I have a painful little loop that pushes in and around West Seattle that I enjoy doing in my free time. That seems to be less and less these days, but I managed to fit a ride in this last Sunday. After what turned out to be an “epic” Thanksgiving (in all definitions of the word), I really needed to confuse my body with some excercise. I grabbed the Boxer and hit the road.

If you joined us on our 100K permanent this last summer, you might recognize some of the roads. This should let you know that I didn’t just torture you for fun… I torture myself for fun too.

Rolling Out

Berthoud Bag

West Seattle Bridge

(more…)

Jane and I spent the last week on a vacation of sorts with Norman. He house sits for a couple in Madrona once in awhile when they are on [a real] vacation and he asked us if we wanted to stay with him for a while. They have a much larger house than we do, with a nice and cool basement. With record temperatures hitting Seattle and the need for a little time away from South Park, we took him up on the offer pretty quickly.

We spent the week gorging on food, drink, and cable television. We had plans to get back on track with our work out regimine, but we were just too lazy, hot, and tired to even think about it.

Still, not all was lost on my fitness front, I brought my Indy Fab bike with me so I could try out a new route in to work. I rode in a few days despite (and maybe even because) of the heat. There is nothing quite like climbing up hill all the way home on a large fixed gear in 103 degree weather. I felt like I had just gotten out of a pool by the time I got home each day. I meant to take pictures of the commute, but I had a hard time finding a good spot to put my camera phone that was still accessible. You’ll just have to imagine it for me.

At the house, I splurged on the Food Network and Top Chef on Bravo. Norman and I had a good time pointing out all of the little quirks each chef has. It is amazing how many people on TV cross contaminate foods after touching raw meat. Ick. The Barefoot Contessa is a main offender. We got in to a habit of recording the show just so we could go back and laugh. I’ve got issues, I know.

Jane made it a point to keep pushing us all to go down to the lake and take Chibi on her first swim. We finally got that opportunity to do it on Friday after I got off of work. It was still very warm out, but had noticeably cooled down from the previous days. Some friends went down with us and we blatantly ignored the ridiculous “no dogs allowed” signs.

We laid out some towels away from the lifeguards and the designated swimming area. Jane and I took Chibi down to a boat launch and introduced her to the water. The wake from all of the motor boats getting ready for SeaFair was pretty intense and Chibi looked pretty scared of the water at first. She is incredibly brave though. After some nervous circles, she ran down and jumped in from the top steps. She swam around Jane at least ten times to show us she could do it. I snapped a couple of pictures. She looked pretty excited to cool off and practice a new talent. Chibi is turning out to be a pretty amazing puppy.

My dad is in town from San Diego doing odd jobs in Renton for some old friends that he grew up with. They are a nice couple that came to our wedding and offered to buy us dinner for our upcoming anniversary.

It has been a while since I’ve seen my dad in person so it was nice to catch up with him. We all went to a steakhouse in downtown Renton. They had a special with Ostrich medallions and I gave them a try. The owner (I assumed) eventually came out and asked how things were. I guess I was the first to ever order them. Sometimes being a guinea pig has it’s advantages. They turned out wonderful. It was a lot like a cut of steak,  with a subtle peppery taste. I would honestly order it again given the opportunity.

Overall it was a very pleasant evening and I was fat and happy after wards. I’m planning to make my dad a dinner tonight so we can catch up a little more before he goes back to San Diego.

I still haven’t quite gotten the time or energy to do a write up on Seattle to Portland, but it will happen soon.
It has been a whirlwind of a week for sure. Jane and I have been just trying to keep busy.

Last night was a candlelight memorial for Teresa put on by our friend and old neighbor Beth. My mom came up from Portland in order to attend. A few of our friends joined us for the evening. I made some dinner (maybe a little comfort style with all of the butter…) and we set out behind our house to the front of the community center.

Somewhere between 2 and 3 hundred people showed up including all of the usual media suspects. It was a beautiful and eclectic bunch of people from all walks of life. It was a pretty amazing show of support for someone that seems to have touched so many lives.

