Wednesday Workout

After a good morning ride with the levee group, I was determined to make it out to the lakefront after work for an additional little hammer session. As usual, though, I wasn't keeping particularly good track of the time and by the time I checked my watch it was already after 5:00. I dropped everything, headed for the door, and a couple of minutes later I was tooling up Pine Street toward home. As I left work, I went past three TV station news crews setting up in front of the Tulane clinic for the evening news. Apparently they had seen a child earlier in the day who they suspected might have Swine Flu.

The ride out to the lakefront from my house is about 20 minutes, maybe a few minutes more if there's a headwind or lots of traffic, so I was going to be cutting it kind of close. I knew that the Orbea's chain was skipping on three of my favorite cogs, but there wasn't really time to switch everything over to the Cervelo and besides, I would have had to wear my old Sidi shoes that hurt my toes, so I hopped on the Orbea anyway end was out the door by 5:40. Traffic, of course, was heavy on Carrollton, and by the time I hit Lakeshore Drive I knew I'd be a few minutes late. As I rounded the curve at the outfall canal I could see the group just getting started. Missed them by about 60 seconds.

So I kept riding with the plan to turn around as soon as I saw them coming back. I didn't know for sure if they were doing the long loop or the short one, though. Well, it turned out they were doing six laps of the short loop, but unfortunately I had met up with them at the worst possible time and couldn't turn around in time, so I time trialed all the way down to the other end of the short 3-mile loop, turned around early and finally got in just as they were starting the second lap. We had a good group of at least 15 and the pace was already pretty fast. Luckily there was little wind, so I was able to sit on at the back for a lap or so to adjust to the speed, which was staying in the 27 - 29 mph range. There were a few times when the pace eased up, especially after the pack caught a break that had been off the front for a while. Somewhere before the start of the last lap a 3-rider break got off the front and the pack seemed content to just hold the gap steady. I hadn't been doing much work. My legs were feeling the morning's ride a bit. That's when Brady dropped back alongside me and asked if I was going to sprint. I hesitated, thinking to myself, "well, not if the first three riders are 20 seconds ahead of us." Then he said, "Do you want me to close the gap?" So I said, "Yeah, let's see if we can close it." I rolled up to the front and took a pull. Brandon came through with another pull, and then Brady. We were closing the gap slowly, but it was definitely unclear if we'd be able to make the catch before the finish. Finally, Brady took a long fast pull and got us withing striking distance, or so I thought. I came through but there didn't seem to be anybody on my wheel, so I just kept pushing. I was kind of stuck in a gear that was a little lower than I'd like. I kept trying to use the 15 and 16 cogs, but at that speed and with that much pressure on the pedals the chain would skip constantly. I was dying and about to pack it in when Carey came past, so I latched onto his wheel as he started closing the gap even more. We were probably only a mile and a half from the finish and the gap was down to maybe ten seconds. Carey was over near the right side of the road (the wind was coming from the left), so when he started to fade I told him I was on his right as I came through. It was do-or-die time, so I dumped it into the 12 or 13, which didn't seem to be skipping, and made a final long effort. Carey later complained that I'd blasted past him so he couldn't get my wheel. Sorry 'bout that, Carey. I wasn't trying to keep you from getting my wheel, I was just focused on making that catch before it was too late. I finally made contact just before we rounded the fountain, probably in the 53 x 12, but I was pretty much toasted by then and when the sprint started shortly thereafter there was nothing left and I just coasted across. Anyway, it was a great Wednesday workout, probably a bit over 60 miles with an average speed somewhere above 21 mph, and I'm definitely planning to do the evening training race again next week.

As you might imagine, my legs were a little tired Thursday morning for the long levee ride. On the plus side, I'd bolted an old set of "0ld Look" cleats onto the new pair of Nike Poggios I'd gotten for cheap recently, so at least I could ride the Cervelo with relatively comfortable toes. The Tuesday ride turned out to be a really fast one, especially on the way out to the turnaround. Thanks to the light wind, which was mostly at our backs on the way out, most of the group stayed together anyway. After the turnaround, though, the group was happy to spin along at a relatively easy pace for a long time before things started ramping up again. By the end, of course, we were going pretty hard. On my way home I stopped in at Zotz on Oak Street for an iced coffee, mainly to see how work was going on the street repaving and to give them a little business. I don't know how the shops there are surviving since the street has been completely blocked off for weeks not. I noticed that the curbs are now in place, and they're grading the street, so perhaps some new pavement isn't too far off at this point.

Feeling Like Summer

It's really been feeling like summer around here lately. The air-conditioners are humming, the air positively reeks of Jasmine and Ligustrum, and I've already forgotten where I left my knee-warmers. Yesterday's long ride was remarkably smooth and civilized. The biggest surprise was that we caught the tail end of a freak rain shower when we were about halfway out. The long stretch of wet road and light rain was enough to get my feet wet and make a complete mess of the bike. I was riding the Cervelo on Tuesday since I'd discovered last weekend that the Orbea had suddenly developed an alarming amount of chain stretch. Well, anyway, it seemed sudden. When I got home I sprayed the bike with the garden hose to get most of the dirt and grit off.

