Alright, it’s time for our first Weekend Round-Up.

This is where I’ll talk about the weekend activities, what went well, what didn’t, how races were (if I raced), how events were (if I went) and general thought/insights on being outdoors with family and friends here in beautiful Orange County. Should be humorous, serious, thrilling and disappointing.

Saturday

Saturday was pretty solid, although it started off a bit iffy. I wanted to get a decent bike ride in because my Dad and I are going to ride the Solvang Autumn Double Century in October (we’ll talk more about goal setting/adventures/perspective on Thursdays during Thul’s Corner). The ride is about 200 miles with over 10,000 feet of climbing. (I am relying on youth and pulling the kiddo during training to act as a substitute for volume).

It didn’t start out well, we HAD to watch two episodes of Little Einsteins after breakfast before we could ride. So we didn’t get rolling until almost 10:00 am. It was beautiful out Saturday, sunny and about 75 degrees. We hit the Mountain to Sea Trail (Map) from Irvine down to Newport Backbay.

It was breezy, the trailer behind me made riding out a bit like when drag racers deploy the parachute to stop (I was looking forward to the ride home). Audrey was great, rode like a pro in the trailer, as I rode along I heard “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to the circus! Next up is Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang!” Both are currently fixations at our house.

As we rode the trail we saw ducks, a white egret and great blue herons. There were plenty of people out making use of the trail. Here’s a shot of Audrey in the trailer at the Back Bay.

I apologize for breaking two bike picture commandments, (“Though shalt not lean thy bike at an angle exceeding 10 degrees from upright” and “Though shalt not photograph thy bike on the non-drive side”). I didn’t want to scrape the carbon of my beautiful Fuji SST, but I have no excuse for breaking the second commandment. (For more on the rules of cycling, check out The Velominati.)

We eventually turned around at the Back Bay Science Center, where we had a small snack.

This brought our total ride to about 35 miles by the time we got home.

I was reminded of a couple things:

1. Riding from 10-12:30 kinda sucks. Try to get out earlier.
2. Eating one bar on the ride (90 calories) does not make up for the 2,000 burned! I bonked hard at the end of the ride.
3. There is such a thing as into the wind both ways (wind direction changed halfway through).

Sunday

Sunday was pretty mellow. Knocked out a quick 45 minutes with my neighbor on the bike in the morning. Then the family and some friends spent the next 12 hours wandering around the San Diego Zoo. We had fun, but the traffic was horrible!

Have fun out there!