There was a podium set up for people to say a few words about Teresa. It frightened the hell out of me. I knew that Jane would get up and say something so I decided to go with her. We were lucky enough to have some great memories of our smiling neighbor.

We had been living in our house for a little bit over a year when the couple that lived next door decided to move back to Eugene. They were a quiet couple so we were a little nervous to see who would be filling that void.

Our Realtor just happened to be involved in the sale of the house so we had an inside line on exactly when it was sold. The day after Teresa signed papers on the house, a wind storm hit the city. It blew over a large tree from her front yard and crushed both of our fences, took out our cable (which never was or is in use anyways), and damaged our gutter.

Our neighbor Mark across the street were pounding on our door the next morning before the sun rose. I woke up confused when I opened the door to branches. It felt like a dream.

“Didn’t you hear the tree fall?”, he asked me.
“…no.”

All of our neighbors chipped in on the clean up.

A few days later Teresa came to our door with a bottle of Makers Mark and a thank you note. I’m not sure how the hell someone I’ve never met knew one of my favorite whiskeys, but I don’t question these things. She was just a special person like that.

When we got up to speak about her, I noted that one of the reasons I always talk up how amazing South Park is as a community is because of people like Teresa. Our block has a gaping void in it now. I’m not sure how that will ever be filled properly.

R.I.P – Teresa Butz

Seattle Times article -Seattle PI photos – Seattle PI article

I really should have gotten my stuff together last week. I meant to post a nice long wrap up of the Seattle to Portland ride and I kept putting it off until “later”. Jane and I had the week off and we kept sleeping in a little bit later each morning.

Then Sunday morning happened. Some one broke in to our next door neighbors house, killed one, and seriously injured the other. They were two lovely women who were getting married in September. We still have the Save the Date on the fridge.

Saturday night Jane and I hung out at home and stayed up late to catch up on True Blood and the Tour de France. We got to bed around 2 am. Jane let the dog out to go to the bathroom right before bed. Chibi was playing around instead of doing her business so Jane was outside for a while. I eventually went out to make sure everything was alright. We all came in and laid down for the night.

The police found our neighbors at about 3am that morning. It was completely fucking grizzly. I can barely even type this out. It feels totally selfish… like I’m taking advantage of the moment for a story. It is just sort of a coping mechanism, I suppose.

We woke up late, around 10. I took the dog out and notice a police officer pacing their backyard. I figured there might have been some tagging or a robbery. I went up to say hello and he hit me with the news. My brain wasn’t processing anything seriously. I hadn’t even really started my coffee yet…

Apparently police were pounding on our doors that morning to see if we were safe. There was a bunch of screaming that woke up neighbors up and down the block. We slept through it all. Hell, we slept through when our same neighbors tree collapsed onto our front yard.

The whole street was taped off and police/CSI types were all over the place. They were very respectful, but it was pretty surreal to see so many people in and around our properties all day. The media swarmed on the outskirts trying to fish for information. They are still there as I type this, except even closer to our house since the police tape is down.

We went out to meet Norman for breakfast and to go with our original “Light Rail Day” plans and it hit us even harder. There was a pool of blood in the street. Our neighbors across the street had huge bloody hand prints on their door. Next door was a broken window with a white curtain out of it, completely soaked in red.

Everything has been in really sharp focus this morning.

Aside from the obvious anger of the situation, I’m mad that I have to justify the community I live in to people again. We have some amazing neighbors that look out for each other. I’m going to scream if I have to hear another “So, you going to be moving?” question. I will continue to stick up for South Park.

I’m not even sure where I am going with this. Thanks for listening. I’ll get up a proper bike related post soon. It will have pictures and glorious stories, to be sure.

Also, for those of you who read this, there is a neighborhood meeting tonight (Monday) at 7pm. It is at the community center in South Park. I will be there for sure.

