Out the Door

I was out the door at 6:05 this morning, comfortably over-dressed and intent on getting in a few miles. The winds were gusting out of the North and as I made my way to the levee I wondered if I would end up being the only one crazy enough to show up on a day like this. I had intentionally over-dressed a bit in order to prevent a repeat of yesterday's retreat, but my thin Defeet gloves weren't quite cutting it and my fingers were already pretty cold by the time we started. We ended up with about ten riders, which I thought was quite good under the circumstances. The circumstances today included a gusty cold crosswind that made it very difficult to hold a straight line and essentially impossible to get any draft beyond the fifth rider. Which explains why the group split on the way out and I ended up in a group of . . . five. I don't think anybody was even pretending to want to do the usual long Thursday ride today. Before the pace picked up I ran into Leslie, an old friend who does masters swimming, and a fair amount of running too. She was riding to work at Ochsner with a huge bag slung dangerously over her shoulder. She sounded glad to be employed again after having been out of work (she's a nurse) because of the hurricane, and as she turned off to ride back down the levee I warned her to be careful with that bag. I would have liked to have had more time to talk with her.

The ride today seemed rather hard even though I was trying to limit my exposure at the front. Donald was taking some l0ng pulls into the wind, and for a while I ended up stuck at the back negotiating with the edge of the road for the last sliver of draft. It took a lot of concentration just to stay on the asphalt most of the time, and every time you'd come to the front it was like getting hit in the chest with a sack of cement. Once the sun came up over the trees, however, it did warm up a few degrees and I was able to strip off the vest. Hopefully the wind will finally ease up tomorrow.

By the time I got showered and ready for work, there were already five people in the house, and as I rode off to Gibson Hall I saw the department chair walking up the steps. Can't wait to get my next electricity bill! With all the lights on and a whole slew of computers, printers, routers, etc. going all day, it should be interesting.