So since I had a new Campi narrow chain on hand, I changed it last night and crossed my fingers. I had a feeling I'd waited a bit too long, and sure enough it was skipping on a couple of cogs this morning. Damn. When even the cheap cassette costs around $90, this kind of thing really hurts. Maybe I just need to set up an automatic reminder in my calendar to change my chain every couple of months. I would have gone ahead and ordered one last night except for one thing. My debit card is currently in limbo. It seems that some criminal got hold of the card information and went on a little online shopping spree yesterday. I caught it around noon when I got an order confirmation email for something I hadn't ordered. So now I have to get my card re-issued and then wait for the 'pending' transactions to clear so I can have the bank dispute the charges. What a PITA. When I got home there was a voicemail from the bank's fraud department, so at least they are more or less on top of things, although it would have been a lot more helpful if they'd called my work number and sent an email.

Anyway, today's ride was pretty nice, if for no other reason than the fact that it wasn't windy for the first time in weeks. We had a decent group and the pace was smooth and steady except for a nice little surge near the end. I think I'll try and get out to the lakefront after work to put in a few extra miles. I have to drive over to Ft. Walton this weekend, so I don't know what kind of riding I'll be able to get in. Meanwhile, I noticed that the trusty old Campi Ergobrain had hit 86,000 miles. I have no idea why that image came out sideways.

Wind Along the River

Sunday morning was the short 10-mile time trial in Baton Rouge, finishing off the 3-time trial omnium event for the weekend. After the previous day's 3-man and 2-man time trials, this one was to be solo. Sam arrived at the house for 7 am and we headed back up the river for the 9:30 am start. As we came down from the elevated interstate around LaPlace I looked up at the tall trees lining the road and said, "It's going to be windy again." I doubt there was any hint of excitement in my voice. As far as I could tell, the wind was pretty much the same as it had been on Saturday, which is to say is was strong and gusty. The turnout for this TT seemed a little on the small side. I suppose the wind may have discouraged some of the fair weather bike racers, but there's also the odd omnium format to blame. I really think the turnout would be much better if they'd offer separate prizes for each race and de-emphasize the omnium scoring. It's just too difficult for a lot of riders to put together a team in the appropriate category, and I think that keeps a lot of people from showing up at all.

So once again I squeezed into my skinsuit, strapped on my ill-fitting pointy helmet, and tried to get in a decent warmup. Although this was an individual time trial, there was no holder. At T minus 2 seconds I hit the start button on my computer and at zero I stood on the pedal and clipped in the other foot. The start was pretty much directly into the wind for the first quarter mile, so I was being super cautious about controlling my pace. I knew that after the first mile or so I'd turn right and start picking up more and more of a tailwind as the course gradually followed a big bend in the river. I held my effort level down to about 70 percent until I started feeling the tailwind. Still, I was afraid to push myself too hard because I knew the last four miles would be brutal. Right away I passed Michael H., who is just getting back on the bike after an extended layoff. Although we had started at 30-second intervals, I couldn't even see my one-minute man.

As the river curved and the tailwind improved, my speed gradually increased to 29 - 30 mph. I could certainly have pushed it up to 32 for a couple of miles there, but again I was afraid of those last four miles of headwind, so I kept it in the 53 x 14. That was probably a mistake. As the road continued its curve to the right the tailwind turned into crosswind, and then rather suddenly my speed started to fall and the real battle began.

I detoured around a dead Red Fox, and moments later a Kingsnake slithered across the road right in front of me. Is that bad luck? With about four miles to go I was down to 24-25 mph, and my effort level was up to maybe 85%. I knew it would only get worse and as is usual for time trials, my motivation was somewhat lacking. Then with maybe two miles to go I hit this wide open section with no wind protection and before I knew it I was down to like 22 mph. Not good. I gradually got back up into the 23-24 mph range, but the damage was done. Those last couple of miles were pretty ugly. My time of 24:51 was way down on the list, somewhere around 16th. The fastest of the day was a 22:19. On the plus side, Brady did an excellent 23:12 which was 3rd fastest overall and Jorge wasn't too far behind with a 23:44 (8th). After everyone finished, a bunch of us went out and did another lap of the course, since nobody wanted to log a total of 10 miles for the day. I knew the results would take a while to finish, and I was right. Even after our 10 mile cool-down, we must have waited around another hour before all of the results were posted. I knew that Ricky, the CR for the race would be driving back to Monroe after the race, so I wanted to get the results file onto my flashdrive before he left so I could get them up on the website that evening.

I went out this morning for a ride along the river. The bike path was quite deserted. I guess one factor was the wind, but I'm sure the fact that it was the day after a great Jazz Fest weekend probably had something to do with it too. I swear, the wind was still just as strong as it had been on Saturday and I ended up riding as if was a recovery ride, even though I didn't really have anything from which to recover.

So now I'm two races behind on the LCCS points. Hopefully I'll be able to get that up to date tonight. The MS Gran Prix should be pretty easy since that's scored just on GC. These team time trials, however, with all kinds of mixed categories, will be a real pain.

