4 June 2024

Second bike ride – 10 miles

Encouraged by veteran bicyclists (thank you Matt, Michele, Jordan, Dave, Yasser, John, Chris, David, Stephen and many others), went for a slightly longer ride. You will be proud of me that I came close to only one car on the way! Same pace as last time – 11 mph. Heartbeat at 169 bpm peaked at a little over 100% of HRMax.

Some newbie problems… My left shoe is brushing the pedal rod often, I think I am putting too much weight on my wrists and I still can’t stop the way bicyclists do – I stop with my left leg on the ground (and the right on the pedal) like we used to in India!

Category: Biking | LEAVE A COMMENT
2 June 2024

From the bartender’s corner: Cadillac Sidecar

This is a derivative of the original sidecar in that you use Grand Marnier as the oranger liqueur. Now the other ingredient is of course Cognac and Grand Marnier has some Cognac in it. So, a bit of sugar syrup takes the edge off too much cognac-y taste.

Cognac, lemon juice, Grand Marnier and a splash of simple syrup.

I believe the “Cadillac” name comes from Grand Marnier being referred to as “GM” which also stands for General Motors who are the manufacturers of Cadillac cars. A bit corny, if you ask me.

Category: Cocktails | LEAVE A COMMENT
2 June 2024

The joke might have been on me!

My race T-shirt brought out some chuckles. There is nothing on the front. In the back it says “If you can read this, I am not last!”

At first I was enjoying that folks would pull up from behind me and come to the front to say how they found the shirt to be very funny.

It is only much later that I realized I might have inadvertently encouraged them to speed up and leave me in the dust!!

Category: Running | LEAVE A COMMENT
2 June 2024

I had not done a 5K race in a loooong time

As if I got so scared at the prospect of replacing my running miles with biking miles, I went ahead and ran a 5K race this morning. The last time I ran in a race was Sep 2017 !! My normal pace these days is 11:30min/mile. Usually the adrenaline rush of the event, the music, the police escorts, so many runners and so on speeds me up by a minute per mile. I was therefore expecting to post a 10:30 pace.

Surprised myself with a 9:26 min/mile pace. I did not think my body is capable of posting those paces anymore. I am sure it will make the real damage known to me when I wake up tomorrow!!

This will bring some concern from John McGehee – my peak heart rate was 179! (that is nearly 110% of my HR Max at an age of 57!)

Category: Running | LEAVE A COMMENT