Partying, bike riding, you know how we do

This weekend we went to my brother's in-law's house on Heritage Lake in Putnam county for a 2yr birthday bash for our niece, Ramona. It's always a fun time at their place and this time was no exception because Ramona was in full party mode.  

 We had a great day and a lot of fun. We had various types of tacos from a home-made make your own taco bar and of course the above pictured cake which was rainbow colored inside. Killer.
This week I continued on with core strength routine and got some good riding in as well. I'm still off intervals, but I did a good hard gravel ride Tuesday which included the McGowan hill which I've mentioned in the past. I made it up it once more making me 3/3. I'm getting pretty confident about it now, but I don't want to get cocky, because I feel that there is no guarantee that I will make it up that hill (riding) on any given day. it's hard.
I also went out and did some MTB riding Wednesday. I just went and busted out some laps at Wapahani park here in town. By the time Thursday came I hadn't ridden the road bike all week (or since the previous Friday actually). I've been taking a new guy out on Thursdays and showing him some routes. It's a good way for me to do an endurance ride and a good way for him to learn more routes and it gives someone to ride with. So we went out and did a route w/ Shilo Rd, which is one of my favorite roads for climbing around here. We did a fairly climb heavy 30-35miles. Pretty good ride.
Sunday I wanted to get a longer ride in but couldn't really decide what route. I used to ride over to Spencer fairly regularly, but I haven't for a couple years. It's a nice rolling ~2hrs straight over and back, but you can add some stuff onto the end to make it longer, which I did.    

I always thought the giant chicken at the park in Spencer was funny. I was glad to see it was still there. I haven't done this ride since I've had a "smart phone," so I was able to get a pic of it.

Though I got rained on and stung by something (that I think was bigger than your run-of-the-mill bee), I still had a good ride. I wanted 3hrs and got just under that. Good day. 

 I'm going to start introducing some intervals this week. Nothing crazy, just some stuff to get back into the swing of it. 

Our old computer started loosing drivers last week so I decided to pull the band aid and gt a new one. I'm not opposed to new stuff, but the old computer has years of data on it that has to be dealt with. Some of it won't transfer over. I have used Polar's training software for over 10yrs and have all of that data on that machine. I knew it wouldn't transfer over, and that's why I've been hesitant to replace the old machine. But I knew it was going to happen sometime (the old PC is from 2001!), so I just did it and cut my losses. I'm going to switch to Training Peaks to store my data now so it's online and not tethered to a machine. I've used TP before when I had a coach, so I'm somewhat familiar w/ it. So far it seems to be working out pretty well. I'm still working on getting some other things switched over (pictures, music, etc) but it's going pretty smoothly. I just knew it was time...attitude is (pretty much) everything.   

Finally, I think I am going to have my first exp w/ acupuncture this week. My back/hips have been bothering me badly for a few weeks now (and bothering me in general for years), but I think I need to do something more than my normal stretching routine and the strength routine I've been at for a few weeks. I have heard good things about acupuncture and I have a friend who does it, so I'm going to give it a go. Hopefully it helps.