On and Off

I was three riders short of a 4-man time trial Saturday morning, but I decided to go ahead and drive up to Baton Rouge anyway. I would be riding the 2-man TT later in the day, so I figured I'd help out a little bit and take a few photos. As I left town I took the Loyola exit from I-10 to pick up some coffee at the Starbucks there, only to discover that it had recently been shut down. Damn! I had to wait until I was all the way to Gonzalez before I could get some coffee. When I arrived at the TT location on River Road the sky was blue and temperature was moderate and the wind was blowing like a hurricane! It was not going to be an easy day for anyone. We had only two teams in the Cat. 4s and one in the Women's race today. The faster Cat. 4 team did a pretty good job, finishing with all four intact and placing 3rd. After the 4-man TT we all went over to a sandwich place and hung out there for an hour or so before returning to the course for the 3 pm 2-man TT.

For this one I was scheduled to ride with Jorge, who had ridden with me for the NOBC 2-person TT not too long ago. The 10+ mile course started out straight into the wind, and once we got rolling I knew something was "off." Jorge, however, was definitely "on," and by the time we were midway through the first of two laps I was already taking short pulls and having trouble catching Jorge's wheel when he'd pull through. I don't know what my problem was, but I was definitely riding badly, dropping the pace by a mph or so every time I'd take a pull. Jorge responded by taking longer and longer pulls, which was absolutely the right thing to do. Toward the end of the ride I was starting to feel a bit better, but in the end I had the feeling that Jorge might have done a better time all by himself. As it turned out, we had the fastest 2-man TT time of the Masters and third fastest overall, so perhaps the reason I was feeling bad was just that Jorge's pace was just faster than I could handle. I think he probably pulled about 80% of the distance. After we finished I went straight to the car and downed about half a quart of Gatorade, followed by a cold beer that Mignon offered. Before I left I swung by the start/finish, rolled down the window and asked Norman to give me a go-cup of Beringer Cabernet, handing him the empty plastic cup from the sandwich shop. I think that's the first time I've had wine through a straw.

So tomorrow I'll drive back up to Red Stick for a short individual time trial, mainly just for the exercise. Hopefully I'll feel a little stronger than today. Hopefully the wind won't.

Team Time Trial Troubles

We had a bunch of people up on the levee this morning for the Friday ride. Go figure. The pace was fairly easy and smooth, as it should be on a Friday. At least I felt relatively normal today.

So this weekend there's a bizarre event up in Baton Rouge. A 4-man time trial in the morning, followed by a 2-man time trial in the afternoon, and then an individual time trial on Sunday. It's pretty hard to find riders who can generate much enthusiasm about this. Most of our masters riders are tied up in one way or another this weekend, so we were never able to put together even a single 4-man time trial team. The Cat. 4s had similar problems, but at least they had a team lined up for the 4-man. Well, that is until Stephen sent out a tm early in the afternoon saying he wasn't going to be able to make it. What followed were hours of beating the bushes trying to find a single Cat. 4 rider to fill the gap. Finally, Pat arm-twisted Steve into riding, but it wasn't until around 8:30 pm. I still haven't decided if I'll go up in the morning just to watch, or wait until later and just go up for the 2-man TT at 3 pm. These team time trials can be fun, but it always seems like a roll of the dice whether or not you end up on a team that can actually do something -- or end up with a team at all.

A Bit To Much

Wednesday morning's ride seemed harder than it should have, and I had my suspicions why. All day at work I felt kind of "off." I tried to ignore it, of course, but the fact was that I still had this nagging postnasal drip and occasional lung congestion. Frankly, it was pissing me off that it was still hanging around. The weather outside was beautiful. A little on the windy side, but otherwise really great, so when I looked up and saw that it was 5:15, I picked up my bag and made a run for the door. I thought that maybe a nice ride out to the lakefront might set me right, so I headed north at 5:30 wondering if there would be anybody there to ride with.

Riding down Carrollton Avenue at 5:30 pm on a weekday is not for the faint of heart. All three lanes are clogged with irritated commuters. The right side of the road features a wide array of potholes, debris and other obstacles, and there are cars pulling into and out of every business, driveway and intersection along the way. Successfully running this gauntlet requires the same level of concentration, bike handling, and disregard for personal safety as the last few laps of a fast technical criterium. It even ends, for the most part, with a sprint across Palmetto Street that requires merging across two lanes of traffic bound for the Interstate. Sometimes it's kind of fun. Sometimes it's not. On this particular day, with a nice south tailwind, it was fun accelerating up to 30 mph working my way from lane to lane at the same speed as the cars. The rest of the trip down Carrollton and Wisner becomes gradually more sedate as one nears the lakefront.

