In spite of hip joint pain from hiking ...

Yesterday my body condition was unbelievable.  I huffed and puffed all the time more than my husband, and had small back pain at half way.  I was so ashamed of myself. 

This morning we both were wrapped over with fatigue, even sleeping couldn't resolve it.

But in the last minutes of afternoon we went out for bicycling, it was just a very short ride.  Hip joints are still in pain, but I felt good, for some reason my legs were stronger for pedaling.

Well, tomorrow will be another walk day for me or us. 😟

New plan-Hiking Day

I felt that we are getting weak physically by aging.  And we need to walk more weekly.  So I decided to walk or hike on Monday, and sure to hike on Saturday.

Today we went to Sonoma Valley Regional Park for hiking.  We did revenge hike on Couger Trail all the way to Glen Ellen which we, mainly because of me, couldn't do on March 3rd.

We started the same steep slope, we found many acorns on the ground!

I put GoPro, bike camera on the strap of my shoulder bag, so the picture was showing like this.

I still had a hard time to walk up the steep slope all by myself, and regret not to bring my hiking stick.  But I got a good idea.

 
This is still enjoyable for me anyway.
But on down slope I prefer going by myself.  So he got free.

We reached to Glen Ellen and picked up some food and drink at Glen Ellen Grocery.  And we headed back, but we took Valley of the Moon Trail which was not easy for us to get in, because the trail looked very different from biking in past.

Anyway we came back after finishing a 3.3 mile hike.  Those were very nice trails to hike for us, even though some steep down slopes on the Couger Trail towards Glen Ellen have loose rocks, so we had to be careful not to fall.  

 
 

September Biking was finished with twilight moon

Good 4 days gardening made me busy, but we pushed ourselves onto the pedals at the last minute before dark.  

We planted vegetables for winter, and separated jammed green onions.   Leftover baby Patty pan were cooked in soup, that was delicious.

No more excuse for not riding, no matter that I got tired from gardening, I will bicycle!

Napa Valley Vine Trail

Finally I found the trail on which we don't need to worry about speedy cars too much for our bicycling; we drove up to Napa yesterday.   When we left our home, the temperature was going up higher and higher.  But the trail riding was quite comfortable with pretty strong wind blowing.

We started biking from Park and Ride at Redwood Ave, the vine trail is just over there.

 We started riding here towards Yountville.

The Napa Valley Vine Trail from here to Yountville has interesting parts.
Nice straight part.

  
Curvy and bumpy part.

Quite a narrow bridge for me, but it was OK yesterday because no opposite direction cyclist came.)

Double bridge, we love them.

Beautiful single bridge.

But the trail was cut by local roads here and there, so you have to watch out. Luckily an experienced looking cyclist came after us, and we could just follow him at the first crossing road.

Gradually we got used to it.

There is a long crossing.

 There is a nice bench and an outhouse.  "Honey! I need to stop here!"

 This is the Yountville fire station.  Our goal will come soon.

Yes, we reached it.  There is a parking lot. 

 And we U-turned to go back.  (Next time we will figure out how to go farther to get some yummy food. )

 Two cyclists passed us, so I enjoyed following for a while.  They were fast.

 We haven't ridden more than 10 miles for a long time, so we were pleased.


Next day today we noticed our fatigue in the morning.  We will take it easy tomorrow.  And will have another fun ride soon.

Walking in autum

Cutting off the chains of crazy gardening madness for myself, I walked this morning with my friend.

It was really fall, I found a lot of acorns on the ground.

I want to have a bike trip, but just couldn't decide...
Maybe tomorrow..

It's cool!

The temperature at 7 AM today was 51 F, a little chilly.  But it's just right for me to bicycle.  I felt like singing to ride.

Hope it will continue this temperature. 

Yesterday we were both worn out, so we skipped riding.  And did gardening all day.  

My husband's vegetable garden is almost going to finish.

It's just the right time to finish, because we ate a lot of these patty pans this year.