Taxes are still being filed. I have a stack of papers twice as heavy as today’s lunch filling my bag. The non-members need to be sorted from the members and then you need to sort out the members who didn’t pre-register. Alphabetize them… that helps. Wait, did I give a follow up call on this person? Did they finish already and it didn’t get marked? Maybe they pre-registered and never started.

I went home Saturday with a pounding headache. Instead of blaming the lack of water I drank, I blame Dan Boxer and Mark Thomas for buying me beers after the ride. How was I supposed to know that they don’t actually hydrate?

Everything ended on a sour note for me. I took a call at the last minute that made my heart sink. John Vincent got into an accident with an SUV a couple of miles from the finish. He was understandably pumped full of adrenaline and tough to talk to on the phone. A very expensive carbon recumbent took one for the team. Thankfully, he was alive and walking around. I hope he is still doing alright.

Sour notes aside, the day was a pretty amazing experience for us. I had lots of nervous energy going in to the morning and woke up a few minute before my alarm hit. Apparently Jane didn’t have the same excitement for the day because my enthusiasm didn’t encourage her to get up any quicker than usual.

I met Chris and Paul at the park in the morning about an hour and a half before the kick off. Emily was down buying some coffee from All City for the start and a local came down with a fresh pot of his own to help out. I had a mish mash of chicken scratched notes of things to go over on the pre-ride announcement and paced around a little bit trying to thank everyone that came.

Jane showed up with Chibi to help riders make sure they were relaxed. Mark was around snapping pictures. He might have told his wife that this was one of the easier rides for the year. K from Cycle Commuter introduced himself and showed off his bike for me. He rode up from Tacoma for this one. Pete showed up unexpectedly with his amazing mustache. It was nice to see so many familiar faces along with some fresh ones.

The five minute mark came up fast and I had to scramble a bit to get off the pre-ride announcements. Everyone set out… you know… relatively on time. Pat Leahy rolled in as we were breaking things down. He got stuck in some of the marathon traffic. I helped him get his bike off the roof and on to the road. I guess he forgot his ID in the car and had to come back for that too. He managed to finish the ride on time though.

John Whitenack, Matt Mikul and Vincent Muoneke took on the first control (which was very close to the start) and the Dash Point control at just past the halfway point. I appreciate their support and handling all of those hungry riders after the much tougher first half of the ride.

Chris and I drove out to the secret control at the top of Seahurst. There is an epic climb that we diabolically routed towards. There is a truck sign for the descent with 16% marked on it. That wouldn’t surprise me one bit. Mark set up shop with his camera to take pictures of people coming up it. He dubbed it the “Seahurst Wall Climb”. There are some amazing photos on the SIR flickr account. It is funny (in a sick way) to see peoples faces as they turn the corner only to realize that the climb isn’t finished yet. Sorry, everybody.

Even the fastest guys took about an hour to get to the 12 mile mark at our secret control. That should really say something about the difficulty of this ride. When Chris and I rode it fresh off of the 600K, it was pretty brutal on the legs. Most everyone seemed to be in good spirits though. Nobody punched us. We got a few middle fingers, but always followed by smiles. I think it might have been the brownies. I didn’t lace them or anything though, unless butter counts.

We had more than a few walkers up the hill but everyone seemed to come in together for the most part. There wasn’t a huge difference from the front and back this early in to the ride. Chris and I eventually packed up and drove back towards home to get some tables to set up at the finish at Loretta’s.

Loretta’s turned out to be a huge hit with everyone. The beer is solid, the burgers are just what you need post ride, and the staff is pretty friendly. They let us open up the back and everyone was able to safely park our bikes on the large patio.

The two fastest riders of the day (Ohlemeier and Ragsdale, surprise surprise) came in at an amazing 3 hours and 54 minutes. Good lord, gentlemen… maybe take a few breaks to stop and smell the flowers, eh?

