At least it ended well

Last week was an off week.  No, not a rest week.  It was week where pretty much everything seemed 'off.' A bad case of the blahs.

Run....blah.  Bike....blah.   Swim.....triple blah.  At least once I got moving the run and the bike were ok.  But I had serious bad swim attitude last week.  It was a struggle to get my arse into the pool and a struggle to keep it there for an entire work out.  Yes, I managed, but it was not pretty.

Somehow I made it to the weekend and the last workout of the week.  I had asked Coach for a trainer workout because the (lame, stupid, incompetent) weatherman had been predicting rain for the weekend.  Saturday dawned, while maybe not sunny, at least it wasn't raining.  So instead of hopping on the trainer,  T and I packed up our bikes and headed to Sunnyvale to ride.  We started out at Sports Basement, where they were having tri-fest later in the day, and where I was due to be dunked at 2:00.  We left ourselves plenty of time to get our ride in and get back for some shopping.  Or so we thought.  Stupid mapmyride anyway.  We were following the route sheet pretty well when we pulled up behind a couple of guys on bikes at a stop light.  T and I were talking about the route and one of the guys starts asking us where we're riding, are we with a group, yada yada.  Before we know it he says something like, "We can show you that route", and basically escorted us through the first half of the ride.  Of course, these guys looked like they were barely pedaling while I'm back there pushing my legs to spin, spin, spin.  At one point, T tells the guy that we don't want to hold them up, or mess up their ride.  His response.....he's recovering from the flu so no worries.  Great, I can't even keep up with a guy with the flu!  Oy.  Anyway, we get to the point where we should have been heading back towards the car, but *somehow* we were quite far from the car.  We decide we need to take the most direct route back, and between the guy's directions and my iPhone we do eventually make it back.  But not before spending a considerable amount of time riding on a 3 lane (in each direction) road with no bike lane.  Exciting, no?  Nothing like a few near death experiences to get the pulse racing.  Okay, so there wasn't anything *that* dramatic, but I definitely wanted off that road.  We eventually made it back with about 20 minutes to spare.  Did a little tri-festing and made sure to enter the raffle.  I hope we win something good.

I presto-chango'd into my swim suit at the dunk van and hopped into the tub.  For those not familiar with this form of fat test, you're basically laying in a tub of warm water.  The tub has a scale suspended over it, with a rack you rest your feet and hands on.  As you blow out *all* the air in your lungs, and you have to get it *all* out for an accurate test, you sink into the water held up only by the scale. The more fat, the more you float.  So sinking is good.....at least in this case.  My last test was in May 2009, and after all the measurements were complete my stats were:  down 8.6 pounds (6.3# of fat, 2.3# of lean mass), and body fat is down 3.6%.  While I'm not thrilled with losing that much lean mass, I was told it's pretty difficult to lose that amount of weight without losing at least some lean.  At least it was mostly fat loss, so all in all *great* results. Or "excellent" according to the range of body fat for my age.  Why, yes, I am quite pleased with myself, thankyouverymuch.

After the dunk test (and a bit of shopping), it was home to shower up, get my 'volunteer hat' on and head into the city.  Jeff and I were volunteering at Camp Okizu's Art Inspires Hope again this year. While it seemed like turnout was a bit lower this year, and there wasn't a big name entertainer, it was still a great night for a great cause.  It always amazes me how generous some of the attendees are. Yes, I'm sure they can afford it, but it's still heart warming.

Sunday was rest day (thankyouthankyou) and I decided to try out a new cupcake recipe.  Dark chocolate cupcake with Irish cream filling and a vanilla buttercream frosting.  Due to an impatient chef, the frosting didn't set up properly and I ended up turning it into a glaze.  And I overfilled the cupcakes and the tops were too heavy.  So, it needs a little refinement before it makes a general public debut, but I've promised some work folks that I'll have a rematch and make some that are suitable for viewing.

I did pawn a couple off on T, and one on our trainer, since even if not pretty they still taste good.   Yes, I brought cupcakes to the gym this morning.  What?  Is there something wrong with that?  What's even funnier is that T brought the trainer a cookie today too. Funnier still is the threat the trainer hurled at us as we were walking out today, "You better bring me another cupcake and another cookie next week or else you're doing more push ups."   We've decided we should oblige her and fatten her up.  The plot is hatched.