Merciful cloudy and cool day

Finally that evil hot heat has gone.  We got a nice and cooling day today.
But my pedaling was very heavy, actually my body got extremely heavy and my legs and ankles had a hard time today.  Four days with no ride gave me quite an impact.  Shouldn't complain, because I still can ride.  A little bit.

New strategy didn't work when..

We had a hot night all the way 'till almost midnight, that made me crazy with interrupted sleep.
Then we waited too long to cool off at night, unfortunately we stayed too late, which sent us back to our old habit. 
We can't get enough energy to ride, so we just did gardening which is not easy either.  Pathetic.... agrrrrrr..

At least the roses seem happier, and raggedy looking Gazania were gone so I felt better.  And at least I sweated some from the work.  Exhausting.....

Hot, steamy, hot, steamy, hot, hot....  😞😬😒

Only the Vole in our garden is extremely energetic, persistently using the same hole and going and back no matter how I destroyed it by filling it back.

Avoid getting sick from the weird weather

The strange severe migraine has attacked me for 5 days.  And I learned that I need to sweat when it's hot.  If I avoid it too much, I will get sick.  But I can't go out in severe hot temperature either.

So finally we, night owls had to change our life style completely.  

We get up between 6 am and 7:30 am, and try bicycling in cool air.

But we got stressed out during the day time, we gained a lot of weight.  Now especially I have to be on a diet under such difficult conditions right now. 

At least I tried to sweat some during the day, after meals.

When the temperature hits about 90 F, I just can't go out.  Since the heat caused my migraine last time, I got scared. 

We just cut the distance for riding bicycle.
And changed the pillow direction, it helped us for better sleeping.

Roses in our garden are tougher than us.

I was going to ride today, but...

After walking a coupe of miles with my friend yesterday morning, my heating head, headache, and stiffness of my neck and shoulder got really worse.
The continuous hot days really made me tired.  He doesn't have any headache but he has been tired too.

Today my head has been pounding with sharp pain since this morning again; I had nothing to do just ate a little and slept.

I might have caught a cold, in this hot weather??!!  Anyway it is very uncomfortable.

Maybe I did too many activities, I'm not sure...

Concentration before bed

Maybe because the next morning's bicycling image got strongly into my brain, I woke up more than an hour before the time I planned and just couldn't go back to sleep any more.

So I decided to bake coffee cake which is our favorite, but I haven't baked for a long time, because that is a little too much work.  So I changed to an easier way to bake the cake.   

Because of the smell from baking or noise of the stand mixer, he got up quicker than usual.  But he found it was drizzling quite a bit, so we waited for a while.  Meanwhile the cake was baked.

It was a chilly morning, but we dressed thicker than usual and went biking without eating the cake, just a glass of tomato juice. 

The air was too full of moisture;  I had a hard time to breath.  

I carefully rode without bending neck too much and stretching my neck from time to time, and tried not to grip the handle too tightly.  That is all my way of preventing pain in neck, shoulder and small back.

And after riding I did stretch for 30 min. which seemed to work very well; not too much stiffness and pain in my legs which I was always suffering.  I should repeat before going to bed.

Oh, my! We ate that much in a day all by ourselves!??

In spite of yesterday's nap..

I slept as if dead until this morning so it was late to ride and come back.  Because I had a commitment this morning.
And by afternoon I was sleepy again, the hot temperature made me.  Somehow I'm very tired today.  Wonder if I got sick, no, don't think so.

Should go to bed early,  because I will ride in the morning. 😣

My friend brought this music to play together today.  I liked the simple and calm sounds.

La Foi  by Georg Goltermann

After all we need time more than speed.

And we need more time for engine warm up.
So we decided to avoid any heated up day time riding.  We have to get up early as regular people, so we can ride in cool and fresh air in the morning.
And we try to remember to ride very casually while chatting with each other for a while longer than before.  And gradually speed up, just once sprint for a short distance, and go back to our comfortable speed zone.

I still can't ride long enough to reach one hour riding, but I'm getting close to it.  

