The legs were pretty stiff Monday morning, as expected, but I got out of bed anyway so I could get in a nice recovery ride. It always comes as something of a shock to see how dark it is in the morning after we switch to DST. That particular morning the streets were wet as well, so I checked the radar and figured I could probably squeeze in an hour before the next batch of rain arrived. The levee was pretty deserted, which was good because I hadn't been able to find my headlight. It felt good to be spinning an easy gear and I think my legs appreciated it, but somewhere out around the Country Club the road became more wet and there was a feathery light misty kind of rain falling. It wasn't nearly enough to make me run for home, especially since the temperature was close to 60F, and so I rode for about an hour, arriving back home none the worse for wear. I have to admit, though, that I wasn't feeling too sharp all day at work.
So I get up Tuesday morning looking forward to doing a nice long training ride and trying out the fresh chainrings I'd installed the night before. I had intentionally waited to install them until after the Rouge-Roubaix since parts of that race are often like riding in a sandstorm and sand is harder than aluminum. I looked out the window and saw that the street was really wet as if it had just stopped raining. Damn. Sure enough, within fifteen minutes it was raining hard, so I conceded defeat to the rain and darkness for today. On the plus side, I remembered where I'd left my headlight! Maybe, if I can get home early enough, I can get in a ride this evening. Lakeshore Drive, anyone?
Meanwhile, in LAMBRA land, the Rouge-Roubaix results are coming along slowly. Most people probably don't know what actually happened. Shane, who was supposed to be the Chief Ref. and is arguably the best with results and the camera, called in sick the night before so Adam was called in for registration and then Ricky and Rick were drafted to handle the the finish and results. Because it had been so cold at the start and so warm at the finish, a whole lot of riders were making all sorts of clothing changes while out on the road and as a result many of them crossed the finish line with numbers that were covered up, or with numbers that were on articles of clothing that were now in their pockets, or with numbers that had been pulled lose from one or two pins. Also, in all the race day confusion, there was apparently never a solid start list generated, so the CR had to go through and figure out which pre-registered riders hadn't picked up their numbers. Then, of course, there were some crashes and flats and such that resulted in people who didn't finish and came back by way of a following car or other vehicle, along with a few people who took wrong turns and fell off the face of the earth (I thought the course was pretty well marked, but when you're in bonksville it's hard to read the signs). Those people rarely think to let the officials know that they have abandoned. Anyway, Ricky's still sorting out the results and just this morning (well actually it was around midnight last night) sent me the finish orders for the A and B races, although both had numerous riders for whom there were no placings. One was apparently the first place woman because the promoter emailed me this morning to tell me who had been awarded the first place prize after the race. I'm glad we don't have these kinds of problems often! Anyway, the promoter is busy thinking up ways to get better results next year using things like frame numbers or even chip timing.
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