Holiday Riding and Eating

Monday being a holiday (Labor Day), there was a small group ride on the levee in the morning, meeting a bit later than we would for a work day, and riding the entire bike path. As usual, the only way to find out about this particular ride was to be around at the end of Sunday's Giro ride, so I'm sure only a few people knew about it. After last weekend's two rather fast Giro rides, I was ready for an easy ride, and things started out that way, which was nice. Eventually, though, the pace got up pretty fast and things kind of came apart on the way back, due in no small part to the unusually strong wind. As the four or five survivors and I were about to finish, I spotted The Wife heading out on her mountain bike, so after we cooled down, I turned around and rode back out to meet her so we could ride back together. By the time we got home I was pretty hungry, even though, with the Orlando Krewe in town we have been eating and drinking practically nonstop for two days.

Meanwhile, the real(tm) bike racers were up in Atlanta for the World Children's Center U.S. 100 K, where Eric Murphy finished with George Hincapie, taking 2nd place in a very prestigious race. Local rider Kenny Bellau hung in to finish in 41st in a race that probably left half the starting field sitting on the roadside before the end.

We got back on track training-wise on Tuesday morning - kind of - for the usual early morning long ride. As I expected, there were a few no-shows who were taking a break after Monday's ride, but we had a group of around 10 or 12 anyway. All the way out we were doing a smooth easy paceline in the 20-23 mph neighborhood, which felt pretty good, but a couple of miles after the turnaround the speeds started to creep upward. Actually, it was more of a jump than a creep. Then Todd hit the front on his TT bike with me on his wheel and next thing I know he's towing us down the road at a steady 28 mph for at least a few miles. Somewhere along the way my switch got flipped from "training ride" to "race simulation" and when he finally pulled off I kept up the pace (albeit briefly) and pulled off myself. Soon there were only four or five guys pulling and the pack, predictably, split, and we continued this insane paceline all the way back. I think it was just Todd, Carey, Luke and me by the time we eased up at Jefferson Playground.

Even with the three good training rides over the long weekend, I think I still managed to eat more than I burned, though. We hit Domilise's for Po-boys, Acme Oyster House for more Po-boys (I had a catfish po-boy), Maple St. Cafe, delivery pizzas, etc. Luckily, I missed a couple of trips to Cafe du Monde for beniets, and I even opted out of a couple of trips to the snoball stand. This was all on top of the massive ad-libitum food cache at The Mom's "country club" that included such irresistible things as goldfish crackers and ice cream bars. I think we and the Krewe went through about a hundred soft drinks, known in other less civilized parts of the country as "pop" or "soda" (don't use those terms in New Orleans or you'll be immediately branded a tourist).

When I got to the office this morning, intent on untangling a screwed-up proposal that someone else submitted (that I told them we would get back from the funding agency for revisions), the temperature on our floor was probably 85 and in my office more like 90. No tie today! Also, no call-back from the people I need to speak with to straighten out this grant proposal mess.