After one day off yesterday, we slept for 9 hours accidentally, we felt so good.  We enjoyed riding for a while, but it was a late start today, and the temperature went up soon.  We gave up and came back.  If we started earlier as usual, we might have ridden for 8 or even 9 miles.

OK. next time.

 

Finally no more...

Whole body got aches, have no idea why?  Anyway we couldn't keep up any more, so we just enjoyed seeing the flowers and vegetables in our garden this morning.  And had a deep and long afternoon nap unexpectedly.  I must have been tired so much.

When I checked the record of my bicycling, I have ridden for 8 days everyday since the 4th of August.  I didn't push myself too hard, so I thought that I could do it as daily routine.  But my body said, nooooo..  ???

No other way to live without listening to our own body.  But even after having a nap I still feel tired.  I feel old suddenly.

Well, let's have something to drink, and I will see what I can do next.

Slept too much ...

Somehow I couldn't get up usual time in the morning.  I missed to walk with my friend 😞and while I was solo walking, the app didn't work today.😒

We rode bicycles in the late afternoon. Because the temperature was hot😓, then the strong wind was blowing against us, it was a very uncomfortable ride😵.  In addition my cyclometer was not working after all.

We need to get up early morning tomorrow. 😠

Wish I can continue...

We excused ourselves for two days riding because of the hot weather, I got really ashamed of myself.  I started early morning bicycling yesterday, accompanying with rising sun light.  That was extremely comfortable.  The air was not hot yet, and the road was almost empty.

And making salad in the morning, and eating for lunch and dinner cooled off our body.

Today I got up an hour later than yesterday, but it was still comfortable to ride in the morning. 

Some reason the body wouldn't get as tired as later time riding which is much hotter.  Because we decided to ride solo with each one's comfortable speed, maybe?

I should go to bed soon to continue this good ride. 

 

Walking made me tired, but..

When we biked 5.8 miles and just after that walked 2.5 miles on last Friday, we felt happy to have done something that was a new challenge.  But the next day we were totally in pain and stayed at home all day.

So today we walked first and drank water, ate a boiled egg, then biked.  
We barely could pedal at the beginning after 2.2 miles walk, so later we had some sprints for short distances to make up the average speed.  Biked 5.7 miles, aver. 8.1mph.  It came out slower than Friday, 5.8 miles, aver. 8.7mph.
We both got really tired, even though we did it in the morning.

After we took a half hour nap, we felt better.  The pain is still with me though.
At least we might survive another heat wave a little easier this afternoon.

I hope I will find a better way or right way to walk, so I might be able to reduce pain afterwards. 😒

Hard to utilize new app

I thought that I did the same way as last time to turn it on, but there was no record!
Gosh, in spite of the long walking more than usual with my friend, no record to check afterwards.😖😂😒


At least I could take a nice blackberries photo.😍


I should walk again on the same route tomorrow.😠

Might continue with this app.

I've been thinking that we, especially me, need to walk more than bike.  But I love the speed and feeling way better for pedaling than footing.  Walking with my friend has been a great help.  I need to encourage myself to walk more.  And he found the app for walking for me!

Just after riding bicycle 5.8 miles, we went out for walking with this app.

I hope I can continue this new habit.  Afterwards we ate and had to take a nap.  My body was desperate for sleep.😉 

Half Moon Bay Coastside Trail

To escape from another heat wave, we left in the morning for Half Moon Bay today.  
When we reached Venice Beach, it was foggy on the sea, on the hills.  We put thin jackets on.

From the parking lot we rode to the South first, and the trail was a very nice beginning so we had fun.
Then a challenging bumpy trail started, but I rode well for a while, 

and I got tired and gave up. 

We turned around and faced to the North. 

Going North was up slope, especially after passing Venice Beach.
We enjoyed all kinds of scenery along the trail.

We ate fish dishes at the Sushi Main Street for our lunch afterwards, which was tasty.  We walked on the street and bought fish and vegetable Sandwich at Fish 'n' Frites for our dinner. And picked some sweets at Moonside Bakery And Cafe.

And we came back happily.

