Stuff Going On

It's been kind of busy lately. After two somewhat soggy days, the "cool front" has finally eased past us, bringing with it some welcome, if minimal, relief from the heat and humidity. That's not saying it's cool, of course, but at least it's a bit less hot. I went out to the Giro ride this morning with the firm intention of staying off the front. I was feeling kind of dragged out by Thursday evening, and I didn't want to start Sunday's criterium with sore legs. The group started out in a particularly disorganized manner today with a bunch of little groups that started early and eventually came together along Lakeshore Drive. I went all the way down to Shelter #1 looking for "the" group, but all I found were Michael and Brady who said there was nobody else coming. So we headed down Lakeshore Drive in pursuit, finally catching up with the group shortly before the Seabrook bridge.

The pace picked up pretty quickly, and at one point I remember thinking, "I'm doing at least as much work closing gaps at the back as I would be pulling at the front." I stuck to my plan, though, and avoided any really hard efforts for the most part. On the way back, just as we turned onto Hayne Blvd., we passed Rosanne and Rusty on the side of the road. A few of us turned around to help, since it looked like more than just a flat tire. In fact, it was a broken chain. Rusty had a chain tool and a spare connector link, so he got that fixed fairly quickly. Then, maybe half a mile later, we came across two triathletes who were in the bus shelter working on a bike, so we stopped and Kenny got their flat fixed. In the end, I got in around 65 miles, the vast majority of which were done at a nice moderate effort level.

There's a lot of stuff going on right now. The Daughter is on her way down from Iowa with four of the club gymnasts she coaches, scheduled to arrive some time around 1:30 am. We picked two others up at the airport this evening, after which we went over to my father's house for his birthday party. My brother's family has been in town for a few days. Since my nephew will be starting grad school at LSU in the fall, they took the opportunity to have a birthday party for my father and also check out a housing arrangement in Baton Rouge. I'll be up around 5:15 am tomorrow to load up the car with all of the race officiating stuff, plus my bike, so I can be at City Park by 6 or so to help set up for the LAMBRA Criterium Championships. I set up a results and registration spreadsheet for the Chief Referee earlier today. I'm already feeling pretty tired. At least the temperatures tomorrow shouldn't be too severe.