Soon after I got to Lakeshore Drive I met up with Brooks and Brandon. After a few miles of riding side-by-side Brooks said, "I guess we should do a few fast laps." So we got a little paceline going and the speed quickly ramped up. This is where I remembered that I wasn't really feeling so good. We did a solid half hour hammer session, pushing into the headwind at 21 mph and flying the other way at 29, and by the time we eased up I felt pretty well cooked. It was probably a bit too much under the circumstances. I guess I'm still not quite over last week's cold. The rest of the evening I felt kind of uncomfortable. Maybe I was running a low grade fever or something. Anyway, when I woke up this morning I rather quickly decided I needed a rest day, so I went back to sleep for another hour. Later in the day, around 3 pm, the folks at Champs Collision called to say the car was ready, so I packed it in early and rode home to pick up the rental car so I could drive out to the repair shop and trade the Nissan Sentra for the Volvo. Since The Wife and I have taken our bikes to work all week, the rental car mostly just sat parked next to the house, but the insurance was covering $15 per day and the cost was $18 per day, so I figured it was worth it just in case something came up. Anyway, everything went smoothly, I paid them the $500 deductible which I'm supposed to get back at some point, and finally broke down and got a haircut. I hate getting haircuts.

The Ride Back

It's so nice to have a little light at 6 am. The sun may not be up yet, but at least it's no longer pitch dark when I head out to meet the 6:15 am group for the long Tuesday training ride. I left the bulky headlight at home and, with an abundance of caution, turned on my little red blinky light for the short ride to the levee. There were a few riders notable by their absence this morning, including Tim, Woody and Rob. As a result, the ride started out at a relatively steady and smooth pace. I remember thinking how different it was compared with the last few weeks. The morning temperature was just a bit below 60F, so I was wearing two jerseys with arm-warmers. I had briefly considered wearing my knee-warmers too, but I knew it would warm up pretty quickly so I didn't. There was a pretty good breeze blowing today and so the pace tended to wander up and down a bit depending on which direction we were going. Brady pushed the pace up a few times, but not too severely.

The ride back, though, turned out to be a different story. We picked up Colin, who is a med student in town from NY for a conference, shortly after the turn-around. He was riding a nice old 80's vintage Bike Friday, and it wasn't slowing him down either. Most of the way back the pace was pretty fast. Every now and then Sam or Brady or VJ would ramp it up a few mph. I quickly discovered that my legs were apparently still feeling the effects of Sunday's criterium. That kept my pulls on the short side, but otherwise I was feeling pretty decent. After the ride Colin and I stopped at the Starbucks on Maple St. for a while, but I had to get to work eventually so I pointed him in the general direction of downtown and headed home.

MSGP Wrapup

The weather was still a big question mark when when awoke Sunday morning. I sat for a while in the hotel lobby sipping bad coffee, updating the blog, and staring at The Weather Channel. Despite the cloudy sky, the radar didn't look all that bad. I myself was feeling a bit better than the day before, and Steve was feeling a lot worse. He was rapidly coming down with something like what I was recovering from. We were down to just three riders for the Cat. 4 Mississippi Gran Prix "Circuiterium," and it was clear that one of them was questionable. Sure enough, Steve didn't last long before realizing he was too sick to race. I don't think he made more than a couple of laps before pulling out and heading for his car. Pat and Rolan hung in for most of the very fast race, but although Rolan came close, neither was able to stay with the lead group.

The very next race was the masters race. I was still feeling kind of chilled, and we were getting occasional sprinkles of rain, but as I rode my warmup laps I was glad to see that the road was essentially dry. The race was fairly fast, but not terribly aggressive. With the top two places already decided thanks the the 4+ minute gap from the road race, the only battles to be fought were for the scraps. Jay and Ed were active at the front for most of the race, but a serious break never really materialized. Soon after the mid-point of the 60-minute race I noticed my front tire going soft. I rode another lap and decided it wasn't a good time to experiment, so I pulled into the pit for a wheel change. With no teammates and questionable health, I was in full defensive mode trying to conserve, maintain a good position, and hoping for a big sprint finish. With five laps to go it was clear I'd get my wish. I was a little surprised how many riders were fighting for the front during the last few laps, but I threw myself into the mix regardless. With two laps to go I was sitting on Jorge Merle's wheel when I heard him tell his teammate, "I can't believe this. I have a flat." Not that he slowed down, you understand. There were no free laps left, so he was taking the turns rather wide and it took me a little while to get safely past him.

With half a lap to go we flew around the second-to-last turn, the sketchiest one on the course, leading into a long sweeping downhill. I was sitting on Ed Novak's wheel about six from the front hoping that he would guide me to a decent placing. The downhill section was, for me, the hardest part of the course. The bigger guys just seemed to get sucked down the thing while I'd have to shift down and really hammer just to keep in the draft. Near the bottom of the downhill I saw Ed start to fade as a gap opened in front of him. I started yelling at him, "go, go, go!" Putting me out in the wind with 300 meters to go is like tossing a tissue paper out a car window at 70 mph and expecting it to keep up with the car, so I knew that if he slowed too much we'd either get streamed or my 200 meter sprint would end 100 meters before the line. He dug a little deeper but when we hit the sharp uphill leading to the finish he lost a little momentum and I went around him in a full sprint for the line. I ended up 6th (Ed was 7th) and was really happy about that, considering. Hardly coughed up any blood at all! Funny thing was that Jim Brock was 5th. In the prior day's road race we'd finished 5th and 6th. The week before I'd sprinted with him in another road race and criterium and again we'd finished 5th and 7th in the criterium and 11th and 12th in the road race. Over the years, that has happened a lot. Halfway through our cool-down lap it started to rain! Good timing.

