Riding and Ribs

While not quite as entertaining as this story, I do feel it necessary to talk about both riding and ribs.

First of all, I have had the chance to get back on Roxanne for the past 2 Saturdays. I have gone for quick 20 mile rides and have had so much fun. I take a great route the takes me around Allerton Park, and most of the time it's like you are not even in central Illinois. There are trees, hills, and the occasional pond. The whole time I am on the ride I have about 1500 acres of forest on my right hand side. And just like always you never know what you are going to see in the way of wildlife. My first ride back I was cruising down the road, and had come up on a stretch of downhill. I decided to push it just a little and was cranking pretty hard when I came around a curve and right there in the middle of the road was a mother deer nursing her 2 babies. When I did come around the corner, I don't think either mom or I was prepared for it. We caught eyes and I hit the brakes; she took off into the woods. And for a moment the youngins were left wondering where breakfast had just run off to. Then they saw me as well and they ran off too. It was pretty cool to see and I know that this was not the busiest road in the world, but it still seemed like a strange place to be breastfeeding.

On the second ride, I had just finished a tough climb up a hill from a creek bed and was catching my breath when I looked up and saw a bunch of "things" on the side of the road. As I got closer I saw they were birds and I initially thought it was a gang of turkey vultures. No relation to an actual turkey, but they have the same coloring on their heads, and they are everywhere at Allerton. But when I got closer, (and I had to get real close to tell the difference) I realized that it was a family of wild turkey hens. No toms, but I had never seen so many wild turkeys in one area; there must have been ten of them strolling through a little grove on the side of the road. they seemed very disinterested in me, but they certainly were not frightened either. I guess I thought turkeys were more jumpy.

It is certainly cool to see so much wildlife on these rides again.

The second part of this post is far more serious. It's about ribs. Now I know that I said I was going to be more disciplined about my diet, but I had to make a trip back to Galesburg for a visitation. And I had the good fortune of having time to stop by my favorite bbq rib place in the whole world, the Bar B-Q Rib Shack. Now, when one is faced with this kind of opportunity, discipline flies out the window. Especially, when one is the first person in the dining room like I was, and the good people there provide with a free, heaping pile of onion rings. the order of o-rings is so big that I shared with 4 other tables in the restaurant, plus I didn't want to fill up on rings when I still had the main course. I ordered a regular order of ribs, add spicy sauce, with beans, slaw, and fries. It was amazing; everything I remember them to be. I would put the rib shack up against any ribs in the nation (trust me I lived in North Carolina; I know these are fighting words). It was simply an amazing experience.

What does any of this have to do with fitness? If I had been running the half marathon this weekend, there is no way ribs would have fit into the program, and I would have been missing out. I don't have any guilt. I know that in a couple of days the pounds from that decadent meal will be gone, and I still had the joy of the experience. Simply, I am glad that I made the decision to step back, enjoy my fitness more, and not take things quite so seriously. Bon Appetit!