Tired and Hungry

I guess I let my legs get a little bit ahead of my stomach over the last couple of days, for which I paid dearly. Yesterday afternoon the radar looked promising, so I skipped out of work 15 minutes early, rode back to the house to change clothes and bikes, and headed out to the lakefront for the first Wednesday training race of the season. The rain earlier in the afternoon had scared away most riders who apparently still haven't learned the first rule of Lakeshore Drive: "It never rains on Lakeshore Drive." I swear, it can be raining everywhere else, but somehow Lakeshore will get none, or at least just very little. Anyway, when I got there I found only Tim, who is going really strongly right now. I was a little irritated at the low turnout. If we're just going to be doing this once a week, we need riders to show up and race even when the weather isn't ideal. Too many "fair weather riders" around here, IMHO. We ended up with Tim, Kenny, Brooks, Justin (or Josh - I never have gotten the names straight on those two), Amy and myself. Not enough to have a race, but we did a pretty decent hour of training anyway. In fact, Tim and Kenny pretty much towed Brooks and me around the course at a pretty fast pace. I was feeling really tired, probably at least partly because I had skipped lunch and hadn't really had much of a dinner the night before either. We finished up around 7 p.m., and rode home slowly after strapping my little headlight onto the handlebars because it would be almost dark by the time I got home with around 65 miles for the day. I guess the mileage has been stacking up a bit since last Saturday. The weekend was about 140 mi. and since Monday it's been about another 140. Anyway, I was pretty wasted by the time I got home, and the bathroom scale told me I was running a pound or two low, which for me is about 123.

The Wife was busy cooking up a pot of Chicken Andouille Gumbo when I got home and I should have eaten more than I did, but it wasn't ready until after 9:00 and after one bowl and a glass of merlot, I was done.

The USAC has new medals for state championships this year. It must have been 20 years since there was a new medal design! Over the years I've accumulated a bunch of the old medals, most of which never even came out of their little plastic bags. I'd be nice to get one of the new ones, though.

I woke up this morning feeling like I had just gotten off the bike, so I quickly decided that I'd try and take it easy on the morning long ride. There was a pretty big group, though, and despite the wind the speed stayed fast. I think that it was mostly Eddie, Rob, Matt and Donald up there, but it was hard to tell from my spot, which was mostly at the tail end of the group on Ronnie's wheel. I suppose that it was nearly as hard riding at the back as it would have been up in the rotation, though, because the pace seemed unsteady, fluctuating from 25 to 30 most of the way out. Every now and then a gap would suddenly open up and we'd have to surge up to 28 or so to close it. I was not feeling too frisky at all, though, so I kept my nose out of the wind as much as possible this morning. The ride back started out nice and easy for the first few miles, but eventually Eddie and Rob got things going again, helped by a nice little tailwind. Toward the end I went up and took a few short pulls, but everything was telling me to keep my foot off the gas today, so I only made a couple of hard efforts. Matt was out today on his spiffy new bike with its curvy fork and seat stays and curvy-spoked Italian carbon-fiber wheels. It was making me think about a neat bike I saw on the cyclingnews website yesterday that belongs to one of the women on the Velo Bela team in CA. It's a nice Orbea that weighs in at only 15 lbs. and has some nice small-person details like the standard-bend Easton handlebars that make it easier for short fingers to reach the brake levers. There is some very expensive stuff on that bike to be sure, like the Ti brakes for example, and the American Classic carbon wheels. I like the Easton stuff especially and would love those handlebars if it wasn't for the small matter of the $200 price tag.

I should be able to ride tomorrow morning, since our flight to Salt Lake City isn't until after noon, so hopefully I'll feel better by then. One thing is for sure. I will definitely be eating lunch today!