Mood Swing

It has always amazed me how I can feel like an out of shape, fat tub of lard one day and then the next day feel like a bike racer again. Sometimes the mood swing doesn't even take a whole day. There have been many times when I've felt absolutely terrible warming up for a race, and then halfway through it some switch flips and suddenly I'm back in the game. What it's taught me, though, is to never make assumptions about your racing fitness based on how you happen to feel at the moment. Things change, especially during races, and when you're feeling loiusy it's almost always better to hang in there instead of quitting because by the end of the race, or ride, or whatever, the pendulum may have swung all the way back in the other direction.

And so it was this morning. Yesterday I was feeling trapped by the rain, seduced by chocolates, and generally about ready to retire to the couch for the rest of the year. This morning the humidity dropped, the sun came out, and all was right with the world. There were only a few of us up on the levee this morning. Joe and Charlie at first, joined later by Oscar and his friend. It was windy, as it always is the morning after a cool front comes through, and although our speed was capped at around 21 mph for most of the ride, it was still a good workout because we all got to spend some nice long stretches on the front. With the racing season starting to appear over the horizon, I'm starting to think about actual training. Really, though, I'm just mostly thinking about it because my more immediate training plans are still pretty much in the base training phase - putting in the miles at effort levels that don't make my legs hurt for the following three days. Actually, that's not as easy as it sounds considering how long these worn-out legs take to recover nowadays. Still, I'm perhaps a bit less content to sit in the draft on the group rides, and the temptation to attack the little hills and go for the sign sprints is getting harder to resist. I keep reminding myself, "it's only January."

Some of the '08 LAMBRA races are starting to get their event permits now, websites are being fixed up, flyers are being posted, and generally the area clubs are gearing up for another racing season. We'll be teaming up with the Baton Rouge Raising Cane's club for our annual 2-Person Time Trial this year since they graciously allowed the Rocky Mount stage race to have their original date and we already had our TT scheduled just a couple of weeks earlier. Norman promised to supply the after-race food and drink like he usually does when they use the Baton Rouge course. The jointly-promoted race will count toward their 3-TT points series, and it will be nice to have one of those three events on a different course and for a full 40k distance. I think we'll probably get a good turnout for that one. The Monroe club just announced their early season 20 km time trial, which seems like kind of a prologue to the first road race of the year, Rouge-Roubaix, about which a number of people have already asked me for advice concerning tires, wheels, etc. FWIW, my advice is to remember that (a) the vast majority of the 100 miles is on asphalt, and (b) it doesn't matter what tires you have when you're walking your bike up the hill in the gravel. Really, most people use their regular road wheels and regular 23 mm tires, although probably not those really lightweight ones you might break out for a smooth criterium.