Next up were the Cat. 1/2/3s and although their race started out at a relatively civilized pace, thanks no doubt to the wet streets, it just kept speeding up from then on. They ended up dropping over half of the field, most of which was composed of Cat. 1 and 2 riders. The Herring guys were trying to have some effect, but the San Jose and Metro VW guys were all over the front all the time. With four to go, Matt Davis attacked solo at the perfect time and opened a pretty good gap. The guys at the front of the pack looked at each other for half a lap or so, but finally they chased him down. It was a good try, though, because he wasn't a threat for the GC, so they might have let him go. On the last lap, or maybe the second-to-last, there was a crash that took Tim Regan down. Although he landed mostly on the dirt, he must have hit pretty hard because after getting a ride down to the finish line in a golf cart he wasn't too sure what had happened. In fact he wasn't too sure what planet he was on.

So it was a good weekend of racing, and although I might not have been able to be more of a factor in the races, I did the best I could under the circumstances, playing to my strengths, staying out of trouble, and chosing my battles cautiously. I went out this morning and found the bike path to be practically deserted. It was just as well. I put in an easy hour's spin and headed home so I could bring the car in to the body shop. The neighbor's little collision with the side of my parked Volvo will cost a couple grand to fix. We've been in that body shop so much in the last couple of years that we know the routine by heart. I think they'll probably put on their christmas card list this year.....

Up in Brookhaven

Drove up to Brookhaven Friday evening to drop off the LAMBA race clock, flags, and other race equipment, and to watch the first stage of the Cat 1/2/3 Mississippi Gran Prix. I was surprised to see Keith D. up there. He had decided to ride just the criterium since he was tied up for the weekend and wouldn't be able to ride any of the stages for the masters who only race on Saturday and Sunday. I helped out with the wheel pit as the 50-strong pack zipped around the course, largely in the dark. It looked like it was a pretty fast race. Kenny had two strips of flashing blue LEDs on his front fork, so at least it was easy to pick him out of the pack once it got dark. I tried my best to get some pictures, but none were keepers. There were a lot of riders getting dropped and lapped, and so the officials started pulling riders. Keith was one of the last to get pulled. I was feeling a bit better, so I'd brought the bike and planned to make a decision on race day. I figured that if it was raining Saturday morning, I wouldn't race.

Saturday started out wet and cloudy, but it wasn't actually raining and the radar didn't look too bad, so I went ahead and registered. I was already resigned to riding this race very cautiously and just playing it by ear. With no teammates in the masters race, at least I wouldn't feel guilty about sucking wheels at the back. The masters race had a good sized field of 40 or so. My plan was to sit on the back and enjoy the ride. I was officially packfill today. A couple of guys got away early and were never to be seen again, eventually finishing over four minutes up on the group. Ed N. dropped his chain on the first lap as we rode through the community college (part of Sunday's criterium course), and I saw Charlie drop back to help him. He said he chased for a long time and got tantalizingly close to rejoining the pack at one point, but they were never able to make contact. There was another break that got away, but I think it was eventually reeled back in, so as we approached the end of the 50+ mile race we were racing for 3rd. At the time, I thought we were racing for maybe 5th at best. Since I'd been sitting in for the entire race, my legs felt relatively good, with five or six miles to go I started moving up nearer the front. For the last couple of miles I was behind Jim Brock, which was great since I knew he had a really good sprint. Somehow, Jim got stuck in front with over 500 meters to go. He pretty much had to go for it at that point, and so I got a really nice leadout from him. When he eased up at 200 meters, a few people went streaming past on the left. I hesitated a moment too long, but think I ended up around 7th. Under the circumstances, I was pretty happy with that. After turning around I learned there had been a crash about 300 meters before the finish, so it was lucky that I'd decided to go for the sprint and not just ride in with the back of the pack.

In the Cat. 4 race there was a big crash out on the course and five or six of our guys hit the asphalt or otherwise got tangled up. Stephen Mire got the worst of it, ending up with a big strawberry on his hip and a pretty deep gash on his elbow, along with the usual other stuff. The crash essentially took all of our guys out of the GC competition with two of the guys taking a ride in the wheel truck. The rest of them finished, though, so they'll be racing on Sunday. In the women's race, Mignon had a pretty good race, finishing with the lead group and placing 9th. Judith lost contact somewhere before the finish.

The evening time trial didn't go well for me. I had already been dreading this TT because I knew it would be hard on my lungs. Often, after doing one of these short, intense time trials, my lungs will be kind of trashed for a few hours. I was still occasionally coughing up nasty stuff when making hard efforts, so I was kind of expecting to have problems. Well, after going hard up the very first little climb I knew it wasn't going to work for me today and so I just eased up and rode a really slow TT. I was feeling kind of frustrated about it, but I'm pretty sure that if I'd pushed it like I normally do, my lungs would have been completely trashed. I seem to be recovering from the cold pretty quickly, so it was probably the right decision. I have to admit, though, it was shocking to have my 30-second man pass me like I was standing still (which was pretty close to the case) only two miles into a time trial. I didn't even think to get my time at the finish. So I'm hoping we have dry streets for the criteriums Sunday morning. There are pretty nice stage prizes up for grabs in addition to the GC prizes (which are completely out of reach for me now), so if I'm feeling good maybe I can race with reckless abandon.

