A Long Week Indeed

Looking out the window here at work where the sky today has remained overcast until just a moment ago. It's been long and busy this week and on a couple of occasions I've gotten home, eaten dinner, polished off a couple of glasses of wine by 8:30 and hit the sack early.

Thursday was a chilly ride with a smallish group and mostly crosswinds up on the levee. At one point I remember Richard dropping back and as he looked behind commenting "where'd everybody go?" Of course it was the crosswind that had made the selection, lopping off all but the front four or five since those were the only ones getting any protection. Such is life in a crosswind on a narrow bike path.

This morning, though, the wind had shifted and the temperature had risen, and with a steady southeast breeze our small group had a nice brisk ride out to the turnaround. Of course that meant a long slow grind most of the way back, but it wasn't really all that bad. Brooks was out there, apparently doing some long efforts. When we first encountered him shortly after the turnaround he turned around as if to join us and I heard him say something to the effect of "I'm kind of knackered." We were pushing into the headwind at the time but not really going very fast. As it turned out he never latched on, and then many miles later after we'd eased up he came flying past like he'd just crossed under the red flag and the pack was twenty seconds back.

Tomorrow we're going to try and get a NOBC club photo after the Giro Ride. We do that once every few years, and the last time we did was back when we had the green jerseys. I guess we're overdue, so hopefully we'll have a reasonable number of club members show up. I really need to put a fresh photo on the club home page!

Up in Alaska it looks like Jill has only another 50 miles or so to go, although the lack of sleep finally caught up with her so it doesn't look like she'll be setting a new women's record to McGrath. I doubt she's too worried about that right now.

So The Wife seems to have finally gotten a credible explanation for the vision problems she's been having. It all started right after a colonoscopy, and our best guess now is that she had a ischemic event, probably during the colonoscopy, that resulted in some kind of neurological damage affecting her vision. She was relieved that it is probably not progressive, and since she does not suffer from high blood pressure or hypertension it was most likely directly related to the colonoscopy. Anyway, the downside is that her doctor is recommending she stay away from caffeine (yeah! more for me!) and take her baby aspirin every day. There's some chance the vision issue will improve slightly with time.