Good Times

M and I swam yesterday, it was such a nice day and very few people occupied the 3 swim lanes . I was able to swim for an hour with a lane all to myself! Later the 3 of us rode our mountain bikes to Cold Stone Creamery about an hour after chowing down on BBQ...delish!!!

I organized a group bike ride for today too! Deb, Emily and Arthur from triclub responded to my suggestion to hook-up for a ride. We met at 8am in front of the Y and we headed over to Redwood, the ride I had done a couple weeks back....it was a first for the rest of the group and everyone seem to be enjoying themselves. We met a rather large riding group, The Velo Raptors and they were super friendly and we all sort've merged and interacted. We gave the leader our individual e-mails and now will get the 411 on their riding schedule.

We parted ways at Grizzly Peak, our little group continued onto Redwood, then Arthur took over and led us down Pinehurst. The decent was steep and we all rode our breaks, eventually it leveled out and we found ourselves in a beautiful canopied canyon that wound it's way towards Moraga. The place felt familiar and as we rode past the Post Office....Yes, a post office in the middle of seemingly nowhere.....I remembered riding here a looooong time ago back in my early 20's from the Moraga direction when I lived in Concord.

We continued onto Moraga where signs of life became more abundant and kept going to Orinda. By this time we had already covered 20 or so miles at a leisurely pace with a few stops. After a quick water break, we headed onward towards Tilden via San Pablo Dam Rd. This was to be the toughest leg of the trip. If you've ever entered Tilden from the Orinda side, you know it's one steep ass climb and by 10:45 am it was HOT. Taking it slow we worked our way up the backside of Tilden, Deb sprinted ahead, Emily and I stayed close with me drafting off her first. I then switched to give her chance to draft, I turned around to say something and she was out of sight. Shortly afterwards, Arthur was at my side and said Emily pulled over for a break and then he was passing me, hot on Deb's tail. I held my pace and focused on riding straight vs fast. I was in the right gears and with exception of few not-so-smooth gear shifts I was having a decent no really decent ride.

We all met up at Inspiration Point and reveled in a victory lap around the parking lot! LOL!! Deb apperared to be suffering from a bit of heat exhaustion. Emily offered fluids, Arthur dumped more water on her head and I gave her a neck rub. She need abit of time to recover, poor thing she's a kick ass rider....but has no granny gear which forces her to maintain a faster speed or she falls over on the hills! Once Deb was good, Emily had to leave, so the remaining 3 of us lingered a little longer until Debs lightheadedness went away. From IP it was pretty much all downhill except for a little hill just before you get to the Brazilian Room. Arthur had us pull over there to get more water, he said it's his favorite place to crash weddings!
As we were leaving a man with what appeared to be a comatose toddler on the back of his bike, needed a tire pump....Once again Arthur to the rescue . I took Deb over to a shady spot and we waited while Arthur assisted the dad & tyke. BTW the little kid did perk up after awhile and looked ok. From this point on it was either flat or down hill, a nice reward after the hard climb.

So, I didn't get a long run in this weekend but I spent time with family and friends doing active stuff . That's major progress folks! Hmmm, maybe I have a future in event planning!