St Patricks Day

Though I am a bartender by trade, I've been known to frequent both sides of the bar in my day - mostly in college - but being in the restaurant business it just sort of happens.  You've got to check out the competition and sample the goods so you know what's out there.  At least that's how I explained it away.  Wink:)  Now that I'm getting a tiny bit older it's just not as cool or fun as it used to be.  In fact, this past summer my Dr discovered that I have highly elevated liver enzymes and I am on watch for liver disease.  I had a CT Scan and MRI on the little organ and was cleared to wait 6 non drinking non Motrin taking months before the next bloodwork and MRI.  Since I still drank during that time I avoided the follow up in December.  It took a little longer than that to change the lifestyle, especially with the holidays - insert random longwinded excuse here.  About 10 months later I've finally kicked the habit.  Still one glass of red wine a day on some days (I don't want a heart attack, this is simply preventative...) but I'm off of abusing the sauce.  I've cut the dry martinis out of the diet plan, and the last time I got blood drawn at Garcia Weight Loss, my liver was A-Perfecto!  This is all a regression.  What I am here to talk about is that for St Pattys Day this year we skipped the crowded pubs and Irish whisky and opted for some good old fashioned play and exercise.  (I will add a quick note here that I am getting the next round of blood work done from my primary Doc next week so I will be updating afterwards on how the diet and weight loss has affected my liver and cholesterol and overall health). 
This year we went out on the trails!!  We decided to try a new trail and Croom sounded Irish enough for me!  So we set off after a good breakfast of omelettes with low fat jalepeno cheese and last nights chicken, paired with a delicious naval orange, and of course coffee and lots of water.
We filled up and checked the odometer.  Croom Trail was about a 50 mile drive from out house, and so very worth it.  It is a series of loops designated by different colors.  They are different lengths and they have shortcuts marked with green, and bailout points at certain mile markers.  We went to Parking Area #1 and planned to go to bailout point 12 miles on the blue trail.  I ended up being so tired from the climbs and the sand that I was ready to bail at 10 instead.  (the map says the bailouts are 8 and 12, but it has since changed to 10 and 12).  I'm used to doing a good 15 on the Wilderness Park Trail, but this 10 was 15x's more tiring.  Which equates to more awesome! 
                                 At the trail head there were facilities, flowers and fair warnings...

OK so I guess you can't really read the third pic.  It says "Attention you are entering a wildlife management area.  Hunting activity may be near the trail.  For your safety, we recommend trail users wear fluorescent orance.  Firearms and hunting are prohibited on trail".  Well ok then, duley noted.  I was already a little nervous because to get to the trail we took a dirt road that seemed to stretch for miles, which caused me to snap a pic and freak out that I couldn't upload it onto Facebook with the title "Deliverance" because I got no cell reception.  Which caused Brian to poke fun of me saying that I've lost the "country" part of me that I have from growing up in the Adirondack Park in New York.

The blue trail started off with a bang.  Brian fell off  his bike within 10 yards of starting!  (He'll kill me if he reads this, thankfully he'd rather burn his hand than read my blog ;) because he wasn't clipped in enough and didn't realize it starts off a little incline.  Toto, we are not in Tampa anymore.  There are like, actual hills here!  Here's a few shots I got from the trail.

Hmm.  These pics are taken from my phone, and they look great on my phone, but when I send them to email, save them to computer and upload onto Blogger they look like poo.  Any suggestions bloggers?  

We didn't run into many people on the trail (I think they were all at pubs like I would have been 15 years ago...who am I kidding, also 2 years ago...).  We did run into 3 really nice kids at mile 10 who invited us to ride with them to the next bailout, but I was D.U.N.   I had just taken a fall for no reason other than I was too exhausted to stay upright on the bike.  We read on the forums after that the trail is best after a hard rain.  Um, yes.  I can handle a little sand, in fact my quads welcome the workout sometimes, but this sand was like actual glue.  I had to walk through some of it.  Uphill.  In a blizzard.  With now shoes on.  OK, just kidding of course, but I swear I got to the point that if I saw another patch of sand I was going to actually kick and scream.  I want another go at those hills though, it was a wicked trail and I loved it.  The next time it rains and Brian and I are both not working, we are packing up the bikes and heading north yet again. 

Here's some after shots from the day.  If you look close you can see my awesome battle wound (i.e.dirt) on my chin, and here's Brian's much better looking knee.

On the drive home we stopped at another parking lot to the trail and went for a nice little nature walk.  I made Brian hold my hand and we found a cool tree to take my picture on, because, well, I'm a blogger now.  I need pictures :)

That will complete my recap for today. 

Let me go work on the glorious task of painting my floorboards in my house, and I will come back later with some food stuff.  In the meantime, I forgot to mention that Brian and I are now officially paid members of the Swamp Club and are super excited!  We are going to a workshop next week that teaches tips and tricks for MTB beginners.   We are definately more intermediate, but we do want to take the intermediate class and you should know all the beginner stuff already, so what can it hurt?  We are both off from work, it's free, and it will be a good chance to meet some club members.  Plus I'm hoping to score a sticker I can rock on my Corolla :)

Cheers! (holding up my cup of coffee, ggeez, it's only 9am people ;)

*Fun St Pattys Day/Bartender Fact.  Did you know that there are 2 ways to spell whiskey/whisky.  If the brown stuff is to be spelled whisky it was distilled in Scotland, Canada, Wales and Japan, and whiskey is distilled in Ireland and the US?