Almost Summertime

Air-conditioners hummed through the night as we sought a compromise with the warm and humid air that's been around here lately. It's just a reminder, perhaps more of a warning, that it is almost summer. I've already stopped checking the outside temperature when I wake up in the morning, and most of the winter riding clothes are stashed deep in the closet. Over the next few weeks the typical morning temperatures will climb from the upper 60s to the lower 80s, and doubtless the electricity bill will touch the clouds.

So this morning's long levee ride was pretty fast. Howard, Todd, VJ, Rob, Matt, Mark, and a few others kept the pace pretty high both coming and going. I always feel better when it's warmer, and so I dipped into the intensity pool myself today. There was hardly any wind, so the paceline's momentum tended to snowball, usually levelling off somewhere around 27 mph until someone's surge would push it temporarily up to 30 or so and then it would crash back down for a moment before edging back up once again. The legs feel fairly well recovered from last Sunday's race, but the sore back I got from doing yard work on Saturday still hurts. One might argue that I should be doing more yard work training so as to avoid such a situation. Yeah, right. Anyway, it was a good training session this morning that got me back home a few minutes earlier than usual. I even got a ride to work today because The Wife, who had gone to get a brake tag (aka inspection sticker) for the car after an early morning meeting, got stuck with an extra $2 fee for being 1 day late and had to come back to the house to get the two bills from me.

So yesterday I got an email from NOBC alumna Gina V, who had a pretty good racing weekend in Georgia. First, she did the Women's Cat. 1,2,3 race at Athens Twilight where she crashed into someone who went down in front of her, took her free lap, got put back in at the back of the field, worked her way back up to the front, and finished in the top 20. After that, she spent the night in the ER with a friend who had crashed and suffered a concussion in the Pro/1/2 bloodbath later in the evening. The next morning she did the Roswell NRC criterium and finished top ten, then she went home and started working on a powerpoint presentation for a lecture she had to give on Monday to her residency panel. As far as I can tell, sleep does not figure into her routine at all. BTW, it anyone is looking for a small size bike, she's looking to sell an aluminum Blue RC5 road bike (xs) with Chorus 10, a Blue cross bike (xs) with DA9, an Orbea Starship AL/carbon road bike with DA10, a Cheerwine AL/carbon road frame & fork, and an Mt Fuji MTB (xs). If I had the cash I'd by the Blue road bike myself! (She's got the carbon version being shipped to her right now.) Nice inventory, eh? I feel so inadequate....