My butt hurts, my hip joints hurt, and my small back hurts now.

Ho-o-o-t!!!!

We had nice weather a couple of days last week, then hot weather came back!
Last 4th of July he managed to bake pizza in the morning, and we bicycled for a while. 

 
And had a humble celebration with the special napkins which our friend gave us long time ago.

Since then we haven't had any exercise for two days; this morning when I just tried to hold my chin with my hand, my wrist snapped and hurt awfully.  I was frightened.  At almost the same time his shoulder snapped and hurt him.  OK.  We need to ride!
Once we started riding bicycles, we felt so good.  50 minutes later the temperature got up so much and the heat from the road really stung us, so we gave up and went back home.

It hit more than 100° F today.  Utilizing this heat I started drying our garden oranges in the cage from yesterday. 

It worked out very well.

Now it finally came down lower than 90F.  All orange slices must have been dried well.

New idea, new challenge?!

In spite of several left over pains from yesterday's gardening work, I walked 2.5 miles with my friend who kindly stopped patiently a couple of times for me.  

Then, in comfortable late afternoon I bicycled with him, because I really wanted to try 90 cadence with metronome on smart phone.  That was fun at beginning, but I noticed that speed is impossible for me and for him either.  So we changed to 80 cadence, even that was not easy, but we went through and back.

I think I found it fun to keep trying.  😁😍

Finished our DIY together era

Unfortunately I accidentally hurt my right thumb and wrist by using a big brush painting primer on our deck.  In spite of icing and taping, the pain is left in the bottom of my right thumb.
Luckily my husband recovered from his wrist swollen with pain within two days, and he started painting again all by himself, but he was careful, so he worked little by little.  Now he finished 2/3 of real paint painting job.

Meanwhile I tried cooking, gardening, and vaccuming.  Every domestic job hurt me, but I got more careful and took more rest between chores.  Luckily we managed to ride bicycles together even on the hottest day.

Finally the nasty heat wave seems to have passed away.
 

Yesterday, today, we have worked ...

Deck rails, boards and pergola posts....  We decided to fix and paint by DIY again.  That was under estimated.  We lost at least 1/3 or even half energy of the energy we had three years ago.

It was hot.  sweat, sweat, sweat....

I was going to ride yesterday and made a plan, but when I saw our deck rails I changed my mind.  

Chore is not fun, but at least I can get peace in my mind when we finish.

We should do minimum job, the most necessary thing only....

I missed riding very much today.

I got one idea to keep us riding.

I thought two things together might work to enhance my excitement.  Choose a place to ride towards, and take some pictures for my future paintings.
We haven't ridden local places so much, this might be a good time to do that.  
Or maybe in Fall this year.

When the weather is hot, I might want to go to the beach or ocean, or lake. 

Anyway I just want to take off too much tension to ride more distance or hours.  I just want to ride a little,  paint some, and play music.

We haven't worked in our garden for a while, the weeds popped up everywhere and roses got looking ugly so that we had to work quite a bit today.  My right knee hurts and my back too. 😞 But our work got a good result, so I should be happy, yes, I am.😉

Our Statice over grew, so I cut.  I wonder if anybody wants it?

 

We lost the passion.

The passion to ride together different places as many as we can.  Recently we are passion-less about everything, except eating and sleeping maybe.
Because any activity made us tired so that we are discouraged to do anything which needs our energy.

I have to think about something new, or find some new way to think.  

Give us energy and passion!

So far so good the Ice cream BF

My stomach has never bulged out after meals.  Finally the habit faded away.  I still need to shave off the extra fat here and there from my body somehow.
The weight slightly went down, but it's not big change yet.  So I can't be pleased yet.
But pedaling was a little easier than before.

Recent Breakfast:  Found low sodium vegetable juice!  I take 8 fl.oz of this juice.

 Plus two oranges from our garden squeezed to mix together.

And finish with small cup of coffee and 2 oz vanilla ice cream.

I've never thought that ice cream would be a meal, but I'm full enough and I can work to finish my morning chores.