One of those nights where I kept waking up and having trouble getting back to sleep. My body feels creaky and achy, not in the I'm-getting-sick kind of achy, but more like how you feel after a really hard workout. Starting to wonder if the Shaun T HIIT-type workouts are just too intense for this 58-year old body. I do enjoy the workouts and feel they are great cross training. Maybe space them out to every 3 days and add in yoga or pilates? Just thinking here...

It should be another beautiful fall day here in Central Illinois. Will probably get out the road bike and get an easy ride in. My annual flowers are starting to die back, mostly the petunias, so there's some work to be done there.

We're headed over to Fulton County today for some gravel riding, starting from the town of Bernadotte along the Spoon River. Just me and Steve. As much as I love the group we ride with, sometimes it's a real treat to ride with just the two of us. We're typically the organizers and simples rides tend to turn into cat herding.

There's a small cafe where we are having lunch afterwards. It's a Mom/pop kind of place that serves comfort food, which sounds like just the ticket.

My work meeting was dull (as most meetings are) and lasted way too long but holy cow, it was good to see some people face-to-face instead of via Teams or Zoom. We used the large conference room so that we could socially distance ourselves and it worked out just fine.

Will probably get a short ride in today at some point.

Back to 21 Day Fix eating --- I need to get serious about the weight I picked up over the last year. I'd blame it on Covid and the fact that I'm less mobile with working from home but truth is, I've just been sloppy about nutrition and portion size. Broke out the containers yesterday. I'll try to stick to this for a little while and then relax a bit on the measuring, recording etc., and just be sure to cut out the processed crap and be mindful of portion size.

I need to go to the office this morning for a meeting. I'm looking forward to seeing some "real" people. The manager on this project is old school and isn't comfortable using Teams, Zoom, etc.

We got home Sunday evening and unloaded the van but have a fair amount of unpacking to do. The unofficial tour was a resounding success -- there were 12 riders total. Friday evening we ordered pizza and hung out on the back porch of our BNB. The owner of the BNB brought out a bottle of apple cider whiskey and shared it with anyone who chose to partake. I had a sip but am not a whiskey drinker so chose (probably wisely) not to have a shot.

The weather was perfect for riding. We're talking about maybe making this an annual thing. The official ride is typically in early May and with that comes uncertain weather. September seems like a better time.