The rest of the pack came in waves. Everyone seemed really happy. I kept waiting for that “Thanks a lot, jerk” comment. All I got were loads of tired looking people beaming with a sense of accomplishment. A few even said, “That was the hardest metric century I’ve ever done. Thank you.”

Volunteering is a wonderful humbling experience. It feels great to give back to a group that has given so much pain, experience and thrills to me. I wouldn’t be who I am today without the last year and a half of wonderful suffering. I will be volunteering again for a longer ride next year. Perhaps it won’t be as hard… Thank you again, everyone. It was a beautiful weekend.

Update: Check out John Whitenack’s photos from the day.

You should go and preregister right now. Seriously. Go for it. I’ll still be here.

Chris, his wife Emily, and our friend John Whitenack joined me to pre-ride the 100K this Saturday. Jane was nice enough to drive out to a few controls and make sure we had enough water and some goodies.

Thursday night I managed to hurt my knees pretty bad while riding my bike around town. I think the weeks worth of exercise just really caught up to my joints. I went to bed for a couple of nights in pain. There wasn’t a position that I could find that would make it stop. Naturally, I was pretty scared that I wouldn’t be able to ride on Saturday. In fact, once Friday night rolled around, I was pretty sure that I wasn’t going to.

Surprisingly the knees felt slightly better once I woke up. I really didn’t want a DNS or DNF next to my name on a ride that I helped organize. I figured I could suffer through it and just take a little time off the bike after that… yes I really am that stupid. Even more surprising was the fact that the ride seemed to get rid of the pain all together. I guess they just needed to be worked over to help the fact that I… worked them over?

Chris’ wife Emily was the trooper of the day. She didn’t have a ride longer than maybe 30 miles in her legs all year and she got through all of the hardest parts of the ride. She hitched a ride with Jane at the Dash Point control where we bought some croissants (twice baked chocolate!) from Bakery Nouveau in West Seattle for the riders. Don’t be expecting that on the actual ride though, I’m not made of money, damnit.

John clearly had fresher legs than Chris and I and cooked us on every single hill throughout the day. Between a flat tire and some general meandering/chatting, we were cutting some of the early time cutoffs close. The first portion (20 miles or so) of the ride is definitely harder than the rest of it. Once you get through that portion, you should make up plenty of time on the second half.

We are all pretty exciting to get this thing off of the ground though. I hope you can join us.

In other news, we welcomed Chibi to our family on Thursday afternoon. She was helping me build some muscle after the ride Saturday.

It should be noted that 25 out of the 30 total pictures I took of this ride are in the first 50 miles of this 374 mile ride. I went into the ride with two goals; Finish the ride and take lots of pictures. At a certain point, I lost the will to do either one of those things.

Our journey started in Auburn with promises of a pancake flat route and tailwinds both directions. We’ve been in SIR long enough to know that neither would be true, but it was still promising to hear that we might have an easier 600K than “normal”.

The paceline head out at a brisk pace and I felt pretty loose. I knew I wasn’t the strongest I’ve ever been once we hit a couple of early hills near Military Road… so much for the flat ride. The bunch split up very early and stayed that way throughout the weekend. I hung with Chris for a while through some beautiful roads in Tacoma that pushed us up and over Ruston and across the newly expanded Tacoma Narrows bridges. It was quite a pleasant ride across.

I lost Chris at some point between Tacoma and our 2nd control at Waterman Point (mile 52). He managed to find a nice double paceline with Dan Boxer that I hear they held for most of the day.

I rode with Matt for a while and we eventually caught up with a group including the always entertaining Andy Speier and Joe Platzner. They both can hold a conversation for longer than any bike ride will ever take. Andy can whistle like a radio and it seems to turn on while descending. It is always pleasant to ride with them.

We rode along the water front on the South end of the Hood Canal and generally enjoyed the beautiful scenery and pleasant weather. My legs weren’t quite there though. I never felt like I could pace with anyone all day. It was frustrating because I think I finally got my nutrition right, but it didn’t seem to matter.

