Another Day Another Crash

By Tuesday afternoon I was feeling pretty tired, and I admit to briefly entertaining the idea of skipping the training race. W had planned a Tour de La meeting afterward, so I figured since I'd have to take the car out there anyway I may as well go. So with a typical group of fifteen or so the training race started out in fairly civilized fashion, which was good because I hadn't had a chance to get any kind of warmup at all. Toward the end of the second lap the pace picked up a notch and a gap started opening a couple of riders ahead of me. I was kind of boxed in against the curb in the crosswind and it took me a little while to muster up the energy to go around. Just as I did, I looked up to see the lead group getting a nice draft from a conveniently passing car. Their pace increased. Pretty soon, mine decreased. So I settled into cruise mode and figured I'd turn around early at the other end to jump back onto the back of the group rather than ride by myself. Before I got the chance, though, Chad and another rider caught up with me and Brooks and another rider or two showed up, so I ended up chasing in a group of five or so. Although we were steadily losing ground on the lead group, we were getting a pretty good workout anyway, but then on the last lap as we approached the Elysian Fields traffic circle we saw the whole front group standing on the right side of the road. As it turned out, Mike W had dropped the wheel of his TT bike into one of the cracks and gone down. Everyone seemed to be OK, but anyway the day's race was over a little early. Well, except for Brooks who kept going for the win!

The Wednesday morning levee ride was nice and quick today, and even though I was still feeling kind of dragged out, it was a good solid ride for me. Later in the morning I got the free video from the Tour de Georgia going in a little window on my computer, which might have had a slight negative effect on my productivity but certainly had a positive effect on my mood. While I was listening to the commentary I remembered that Gina V had said she'd be doing some medical support for the race and so I sent her an email to find out which stages. A while later I got her reply in which she casually mentioned that she'd been hit by a car a couple of weeks ago, snapped off her fork, broken her carbon bars, flipped over backwards and landed on her head. Not to worry, she's planning on racing Athens twilight this weekend. Her ATL friend Emile Abraham took 7th in stage 2, and she'll be handling medical support for the team time trial and the circuit race in Atlanta.