Downriver Headwind

The monkey wrench was dropped into the works around 4:30 yesterday when a 10:00 a.m. staff meeting got moved up to 9:00, leaving insufficient time for me to do the Tuesday long levee ride. Perhaps it was the Training Gods taking pity on me, trying to enforce another needed recovery day. Well, it didn't quite turn out that way. Despite staying up until 1:00 a.m. formatting the Giro d' Rankin Results for uploading to the USCF Results and Rankings database, I was out the door this morning in plenty of time to meet the 6:15 start. I was figuring that I'd hang on until maybe the parish line and then turn around and ride back easy. Yeah, right.

There was a pretty big group by the time we got rolling, and the pace was just beginning a smooth and steady upgrade when Chad punched through the front and proceeded to take it from 22 to 28 in about 200 meters. Geez! Of course it caught a lot of people by surprise and the paceline was immediately stretched pretty thin and long with gaps forming all over the place. It was quite windy this morning and luckily there was a decent tailwind component along that section, so after some chasing here and there the line got back together just in time to make the curve at the country club where it changed to more of a crosswind. With the pressure still on at the front and the twelve foot wide bike path only able to accomodate an eschelon of four or five, it was inevitible that the pack would split. It did. I started out on the wrong end of the split and was on the rivet for a while as I made the bridge to the front group. Things stayed fast and along the way Rob said he also had an early meeting and would need to turn back. We were going pretty fast as we approached the parish line and when I looked at my watch I figured I could stretch it out to the "dip" before I'd have to head back home. Rob and I traded pulls all the way back, which was mostly headwind and crosswind, and so although I cut out maybe ten or twelve miles today, my "perceived effort" for the ride was still way up there. It was kind of a long ride home, and then an even longer one to work.

Jason wrote up a nice race report on the Giro d' Rankin that I put up on the website this morning. I haven't started working on updating the LCCS rankings yet. Since it's essentially three races, it will take a while to do.