The course took us on some of the roads that Joe, Matt and I did a few month back on our Fleche ride. I was starting to really hate the ride at that point though. I lost pace with Andy and Joe’s group. Matt was nice enough to hang back with me, but I couldn’t even keep up with up on the small inclines.

We were maybe a hundred miles in to the ride and I actually considered the strength it might take to get me back to my car. There were headwinds all the way to the coast that weren’t helping my outlook any. Hell, if I turned around, I would probably be able to ride even faster! I seriously considered whether or not I was actually cut out for this type of ride. It put everything in to perspective, including PBP and the 1000K I wanted to take on this year. The fact that I was 1 for 2 in the 600K department helped push me along. I’ve said over and over that it is a mental game.

The funny thing is, at just about every control people were asking about how I was feeling. I gave them a general “so-so” response and they would usually follow it up with questions about my stomach issues. I appreciate that people actually read this BS. Thankfully, I never had a single stomach issue on this ride.

Another rider in a white sleeveless jersey caught up with us and traded some pulls in to Cosmopolis. I am terrible with names, so I apologize if you are reading this! He was quite nice and let me sit on his wheel for probably longer than I deserved to.

We caught up again with Andy and Joe’s group at the Cosmopolis control. They were in good spirits and I wanted to try and latch back on to their group. We ate some mystery foods and tried to get back on the road. I felt bad for leaving the rider that had come in with us, but I really wanted to keep pedaling.

The route had us ride along Grays Harbor to the Pacific Ocean (a first for me) and a town called Westport. It was probably the most redneck coastal community I’ve ever been to. They had a Subway inside of the mini mart and the guy at the register looked very angry that we were giving him our money. There was a junkie trying to chat everyone up while buying some beer. He seemed pretty excited on life, for the moment. Still, the control filled my calorie and water requirements.

We rode the coast south for a while, happy to be rid of the headwinds. Joe seemed to get great pleasure from the city sign that read “Tokeland”. We rode along an amazing water side road that had a beach as the sun was starting to set. I finally pulled my phone back out to snap a couple of crappy pictures. This was the start of my turn around. It was damn beautiful and I was happy to be there for the moment. I still wasn’t strong physically, but I wanted to win the mental game.

After a number of pretty flat miles, there was finally some climbing near Pe Ell. It felt pretty good to use a different muscle group to slog up a few hills. I got dropped a number of times, but they wouldn’t let me go. Andy mentioned the next day that they wouldn’t have let me ride alone at night. It was very much appreciated.

Near Rainbow Falls State Park, Paul Johnson (Dr. Codfish) had a control set up with all the goods including coffee, Cup O’ Noodles, sandwiches, chips, etc. We thankfully didn’t sit too long. It was a little too comfortable with the space heaters at our feet. I grabbed a couple of cookies for the road and stuffed them and the rest of my sandwich into my jersey pockets.

We picked up Ian Shopland for the final section in to the overnight control. He was good company and joked (sort of) about how close he was to his home in Olympia by that point. The final miles were mercifully quick somehow. We rolled in to Centralia around 2am.

The overnight control was a major operation. It was run by Peter Beeson, Vincent Muoneke and others (again… terrible with the names). They had salmon, chili with rice and/or noodles, breakfast burritos cooking and pretty much any drink you could want (including beer). Peter Beeson was nice enough to take an Ensure order for me so I could stock up in the morning. I ate what I could, but I really just wanted to get some sleep. We asked for a 6am wake up call.

I was out like a rock, but Joe had a tougher time sleeping. My eyes cracked open and saw Andy up and getting dressed. He said it was 20 until six so I figured it wasn’t a big rush. I closed my eyes for a couple of minutes and then checked again. Ian was up and getting ready. Joe and Andy were both gone from the room. I was pretty confused so I just got up and gathered my things. Joe had left half an hour earlier and Andy was out getting some breakfast. We managed to leave a little before 6:30 that morning. There were promises of climbing ahead.

