Two behind the dugout

This was a different kind of weekend for me for cycling. For starters, because of family considerations I didn't get to do any rides on the actual weekend. Unfortunately my wife has been away on business and that left me on daddy duty. Regardless of that, I suppose I could have done some riding as my daughter is plenty old enough now to stay on her own, but I chose to spend my time with her instead of on the bike.

There are really two main reasons for that decision. First of all, she'd prefer I stick around when her mom is away and I'm perfectly OK with that. Secondly, cycling being inherently risky, I would prefer that she not be alone at home if I was to, God forbid, get creamed by a car 50 kilometers from home. Now that probably sounds silly to some people, but to be honest, cautious is my middle name. A gambler I am not and chances are you'll never bump into me in Las Vegas.

The view of the Jays-Marlins game on Saturday from behind the "Dugout"...aka the Bullpen.

Instead of riding on the weekend, I took my daughter to a Blue Jays game on Saturday, which is something she's been asking me to do for a little while now. The Florida Marlins were in town for an afternoon game, so we jumped on the subway and headed downtown to the Rogers Centre. On our way to the box office, we of course were accosted by more than one scalper with a handful of tickets to unload, so I figured I try one and see if I could get a deal. At first he offered me up a couple at $60 a piece, but that was way more than I wanted to spend. As soon as I nixed those however, he offered me another pair for $40 a piece in the first row behind the "dugout", even though the face value said $31. He gave me some song and dance about that being the season ticket price and I figured that that was at least pre-tax anyway so $40 was probably about right. I paused for a minute and then offered him $60 for the pair to which he immediately agreed. Transaction completed, we headed inside with me thinking I did a pretty good job of knocking the guy down.

Inside though, it turned out our seats weren't behind the dugout, but behind the bullpen beyond the right field wall. At first I felt a bit burned, but in retrospect he may have said "bullpen" and I just got mixed up. Bullpen...dugout...it's pretty much all the same to me, not being a big baseball fan and all. Still, the seats were pretty good and I could've paid $80 for them instead of $60. And believe me, that extra $20 came in handy when it came to buying a couple of hotdogs and some Cokes. It actually turned out to be a pretty good game (even though the Jays lost again) on a great day for baseball.

I cycle...my daughter ride horses.

Sunday meant taking my daughter to her equestrian lesson up north, so a ride was out of the question for this morning as well. And for the afternoon, some household chores were on the agenda. In addition to missing my regular Sunday ride, I also missed my scheduled Tour de Grand down around Cambridge which I signed up for a number of weeks ago. Unfortunately I signed up for it before I knew my wife's travel schedule, but it was only $15 for a good cause so no big deal there.

The good thing was that I did know my wife's travel schedule early enough to foresee that I wasn't going to get any riding in on the weekend. So my only option was to take advantage of the fantastic weather we had on Friday and blow off work for the afternoon in favour of a ride. Now if you recall, I mentioned in my last post about how I felt my ride last Saturday was my worst ride of the year. What a difference a week makes. This Friday's 83.4 km in just over 3 hours may have been my best of the year. I felt great from start to finish and even had reserves in the tank when I got home that could have carried me another 30-40k easily. I just ran out of time and had to get home. The other great thing about this ride was that just before the corner back onto my street, my odometer clicked over to the 1000k mark for the year. I didn't see that happen last year until sometime in mid-September, so I'm way ahead of schedule for my goal...which now looks to have been set a little low.

Better to aim low and succeed than aim high and fail I guess.