. Mmmmmm Mmmmm good!

       We missed having Tiffany with us for dinner, but she was splitting time between her Dad's and her boyfriends parents, so Bev, Tiffany, Josh, Mom mom, Pop, Emily and I will celebrate Thanksgiving again this upcoming weekend. It should be another great time with good food.

       Knowing that I would consume more than my normal amount of calories over the Thanksgiving holiday I attempted to work the calories off before I ate them. On Wednesday morning I did the normal a 17 mile ride with 2 other members of SPP at 5:45 a.m. On Thursday morning a group of about 25 SPP members rode 30 miles to City Dock and back. It was a little disorganized as to which routes we would take and at what pace we would ride, but the great thing about this group is that everyone pretty much takes things in stride. We were all out there to create a caloric deficiency so that what we ate at Thanksgiving would not stick around too long. Mission accomplished.

        Friday was the day that I planned to do my metric century (100k/62.1 miles) to celebrate losing 100 pounds. It was also the day that SPP was planning a ride to Baltimore for coffee. The trip to Baltimore was a LOT of fun. We had 10 riders make the trip. One of them was from Florida and as we passed M&T Bank stadium (Home of the Baltimore Ravens) she wanted a group picture in front of the Stadium. After riding through the Inner Harbour and having coffee at The Firehouse in the Canton section of Baltimore, we made the trip to Camden Yards (Home of the Baltimore Orioles) for another group photo. After that photo op we headed back to Severna Park. When the group dispersed I had 10 more miles that I needed to ride for my Metric Century. I headed into Annapolis and rode to City Dock and back to my car. Metric Century Complete. Total miles... 64.5. My legs were sore the next day, but like the saying goes, "Pain is temporary, Pride is forever." I am proud of the fact that I have lost what I have lost and that I was able to ride 100k.

         As a side note, for those of you who knew that I was having blood work done, I got the results back on Wednesday (yes, my doctor actually called me with the results!) My sugar was 86 (much better than the pre-diabetes levels that they were a couple years ago)... my total cholesterol was 162, my LDL was 58 and my HDL was 96. The quote from my Doctor was that "...everything looked very good."

         I have shared my training log for those who are interested. It just records my rides each day, cadence, distance etc. Click the link on the "links" section of the blog.

         Thanks for reading.