Day two had almost all of the 10,000 total feet of climbing in it. Somehow I managed to regain the strength in my legs though. I felt really great and was pushing the hills well. I split off from the morning group that I left with pretty much at the first major hill out of Centralia. I didn’t see most of them until the end of the ride.

There were tons of ups and downs (mostly up) for the next 50 miles topping out at around 1,800 feet. That isn’t a massive elevation, but it really made you work for it. There were plenty of times where it would dip back in to a valley and you would lose your gains. I had a rider in front of me dangling a carrot for me to reach. I was slowly catching up to him, but was in no hurry to push myself. I stopped for a photo op on a great uphill switchback that looked down on some trees. Unfortunately, my phone was all foggy from my back sweat, so they didn’t come out quite right.

I finally caught the rider ahead of me right before Morton. I was buying a morning snack and he was already back out on the road. I saw him a few more times that day, but he kept his stops very short.

Going up Highway 7, I had to go to the bathroom pretty bad. There was a tight shoulder and open roads. If I were to go, it would be pretty obvious what I was doing and there was a decent amount of traffic. I finally saw a little forest road shoulder and started to pull off. Amazingly, both Matt and Joe were there taking a little break.

Joe and I rolled out together but Matt took another minute and said he would catch up. The cue sheet confused Joe and I several miles later into Elbe. We started to go the wrong direction but saw Matt sweep in behind us going the other way. We pushed and caught up to him riding in to Eatonville as a trio.

A Subway sandwich was thoroughly enjoyed at this point, with only 50 miles left to go. It wasn’t an official control, but we all wanted the rest and calories by then. Subway is apparently a very popular lunch destination in Eatonville, because the place exploded with customers while we were eating.

The journey north took us along Lake Kapowsin and through southern Orting. Large trucks and angry drivers were in full swing. We had a number of drivers swing around us on blind corners, a few almost hitting opposing traffic. It would have been comical if it weren’t so dangerous.

We spent a few minute in Enumclaw making sure we were prepared for the final 20 or so miles in to the finish. It was a pretty amazing feeling to be so close to a ride that looked so uncertain at points.

Joe, Matt and I stuck together until the finish. We even started a little paceline pushing 18-20 through Green Valley Road. I was pretty amazed that I felt so good. It wasn’t until Joe asked if we could slow it down a bit that the pain hit my legs. It is funny what you can block out sometimes.

The final stop in Auburn was welcomed with high fives, pizza and soda. I can’t ask for much more than that. The finish of a ride truly puts everything in to perspective. You suffer for that singular moment sometimes. It makes everything you just went through completely worth it.
Stats:
Miles ridden – 375ish
Total Time – 34 ½ hours
Sleeping – 3 ½ hours
Feet climbed – 10,000
Flat tires – 0
Avg. Speed (with stops) – 10.9 mph
Road kill – Lost track
Dogs chasing – 3
Touring cyclists met – 4

Check out the map here. See the results here.

Jane has been doing a great job holding down most of the watering and weeding. Those little caterpillars are having a field day on the Brussels sprouts leaves. We pick them off pretty much every day.

I’ve made quite a few dishes already with the lettuces and herbs. We’ve been pulling at the leaves without taking the whole head out so they grow back. I am pretty astonished at just how well everything is doing.

We have only had a couple of casualties to date. Some of the lettuces wilted and a few of the seeds never really got moving.

Last night we spent almost 3 hours harvesting the broccoli rabe, kohlrabi, arugula and all of the beets. It was quite an operation to pull, clean and store everything that we needed to. Norman was over and he took a portion of them. We are all learning together and it helps to have a cook like him to know what to do with things once they are up.

He is making some pesto out of a bunch of the arugula so we aren’t slammed with salad 3 times a day just to use it all up.

I’m planning on roasting some beets tonight to make a beet and orange salad with the greens from the beets.

There is a lot to learn and experiment with, but it has been very rewarding so far.

