Almost midnight and the temperature outside is still 85º Fahrenheit with 76% relative humidity. Luckily I'm sitting here enjoying the new air-conditioning and trying not to think about what the next electric bill will look like. I had a 2 pm meeting this afternoon at Gibson Hall and the short ride over to St. Charles Avenue was less than wonderful. I think the high today at Audubon Park was over 100 degrees. It felt just like riding with a hair dryer pointed right at your face the whole time. The meeting, by the way, was animated by the arrival of a press release from the Governor's office saying that they were putting land acquisition for the new hospital on hold until LSU and Tulane work out a plan for running the thing. Basically, the Governor is letting LSU know he's getting tired of the game-playing. He can't afford to have this new hospital project fall apart on his watch if he has any intention of running for a higher office as everyone suspects. However, I digress.....
The long Tuesday ride was today and I am still not feeling quite right. As we headed out, the pace started to ramp up as usual, but I think a lot of the guys just weren't up for the usual hammerfest today. The heat will do that. I had to close a few gaps and I guess we were still going pretty hard when we hit The Dip. I was next to Kenny when I suddenly heard this loud "clank, clank, clank" sound. I thought he'd picked up a nail or something that was hitting the chainstay, but as it turned out he'd broken a spoke in one of those funky Campi wheels with the clusters of three spokes. He waved the group on while a few of us stopped to help while he unscrewed the broken spoke from the nipple.
Then, on the way back, things started getting fast again and I found myself off the front with Tim and Kenny. I took a pull and dropped back, only to find that Kenny was gone. With the light tailwind Tim was pulling at something like 29 mph. I'd come though now and then, but the best I could sustain was more like 26-27. I looked back and couldn't see the group at all. We were around River Ridge when I heard my phone ringing. I thought that perhaps there had been a crash or something, but it was just Kenny telling me that they'd had a flat and were way behind us. Well, since we were already near where Tim pulls off to go home, I sat up and waited. Eventually Kenny and Sam came up from behind around Ochsner and when I turned off to head home Kenny came along for the ride. Then, as we were riding down Short Street, I picked up a big nail in my rear tire. I was hot and tired and there were only seven or eight blocks to go, so I pulled the nail out and just rode on the flat the rest of the way home. I guess I could have really rushed to make the Time Trial out on the lakefront after work, but my commute home felt like a ride through a blast-furnace and I just couldn't get too excited about riding out to the lake to do a 10k time trial.
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