Weather . . . or NOT

The forecast for Sunday morning was not looking good, and so I wasn't expecting much interest in the North Shore training ride. When the alarm went off at 5:45 a.m., I was just a little surprised not to hear rain. The streets were dry, so I checked the weather radar. There was a lot of rain from Baton Rouge West, and it was moving in our direction. Problem was, it might not get here for a couple of hours. And the North Shore was guaranteed to get it earler than the South shore. So I waited around, agonizing over whether to gamble on the North Shore ride, where there would definitely not be much of a turnout (like, maybe just me), or blow it off and do the Sunday Giro ride. Finally, a little bit too late, I decided that getting in the miles was more important than the scenery, and if I was going to get wet I'd rather not have that long drive between me and a warm shower. So I headed out to the lakefront, arriving shortly AFTER the 6:45 a.m. Giro ride had left. I rode out along the Giro route, figuring I'd meet the group as it was on its way back down Chef Highway. ALong the way I ran into a guy named Christian who had just started training a couple of months ago and was still trying to figure out how to keep from getting dropped when the pace got fast. We had a nice conversation and I tried to give him some useful tips, also explaining the USCF category system, which is always rather confusing. About half-way down Chef Highway, we saw the group coming toward us and I made a quick U-turn. That meant getting dumped right into a 28 mph paceline, but it was OK. I was feeling pretty good and went for the sprint on Chef Highway and again at the tops of the bridges. On the return trip down Hayne Blvd., a couple of guys, Matt and Noel, were way off the front, there was a triathlete chasing, and so a couple of us took off in pursuit. Along the way, we passed Todd (at least I think that was he) standing on the side of the road with his jersey pulled up and his gut stuck out as far as he could over his bib tights. I'm not exactly sure what that was about, but it was hilarious. We finally caught the escapees around the base of the first bridge.

The temperature was warm and humid, but I was quite surprised that we never got rained on during the ride. I rode another 10 along the lakefront after the Giro and headed home, where I checked the weather radar. It looked practically identical to what I had seen at 6 a.m. In fact, it's 2:30 p.m. right now (like 4 hours after I got home) and it still looks that way. Obviously the front had practically stalled somewhere between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. I felt just slightly vindicated because it was probably raining on the North Shore, so if I had gone over there and tried for 60 or 70 miles, I would probably have gotten wet.

My cross-training activities for the day involved cutting up a 20 foot long, 8-inch diameter pine tree branch that broke off of the tree across the street. Someone had dragged it (and some other branches for company) onto the neutral ground where it has been irritating me for the last two weeks. Do they think that the city has people driving around looking for stuff to pick up?? Give me a break. If I hadn't cut it up and put it out for the trash man it would have been there until it rotted into dust. As if that wasn't enough to do a number on my inadequate back muscles, I also spent a couple of hours working on the car, cleaning out the flame trap so there is at least a little bit of vacuum in the crankcase instead of the positive pressure that's been blowing oil out of various seals for the last few months and making a mess.