Recreational Training

I had a feeling that this morning's ride attendance would be sparse. The weather has been relentlessly hot and the weekend's training rides were fairly fast, so I wasn't too surprised to find only Joe up on the levee today. He was sitting down fixing a flat as I rode up, and as he finished up Margaret arrived, mentioning she'd be turning around a bit early. The bike path was otherwise very quiet, other than the usual dog-walkers, runners and walkers. So we headed off up the river at a recreational training pace of maybe 17 mph which allows for easy conversation. Unlike the early miles of the weekend Giro Ride, though, I knew there would be nobody pushing the pace, no breakaways, no chases; not even much in the way of heavy breathing. Riding with people who aren't really training for their next race, or even thinking about training for their next race, is a little different, but makes for a nice recovery ride since the pace was entirely under my control the whole time. After Margaret turned back, I rode out to the turnaround at the front with Joe shadowing me in silence as I slowly increased the pace up to a blazing 19 mph. Maybe I even hit 20 there for a moment. When Joe doesn't have his hearing aid in, he's perfectly happy to spin along in my draft, seemingly forever. Eventually we came upon John R who turned around to ride with us back toward uptown. He's been kind of hard to find on his bike lately, mainly because he's got kids who are heavily involved with the local softball leagues. That means, of course, that he's heavily involved as well. He told me that he watched six softball games last weekend. Apparently they are limited to 70 minutes each, although that's still a long time to be out in the summer sun.

I was glad to see a few familiar names in the Masters Nationals Criterium results today. I pretty much always wish I was there, because they are fun to attend if you have the time and can handle the travel. It's also fascinating to see some of the same people who were racing way back in the 70s and 80s still up at the top of the results listings. I mean, Kent Bostick, aka the "Bostasaurus" is still kicking butt, just now in the 50-54 age group, and isn't that the same Tom Officer who, as a virtual unknown, won the Tour de Louisiane once back in the 70's? In the 55-59s, there was Tom Doughty who raced the Tour once or twice, and David LeDuc who I think won one of the masters age groups way back when I did masters nationals for the first time in 1984. And how about Bobby Phillips in the 60-64 age group? He actually raced in the very first Tour de Louisiane and is mentioned in the article on the NOBC website written about that race. Even Thurlow Rogers, who was riding nationals as a Junior in 1978, is still racing. Damn. Sure makes me feel old. I'm just glad I don't recognize any names from the 70+ age group yet!