Things Fall Apart, The Center Cannot Hold

The fulminating battle between virus and host ended badly last night. The host lost. At 4 am I was staring at the ceiling, mouth-breathing, afraid to get up to turn down the fan because I knew I'd get a chill because of the fever. So I'm stuck here at home today, having long since stopped trying to keep track of exactly when I took which cold medicine. Joints are achy, head is achy, nasal membranes are swollen and painful, and now my lungs are getting involved. I had been trying to hold everything together since Saturday, but as Yeats so eloquently put it, and with appropriate apologies for taking it completely out of context, "Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world." Indeed, "mere anarchy" well defines my current condition. Hopefully there will be some improvement tomorrow or any chance of riding the Mississippi Gran Prix will be gone. I mean, racing with a little fever and stuffy nose is one thing; racing with a chest cold is quite another.

Not a Great Day

A little cool front came through last night, dropping the morning temperature into the low 60s. Ordinarily, I'd have expected that to make for some nice riding weather, but as I made my way out to the levee, I knew something wasn't right. Even though I was wearing two jerseys and arm-warmers, I felt abnormally cold. The soreness in my throat was still moving in the general direction of my lungs and I knew I was walking a tightrope just by going out for a ride.

As usual, the pace surged early in the ride and a little gap opened. I took a nice pull and it was looking like we would be able to close the gap without too much trouble. When I pulled off, however, Howard surged past in the crosswind trying to close the gap all at once. I just sat up and thought, "I'm really not up for this today." So I dropped off the back and decided to do my own little ride today rather than risk getting really sick. A few minutes later a couple of the guys rode up from behind so I got in with them and we rode a nice steady paceline all the way out to the little dip where they turned around. I figured I'd continue on a little bit more, and after a while I saw Woody, Tim and a few others on their way back. They had turned around at the Dip, and since they were riding back relatively slowly, I jumped in with them for the return trip. Even though I was being careful not to overextend myself, I still got home feeling a little too chilled and tired.

Well, things kind of slid gradually downhill all day at work, and by afternoon I was clearly running a low grade fever, so at 4:30 I bailed out and headed home to raid the medicine cabinet. Then, as I rode up to the house I noticed that someone had smashed in the side of the car. It had been sitting there parked all day. Just what I needed. I went inside where I found that the cat had thrown up on the carpet after eating that damned green plastic grass crap that The Wife insists on putting into easter baskets. This happens every friggin' year. On the plus side, I then found a note at the front door from the neighbor explaining how she had hit the car while trying to get out of the way of another car that was coming the wrong way down the one-way street. I was impressed that she was considerate enough to leave the note and her insurance information. After calling my own insurance company to file the claim, I then discovered that the hotel in Tuscaloosa had billed me for two rooms even though we had split the charge between Rolan's and my credit cards. I just knew that was going to happen, and I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when they didn't answer the phone when I tried to call them about it tonight.

I think I'll take some more decongestant and a glass of wine and call it a night.

At the Back of the Pack

I had slept poorly, to say the least. The postnasal drip and scratchy throat were bothersome all night, but fortunately I didn't notice any further escalation of either. I'd set the alarm for 5:10 am, and when it went off I lay there for a while wondering what to do. I didn't feel all that terrible, but of course you never feel all that terrible when you first wake up. I finally decided that I'd go for it. After all, I knew the roads up on the northshore, so if I started to feel too bad I could always bail out and take a shortcut back. There were still a couple of things that worried me, though. My legs were still a bit sore from Saturday's Giro Ride, and the wind this morning was really strong. I figured I'd be spending most of my time at the back of the pack today.

When I arrived at the Abita Brew Pub, where the ride was starting, I was surprised to see about fifteen people there. This wasn't the usual northshore ride group. With guys like Woody, VJ, Diego, etc., etc., I wasn't holding out much hope for a nice easy ride. Also, I soon came to discover that the day's ride would be on the order of 80 miles or so. As I pulled on my knee and arm-warmers, I wondered if the chill I felt was coming from the outside or the inside. It was hard to know for sure. What I did know was that I wasn't feeling too good.

Within a few miles of starting the pace began to ramp up quickly and, following my game plan, I retreated to the relative comfort of the back of the paceline. We spent a lot of our time today at speeds in the 24-27 mph range. It's been a long time since I've spent extended periods of time hanging onto the tail end of a paceline like that. It's not quite as easy as you'd think, but when the speeds are high I still think it is easier than being in the rotation. When the speed would drop down into the 22-24 mph range I'd take a few short pulls, but in general I was trying to avoid pushing myself too hard. The last thing I wanted was to end up even more sick than I already was.

