Better. Not Great, but Better

As promised, I stayed off the bike yesterday and slept late. As NOT promised, I had gone out Monday afternoon for an easy "sightseeing" ride around Audubon Park - something I had not done in a long time. On Spring and Summer evenings, the park's 1.8 mile loop, which includes a bike lane, is usually crowded with people running, walking, rollerblading, riding, walking dogs, etc. It's a nice place for an easy ride and a very dangerous place for training. Luckily I was doing the former and not the latter. Right away I ran into Rob K who was out doing the same thing, so we rode together, chatting and dodging stray children and dogs, until dusk. It was really quite relaxing. I need to do this more often.

So this morning I went out to meet the levee ride, arriving at just the last moment. My legs were feeling better today, although I feel I'm a far cry from that rare feeling of being really "in shape." I guess we must have had a light tailwind on the way out today because it stayed pretty fast but didn't feel all that hard, although there were a couple of times when I had to close some unexpected gaps at unexpected speeds. For the most part, though, it was fairly steady. Right after the turnaround, while we were still going pretty slowly, Brady joined in, having missed the group by just a minute or so. He said he could see us up the road and was making up ground at first, but when we really started to roll we pulled away. Been there, done that! I was thinking that the ride back would be easier, but in fact it proved to be harder. At least that's how it felt to me. For one thing, there was a light headwind, and for another, the number of people pulling was smaller. Every time someone at the front would surge the pace up by a couple mph, another person would drop out of the rotation and start sitting on in the back, so the rotation kept dwindling until finally the pace slacked off a bit when we got closer to the end. Then, of course, it picked up again as if it was the finish of a race because Rob just couldn't let Howard go!

So I still need to register for the Mississippi Gran Prix this weekend and am a little disappointed that my plea to the email list for a ride drew no responses. I guess I'll have to resort to the telephone. Damn, I hate the telephone! At least Charlie has reserved a few rooms for the team already and the club's reimbursing entry fees for this one. Anyway, I guess I'm in for a good beating this weekend, especially in the 4 mile time trial for which I am woefully unprepared, as usual. A few of the guys are going up Friday afternoon because there's a Crit for the Cat. 1,2,3 field only that night that is part of the stage race. I'd rather make the 2-hour drive up there Saturday morning, though, so I'll have Friday night to get my act together.