Everyone Loves a Montage!

If I hadn't gotten sidetracked by food and beer I should be below 210 right now.

Last week my visiting buddy and rode close to 150 miles over a two day stretch and somehow I woke up heavier this morning. This montage might explain why...

Maybe an 83 mile ride shouldn't end at a deli

where sandwiches like these are on the menu.

Then there was the beer.

And the pie.

Good Times.

The Carol C. Special...

what's left of it anyway.

Have a buddy in town for the week and long story short, a person hasn't lived until they've dined at Roscoe's Chicken 'n Waffles.

Good thing the next two days have rides of 80+ miles on the agenda.

Waking up to Cupcakes...

Yeah, um, yeah, I really don't know what to say. Been a little distracted by frosting the moment I opened my eyes yesterday.

There's still a few of these homemade goodies kicking around the house. Maybe tonight I'll go on a cupcake bender so that I can start the weekend off with a junk food free household.

I wonder what (insert your favorite fitness guru here) would think of that plan.

It's pretty much the same thing I do when I buy a carton of ice cream. By some rather bizarre logic, to me it makes more sense to simply eat the whole thing at once just to get it out of the way rather than spreading out high caloric goodness over several days.

Taste the Rainbow

Sniff. Sad. And I did so good yesterday too.

Well almost.

Aside from the slice of artichoke and mystery meat pizza I had for breakfast, lunch and dinner consisted of a salad and a smoothie (an actual one with real fruit, not Jamba Juice).

But then I had to meet up with a friend and have a second dinner of a few pints of Guinness and a bag of Skittles.

And before you ask, no, I did not defile the Guinness by making Skittlebrau.

Baptismo del Fuego

(Back on the case like Charles Bronson.)

Had a pretty good little Saturday yesterday. Woke up before the crack of dawn to do the Montrose Ride with some friends. Last time I did any sort of "fast" group ride was back in November and since my December-mid January base training consisted of an extended stint on the Semi Pro Eating Circuit, the ride was definitely a wake up call to slide into a group of 200 riders,

Snapped this pic leaving a stoplight. I might be stupid but I'm not stupid enough to try taking a photo at speed in a paceline.

For two solid hours my lungs and legs were screaming "Ow quit it!" over and over and over again which is certainly not the mantra you want stuck in your head while in a 33mph paceline.

When it was all said in done, I got dropped on the final climb as usual but more importantly I was able to pull a nice impression of Lando Calrissian at the end of Return of the Jedi out of my ass.

Instead of narrowly escaping an exploding Death Star, I narrowly escaped a huge pile up when a random water bottle bounced out on a rough road. (Gotta love those carbon bottle cages!)

Just how close was I to the carnage? Close enough to get kicked in the thigh when the guy next to me was flying over the bars.

You know, now that I think about it, it wasn't my lack of fitness or portly weight that got me dropped on that final climb, it was the Charley Horse I got from other people crashing.

Yeah that's it.

In honor of Groundhog Day...

I've decided to repeat last week this week. Maybe things will change if I take up piano lessons, ice sculpting and buy some newlyweds tickets to Wrestlemania.

Got a couple of good rides planned for the weekend so maybe by this Monday I'll be where I should have been last Monday.

Back to Square 216...

Two days off the diet wagon and look what happens. It could have been worse though. Much worse. My girlfriend took her new crock pot for a test drive by making half a pig's worth of pulled pork last night.

Even though it smelled delicious and wasn't going to eat itself, I had to say no to the pulled pork and get back on track.

And if that didn't make matters worse enough, I had to go ahead and watch this video. Plans for the weekend included a lot of riding but now there's a little junk food devil on my shoulder telling me to take a road trip to see the Col-Pop in person.

Does this look anything like the montster from Cloverfield?

I wouldn't know because I have no interest in ever seeing a monster movie made with a shaky handi-cam.

If in fact it does look like the monster that decapitated the Statue of Liberty, then lucky me I'll feel even worse about what I did last night. A friend was in town for a signing of his latest book and being that is was a sports themed book there was an after party at a sports bar where dinner meant an order of 20 hot wings and a light and healthy dish called "The Heart Attack" which is pictured above.

And it's because of this heart attack I'll be spending the afternoon on the bike and licking the sweat off my face for lunch.

It's all Jack's fault...

Didn't have the heart to step on the scale today after eating a Ciabatta Breakfast Sandwich combo from Jack in the Box this morning.

On the bright side, I did wake up before the crack of dawn to do a sprint workout with some chums and broke 1100 watts for the first time.

Beef Jerky on my Pillow...

That's more like it.

This past weekend started with breakfast brownies and ended with the terrific news that the Beef Jerky Fairy paid a visit and left me a treat.

My favorite kind too. That Beef Jerky Fairy must trade secrets with Santa Claus.

In between was a nice 55 mile ride on Saturday.

Forgot to step on the scale this morning...

What can I say? I was distracted by this fresh plate of breakfast brownies my girlfriend woke my up with.

My big project for the weekend might just involve inventing an alarm clock that doesn't buzz, beep and/or squawk, but oozes smells cause waking up to the smell of brownies in the oven was much more enjoyable.