We were around 50 miles into the ride when the earlier pace began to take its toll on a few of the guys, and the result was that the pace gradually began to drop. I had been feeling rather chilled since the start, despite the not insignificant effort I was making, and was a little worried about that since it probably indicated that I was running a fever. Even so, I was being careful to save my energy for the bigger climbs and to make those my big efforts so that I wouldn't lose contact with the group. It was working out pretty well, actually, and finally, somewhere on the back side of the course, I started to feel a little better. In fact, except for sore legs, I felt pretty good for the last 25 miles or so.

It's about 9:30 at night right now and the scratchiness at the back of my mouth has been moving lower and lower all day. I have a bit of a headache, but otherwise things don't seem to have deteriorated too much. I'm hoping it doesn't turn into a full-fledged sore throat by morning. At any rate, I've already decided to skip riding tomorrow, just to be on the safe side. The weekend was around 150 miles for me, so a rest day is certainly in order.

Fast Fun and Feverish

I was surprised and disappointed as I clipped in this morning to ride out to the lakefront -- surprised by how cool it felt; disappointed at how windy it was. At least the day promised a clear blue sky and nearly perfect riding temperatures. My legs were feeling pretty good, especially considering the previous day's long ride and the previous evening's consumption of wine. The back of my throat, however, was a different story. I decided to ignore the scratchy throat and press on to meet the Giro Ride anyway. Passing the parking lot where the triathletes meet I looked over and noted it was empty. Not a tri bike in sight. Perhaps they were all down in the French Quarter getting ready for the start of the Crescent City Classic. The Wife was down there as well, planning on crashing the race with one of the neighbors.

As I rode along Lakeshore Drive toward the start of the ride I was surprised to see the group coming toward me a bit earlier than expected. The turnout was pretty big today, and considering the wind it was looking to be a hard one. Even before we got off of Lakeshore Drive the pace started to rise. Hayne Blvd. was mostly into a quartering headwind, which caused frequent gaps to open, especially since the guys at the front was pushing really hard chasing a little group that has slipped away earlier. Even though I was nowhere near the front, I had to make a few hard efforts just to stay with them. Chef Highway started out with a crosswind coming from the left and after a mile or two of dealing with the right-hand rumble strip I decided it was time to get myself up nearer the front. Pretty soon the number of people working up there started to dwindle and I ended up doing a lot of work, which of course was a good thing. This is, after all, training. The rest of the ride was similarly fast with the only break coming when Jay flatted near Bullard and everybody waited for him to fix it. The pace picked up again on Hayne, and naturally we had to sprint to the top of the two bridges. I think we were back onto Lakeshore Drive just after 9 am, and considering the time we spent on Bullard waiting for Jay, it must have been one of the faster Giro Rides we've had.

The club got together afterward for breakfast and some initial Tour de Louisiane planning, so it was probably 11:00 by the time I got back onto the bike to ride home. That's about when I realized that the scratchy throat was still there. It wasn't until around 3 pm when I finally admitted I was getting some kind of head cold. Damn. So the big question is what I'll feel like tomorrow morning. I really wanted to do the extra-early northshore ride that starts at 6:30 am. I guess I'll have to wait until 5am and see how it goes.

Mephitis

Tuesday was another cold and windy day up here in the frozen north, and I again waited until afternoon to head out for a ride. The temperature was probably somewhere near 50, but after the previous couple of days, I was starting to get a little tired of fighting the wind. As a result I spent some of my training time looking at the scenery and exploring side roads (which all seemed to be dead ends). I rode mostly the same route I'd ridden before, so although I wasn't pushing myself very hard, the hills and wind nonetheless demanded a considerable effort level most of the time. I stopped at one point to take a picture of a little skunk who was busy nosing around in the roadside ditch. It reminded me of a northshore training ride I'd done maybe six or seven years ago when we'd passed a skunk and another rider looked over at me and said, "Mephitis mephitis!" I was stunned. I soon discovered there was another biology major in our midst. She should be finishing her residency in emergency medicine about now.

I was on my way back, riding easily up a steep little pitch on Newport road when a anorexic looking triathlete passed me without even a wave. I thought it rather rude, and was still considering whether to chase him down as we approached an intersection. He was about thirty seconds ahead of me by then and I was still contemplating an easy spin back to the house when he made the left turn. At that point he made a crucial mistake. He looked back at me. Oh yeah? Well at that point the game was on. I watched him as he time-trialed down the little downhill, further opening the gap between us. I made the turn and clicked down a couple of cogs, gradually raising my pace. As I hit the downhill I finally deployed the 53 and dropped down from my perch on the brake levers. Every time this guy would hit an uphill he'd be out of the saddle and all over the bike going every way but forward. I'd roll up to within five or ten seconds and just hang there until the next downhill. This went on for a few miles as we got closer to town. For some reason I just couldn't bring myself to pass him, probably because I was having so much fun taunting him from behind. Finally he turned off to the right as I turned to the left and the game was over.

That night we went over to the Iowa gymnastics coaches' house and made seafood gumbo. Being in Iowa, however, the gumbo was without Okra and the crabs were some kind of long-legged things from the grocery store. It was pretty good anyway, and fortunately we had plenty of wine to go with it.

