The Return

A weekend getaway in a log cabin in the Catskills -- what could be more idyllic?

I'm back in the city after a few days away, extremely stiff and sore from hiking, playing tennis and then sitting for hours in a car.

I tell you what I realized this weekend -- you can ride a bike all you want and spend hours plodding away on an elliptical machine and it will do NOTHING (no thing) to prepare your muscles for the rigors of actually hauling your weight up a mountainside!

It's a pleasant stiffness to have, I gotta say. And the workout I got from my tennis lesson -- my first in 18 months, since I hurt my knee -- is also kinda cool. Reminds me that I still have a whole new fitness level to aspire to.

The lesson was fantastic. It was the first time I have played since losing 70 lbs. I can't express how much easier it was to move, how much lighter and more powerful I felt. I ripped through those balls and was like lightning on the back court.

Ok, I exaggerate. But I had no knee pain, no aching joints, nada after my lesson. Just muscle stiffness the next day, which is to be expected.

Before we go chalking this whole weekend up as a great, unqualified success, however, let me post a few pics of the breakfast we had Sunday morning at the local diner. You'll see what I was up against.

That was the BF's breakfast. They sell these in a "short stack" of three massive pancakes. Nobody could eat all three -- not even The Hulk. We made the mistake of ordering two the first time we ate here and realized we couldn't handle even that. This time the BF just got one -- and he still couldn't get all the way through it.


I had no difficulty powering through my eggs and black beans with sweet sausage and salsa verde on top. Oh, and um..yeah, that pile of homefries you see on the plate there. Yeah. I ate it. All. It was good.

On the upside, neither of us was hungry again until 6pm that night -- and we breakfasted at 8:30am. So that was money well spent.

And we did get in a hike.
I don't know any of these people. They were just hikers on the same trail as us, headed in the same general direction.

More on my trip later. Just wanted to share a few highlights before work consumes me tomorrow. Hope you all are well!