Just Coasting

After being tired all day yesterday, I decided it was a good day to take a break. No pedalling for me today, just kind of coasting and trying to give myself a chance to recover from whatever it was that had me feeling so bad. I stayed up late last night to crank out the update for the LCCS rankings after coming home from the hospital, but at least I got in an extra hour of sleep this morning.

It's back to summer weather down here. The wind's out of the south and the temperature is 86F, and that means the humidity can't be far behind. Right now, though, we're showing only 28% relative humidity which is quite low. I sent out the official event announcement for the Tour de Louisiane this morning, along with instructions for club members to NOT register online since they're getting to race for free. Only 45 slots left in the Cat. 5s already! I don't expect we'll see many entries until the week before the race, though. I'm trying to get some of the Red Bull girls for the Tour criterium in Covington. Still a lot of details to handle before the race date in late June. It all depends on whether we get thrown any curve balls on the courses, but right now everything looks cool.

So I had to weigh in on a long discussion about the center line rule on the TXBRA website. It all seems so simple until you've actually had to try and officiate a road race and deal with it. I guess what still surprises me is that some riders just don't seem to understand that it's really all about not getting riders killed and making sure that the best rider wins. Most officials really hate it when they have to relegate or DQ somebody for a centerline violation because they always come back and argue that there were other guys who did it and didn't get caught, which is usually true. The officials do what they can, and usually if the ding you for a centerline violation it's because you did something pretty blatant, like attack over the centerline or move up at a point where it was really, really dangerous. I think most riders would really benefit from reading part 2 of the USAC Official's Manual. In a way, it's better than reading the rulebook because it puts the most common problems in context and provides examples.

Sounds like we will have a number of people going up to do the Giro d' Rankin this weekend. I guess my own chances of making it to the RR are only 50/50 at best right now. It's a good road course and not too far away, so I'll hate to miss it, but sometimes family responsibilities just push their way to the front.

Life is a compromise sometimes.