Today turned into a trip out to the Amish colonies followed by a marathon of shopping torture at an outlet mall. It's still windy as hell up here and by the time we got back I'd already decided I wasn't going out on the bike. Tomorrow will be the long drive back south.

Back to the Winter

The drive up to Iowa was long but uneventful, and since we hadn't left New Orleans until around 7 am, it was around 10 pm by the time we pulled into Iowa City. Along the way the bright greens of the southern springtime landscape gradually dulled to the uniform grey of the midwest winter. So Saturday morning was cold and windy and I decided that my best option was to shoot for a ride in the early afternoon. By then the temperature had gotten up into the 50s. I hunted around on the web for some information on where to ride and settled on the Sugarbottom route that I found on MapMyRide.com. It turned out to have been a good choice. Once I got a couple of miles north of I-80 I was on some nice low-traffic roads with lots of rolling hills and a couple of good out-of-the-saddle steep ones. Making the ride even harder, though, was the wind which was gusting at 20-30 mph. In fact, I didn't take many photos during this ride because taking both hands off the bars was a little too sketchy. Along the way I met up with a couple from the Iowa City Cycling Club, although they were just out for an easy spin checking out a new pair of pedals. Apparently a lot of the local racers were out of town at a race over near Illinois. There was also a group of recreational type cyclists on this road - safety vests, handlebar bags, etc. I was a little surprised to see such a group on this stretch of road because it was certainly not the easiest one around.

So I couldn't resist doubling back a couple of times on Sugarbottom Road so I could do some of those climbs again and by the time I looked at my watch it was getting kind of late. We were planning to head over to the stadium for the NCAA Regional Gymnastics Championships at 5:00 and I wasn't all that sure how long it would take me to get back. That's when I made a rather bad decision, which was to do the loop through the city that was shown on the map I'd seen rather than turning around and going back the way I'd come. So I headed off into more uncharted territory, stopping a couple of times to confirm that I was still on the right track. It took forever to make my way through the city because of all of the traffic signals, but I made it back more or less in time.

The meet didn't go well for Iowa, especially when one of their star gymnasts fell on floor and injured her knee, possibly tearing her ACL. After that we went to a team dinner and didn't get home until nearly midnight. The Daughter was handling the music for this meet, shuffling all of the various formats in which the floor competition is provided and dealing with all of the last minute changes and team assistants who were afraid she's screw up their floor music.

This morning it's 38F, brutally windy, with an 80% chance of rain. I'm supposed to go to a brunch in an hour, so it's not looking too promising. I hope everyone is having a good time at the triathlon back in New Orleans where the morning temperature is in the 80s, the chance of rain low, and the lake should be swimmable. I'll have to play it by early today.

First of April

The forecast was still kind of up in the air yesterday, but we got in the usual Wednesday ride without a problem. Back at work things went from predictably funny to laugh-out-loud hilarious by mid-afternoon. The April Fools Day spoof article in Cyclingnews about the UCI banning sunglasses somehow got morphed into a USAT rule and went out to the local triathlete mailing list (http://www.gnotri.com/) with spectacular results. Along the way it was embellished with a ban on walking during the run and a ban on using aerobars. People fell for it hook, line and sinker. I was still getting "is it true" emails this morning. Now, just so everyone knows, every year VeloNews and Cyclingnews publish a few April Fools articles. Last year VeloNews got in some hot water with the gullible religious right when they published a spoof article about cloning athletes. (In retrospect, after Taylor Phinney's recent successes they might not have been too far off.) This year I liked the one about Lance having taken the opportunity, since he needed collarbone surgery anyway, to have both collarbones shortened in order to make himself more aerodynamic. There was another one about him becoming a track sprinter. But locally, fueled by the practically hysterical pre-half-Ironman fever leading up to the big triathlon this weekend, the story about the new sunglass rule really took on a life of its own. So anyway, that was fun.

Had a nice dinner over at Cafe' Degas last night and learned that what I thought was going to be a weekend in Iowa City has now morphed into five days in Iowa City. So although two full days of sitting in the car are already in the cards, somehow I'm going to have to find a way to get in some quality training while I'm there since the Mississippi Gran Prix will be two days after I return.

This morning it was raining when I awoke. I reached over and lit up the room with the little Palm Pilot screen to check the radar. A big line of rain was over us but it looked relatively clear to the west of it, so I waited half an hour for most of the rain to stop and climbed onto the old Pennine rain bike for a quick ride on wet roads. I knew I'd be on the road all day Friday, so there was no way I was going to skip riding today. Luckily the rain had pretty much stopped completely by the time I got to the levee bike path, although there was a strong gusty wind blowing out of the south. Twenty some-odd miles later I was back home with fairly dry feet and the feeling that I'd somehow out-smarted the rain gods. Right now in Iowa City it's 36F with "rain and snow" and the forecast doesn't look very nice. The highest temperature between now and Wednesday is supposed to be 54F (one day it's only 36), and the lowest will be 25F. I thought it was supposed to be Spring. Right now in New Orleans its 78F and about to rain again.