July 12: I’m not a knucklehead all the time! Yea, today, what with having gotten in like 2x my main set time on the day’s ride yesterday, I decided to go easy today and just do a nice hike in the valley with Pepper. And heck, today is the two month mark since surgery, and hiking gives me much opportunity to reflect on life. So we went down the Kendal Lake and did the X-country ski trail loop with the out-and-back add-on that goes to Buckeye Sports. Did a really brisk pace especially going up that first little kicker to get above the lake and up near the old toboggan run - and just felt great.

Only hassle today was the heat and humidity and deer flies and gnats. My T-shirt was just soaked about half way in and I had to stop a couple times to give Pepper some water and food. Even she was panting like heck at times. We ended up with about 1:40 hrs of hiking. Right from the get go today I noticed a huge difference in my conditioning while hiking now compared to several weeks ago. Had to be the past three weeks of cycling with the higher HR’s than I was doing back in the walking/hiking stage of rehab. 

Man, I’m getting pretty antsy to get going with the upper body stuff. I mean I look in the mirror after a shower and see my upper torso just atrophying to beat the band. One more week and it’s game on in that arena. I think once I get that facet of fitness going I’ll feel I’m on much more of an even keel. 

Continuing with the “heart healthy” cooking, and unfortunately my pop is an unwilling participant of some of this. Like for instance this eve I cooked this Indian dish, a red curry recipe with tons of good veggies and some tofu. Yea, I’m eating tofu! So I made sure to cook some marinated chicken drum sticks for pop just in case the tofu thing didn’t go over so well. He really didn’t know what to think of the tofu, especially when I told him it’s made with bean curd. That’s when he started stripping chicken off the bone and mixing it with the dish. 

Also on the “heart healthy” front, I’m going to begin using humus, making my own, instead of slathering on mayo on sandwiches and such as I used to do. God did I love mayo on sandwiches and burgers. Been eating a lot of veggie sandwiches with avocado as a kind of mayo base, so I ran into this article talking about what to use on sandwiches as a substitute for mayo - bingo…humus spreads. So I’m soaking some chickpeas tonight, boiling them tomorrow and making this spicy thai pepper humus spread. 

My deserts as of late, courtesy of Judy, are these fruit and/or berry & nut concoctions where you mix in vanilla Greek yogurt with blueberries or anything really, and walnuts or almonds. Actually turned pop onto this one and he liked it. Drinking red wine on the weekends, 1-3 glasses, and going way light on the beer - practically none. Wow, the surprises just keep coming. 

Well, not much else to report on the rehab front today.