Christmas Vacation Report

When I was in grade school every time we returned from a major vacation I had to write a paper detailing something that I did during my time off. Well, here’s my “What I Did on Christmas Vacation” report but this time I promise not to include a hand drawn crayon picture at the bottom just to take up space. Come on, you can admit you used that trick too.

This year I took two weeks off during the holidays and since the company I work for shuts down between Christmas Eve and New Years day it only required burning up 3 days of vacation. Not a tough decision.

In the past when I’ve taken this time off I end up sleeping in every day and eating massive quantities of food with the thought that come January I’d start riding again.

This year was different! OK, not about the food or sleeping in part but I did manage to ride A LOT. Here was my typical schedule for the break.

• Wake up (no alarm clocks)
• Have a bowl of cereal which usually started with the word frosted and if I was lucky it also included the word cocoa.
• Ride like a madman on the bike trainer for at least an hour. A couple of times we lengthened our rides to an hour and a half.
• Check on the kids who were now awake and hanging out.
• Take a shower
• Play cards, eat, watch movies, eat, take a nap, eat, repeat…..

Even though I was not a nutritional role model during my vacation I ended up losing a pound over the break. I know, kind of weird. Must have been all of the riding.

Some things I learned while on vacation:

• It’s easy to make cheese cake and even easier to eat mass quantities of it.
• I can make decent bagels (raisin cinnamon, cheese, and jalapeño)
• Jalapeno bagels make great sandwiches
• Avatar was a great movie
• Trainer rides while watching 24 are almost addictive

I’m really happy with my fitness level going into the month of January. I think I’ve talked myself into doing a one day double century (321 km) this summer. I think!