A Day Off

After sitting out on the front porch talking and drinking far too much Austrailian wine, I had already decided to skip today's morning ride before I hit the sack. Aside from the effects of the evening, I had been feeling a lingering tiredness Monday and Tuesday, and combined with some weighty deadlines hanging over my head at the office, I felt I needed a little break somewhere. So I slept an extra hour or so this morning, had two eggs and coffee for breakfast, and arrived at work a bit earlier than usual. With the rising temperatures, early sunrise and clear skies, we paid a heavy price for our office's rooftop view today. The air conditioning always loses the battle when the sun bakes the long wall of single-pane glass along the southeast side of the office and temperatures were probably around 80F until early afternoon. It is about that time of year when I will have to start packing in all my work clothes instead of just my shirt. Even at my slow and easy commuting pace, I still arrive warm and sweaty this time of year. By lunch time I was surprisingly hungry and rather than go out and seek real food I instead visited the little ready-made sandwich place downstairs. On the plus side, there are three elevators working now, so I didn't have to stop on fifteen floors along the way. On the minus side, the $5.25 cold, pre-made, sandwich was soggy and tasteless and within half an hour my stomach was hurting.

After a long delay the Baton Rouge Velodrome's track program is finally ready to go with one of the local guys organizing Wednesday training sessions beginning tonight. I'm going to need to get a couple of fresh tubulars for the track bike if I expect to be hitting the oval this year. Last year I ended up officiating a few times but was never able to actually race.

We are already getting some Cat. 5 online registrations for the Tour de Louisiane (there's a 50-rider field limit for Cat. 5). The only thing that really concerns me right now about the Tour is that hotel rooms on the Northshore are still in somewhat short supply and quite expensive compared with last year. I mean, $109 a night at the Super-8 is kind of steep. Perhaps they will come down a bit over the next month, though.