Saturday was a stunningly beautiful day to be on a bicycle.

Matt, Chris and I set out to ride our proposed Summer 100k route. After a late start (I’m looking at you, Matt), we hit the bike trail out towards West Seattle.

I’ve worried a bit that we might have aimed too high with some of the early hills on this particular route. They really excited me and I wanted to work them in to a course, but we need to consider the newbies that might be just starting with the group on a shorter ride like this. I’m happy to report that the course is difficult, but very doable.

There are a couple of steep pitches that are walkable if needed. Still, you should bring your low gears. I would really like to advise against fixed or single speed bikes. Still, do what you wanna… weirdos.

I can only hope that this summer has similar weather to what we had on this pre ride. It is the first time I’ve been able to wear just shorts and no arm warmers since last year.

I’ve been slacking bad on the blog this week. I’ve been swamped with both jobs and a workout program that Jane and I started 14 days ago. Where to start…

Last weekend we had rough plans to ride out to Dan’s house to see the progress on the new bike. We weren’t able to go there, but we made a run to Columbia city to try out the Skillet food truck. It is run out of an airstream trailer and goes to a new neighborhood every week. They update the menu pretty often and serve amazing food. I definiately recommend tracking it down. Seattle needs more street food.

Jane got a burger with their (quickly becoming famous) bacon jam. It was a complete winner. I can’t say enough good things about it. I mixed it up with a fried spaghetti sandwich and a side of poutine. The sandwich was very good, but didn’t really touch the burger. The poutine though… my god. Heaven is a heart attack. Beautiful.

To offset that meal, Jane and I just wrapped up 14 days of the P90X workout program. I was pretty hesitant to start it for a number of reasons. The first and formost, the people running it struck me as… well… pretty douchey.

Secondly, I am not at all interested in bulking up. Riding my bike is a (notice I didn’t say “the”) main love and anything that would hinder that is evil. I just wanted to get in better shape and I know that Jane feels the same way. I thought that it might be a little too extreme for our needs. A friend that tried the program a while back always talked about how much it kicked his butt and how sore he always was. It wasn’t the most welcoming invitation to a program.

Why did we try it? I have no idea. There the DVD’s where though, and Jane was really motivating to give it a go.

The first two or three… or hell, maybe the whole first week was pretty brutal. It was painful in a wonderful way though. It was never so hard as to be discouraging, just hard enough to know that you need to get better at it. The program runs every single day, so you really need to find a way to fit it in to your schedule. That is definiately the hardest part of the process. An hour isn’t that long, but when Jane gets home at 6:30-7, and we still need to eat dinner, work out, relax, and do whatever around the house before bed at around 10-10:30 (for me)… it really takes some effort.

Still, we haven’t slacked a single day on it so far. We are both finding muscles that we weren’t entirely sure were there. I am really pushing my weak areas and it feels good. That said, I’ve bene pretty sore in the mornings and have only commuted by bike a few days in the last couple weeks. I am hoping it is just an early trade off for better overall fitness. Time will tell.

I’ll leave you with a pretty solid recipe for a weeknight. It is great by itself or over some rice.

Seared Baby Bok Choy with Tofu & Shitake Mushrooms
via Fine Cooking

• 1/2 lb. extra-firm tofu
• 1/3 cup chicken broth – original calls for low sodium… don’t bother
• 1 small jalapeño, diced
• 2 tsp. Asian sesame oil
• 1 tsp. granulated sugar
• 3 Tbs. canola oil
• 1/2 lb. baby bok choy (about 2), split in half lengthwise
• 1 tsp. kosher salt
• 1-1/2-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and thinly sliced (about 2 Tbs.) - In the future, I’ll probably grate the ginger… the flavor is always too strong when I get a piece of it all at once
• 2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced (about 1 Tbs.)
• 3-1/2 oz. fresh shitake mushrooms, stemmed – I went a little light on shitakes because of the price. I kind of regret on substituting the remainder with crimini or white.