Bit of a Hard One

Yesterday afternoon I had every intention of making it out to the lakefront for the Wednesday training race. Since I have to ride the commuter back home, change clothes, jump on the racing bike, and then ride the 8 miles out to Lakeshore Drive, it means that I have to leave work no later than 5 p.m. in order to make it out there for 6:00. At 5:45 I was ready to go, but when I looked out the window to the West there was a huge black cloud dumping rain on much of the Western part of the city. I checked the online Doppler radar, but it wasn't much help. These thunderstorms weren't moving, they were just appearing and disappearing at random all over the place. Looking out toward the lakefront from my 25th floor perch, it looked dry, but the thunderstorm was definitely threatening to expand in that direction.

So at 5:00 I decided to go. As I crossed over the interstate on the Broad Street overpass, I could see the line on the pavement where the rain started - maybe four or five blocks away. Sure enough, as I turned to the West onto Fontainebleau Drive the rain started. It was light at first, but as I got closer to the house it got heavier and by the time I was a couple of blocks away I was dripping wet and splashing through puddles. Ah, yes. This is why I have full fenders on my commuter! The rain continued for quite a while, and my 5:30 window for making it out to the lakefront in time slammed shut in my face as my thoughts turned to "what's for dinner?" As it turned out, there were about 15 people out at the lakefront and although they did get rained on, they had a good training race anyway. Dinner was chicken gumbo with okra, by the way. When I asked this morning if it had rained out there, Tim replied:

"It rained depending on where you were on the Lakefront. It pretty much rained the whole time, some spots were real windy and stormy, and some spots there was a slight mist. It actually was pretty fun, and we had a nice turnout considering the conditions. There were a few no shows. So Randy, since you didn't make it out yesterday evening to the training race, does that classify you as a fair weather rider?;)"

So anyway, this morning's long levee ride had a decent turnout too. Courtney and I stayed on the front at an easy pace until Rob couldn't take it any longer and went flying past after we passed under the bridge. Things ramped up quickly at that point and it was a pretty fast and hard ride today from my perspective. Toward the end, Donald, who had been conserving on the way out, launched a couple of little attacks, so that was a nice workout. With the combination of heat and early morning humidity, I went through my lone full water bottle before the end and arrived home thoroughly wet and dirty from the combination of sweat and water spray from the other bikes.

Checking the results of the USCF Masters National Championships, currently being held in Park City, Utah, I saw that area rider Frank Moak, aka "The Great Balded One" placed 20th in his age group, which is pretty impressive. It looks like it's a really hard course with some top-level competition. I'm sure he'll be riding the criterium later in the week too. I noticed that one of the Memphis Motor Werks guys made it onto the podium in his road race, and one of the Texas guys not only won, but got his finish line photo plastered all over the USAC website. All his jersey had on the front was "San Jose." I hope all of those potential sponsors who didn't sign up see that! Anyway, the USAC website has been ridiculously slow lately. I looked up the results from the 50-54 age group (mine) and saw a lot of familiar names. Some of these guys have been racing as long as I have, but at a consistently higher level. In the 50-54 field was Wayne Stetina and Kent Bostick, for example. I'm pretty sure they both have a whole box full of national championship medals. Bostick was on the Olympic team a few years back. George Heagerty finished pretty far back - I wonder what happened there. Tom Bain, with whom I shared the podium some years ago at Masters Nats, is George's teammate, and he was 5th. David LeDuc was in there too - I think he won nationals once or twice at least. Judging by the finish times, it looks like most of the group stayed together.