Wednesday Double

You know, there was a time when I did a morning ride and an evening training race every Tuesday and Thursday. All it did was make me stronger. Nowadays, I just do one evening training race a week and I have to be careful to take it easy the following day so I can recover before the weekend. The morning ride today was a notch faster than the usual Wednesday ride. It was Rob's fault. For some reason he was pushing the pace most of the time. In fact, there were three or four occasions when I came to the front to take my pull and practically the minute I started, Rob came past me going a mile per hour faster. Anyway, this morning it wasn't so much the speed - it was the humidity. As soon as I got up on the levee my sunglasses fogged up. They pretty much stayed that way for the rest of the ride.

After a particularly boring day at work today, I headed home a bit after 5 pm so I could make it out to the lakefront in time for the training race. My gloves, along with the pads inside my helmet, were still soaked with sweat when I put them on around 5:30. I hate that. On the plus side, though, I had a warm 15 mph south wind pushing me all the way out to Lakeshore Drive, which allowed me to get through the Palmetto St. intersection at about 30 mph. It's much easier dealing with the traffic when you're going the same speed they are.

The training race turnout was a little thin today, although I think it was mainly because a few people arrived late. When Diego joined the group after the first lap, I braced myself for the inevitable attacks. He didn't waste much time before launching the first one. I was right there, so I just had to go with it. It took everything I had just to catch his draft. He looked back to see if I was going to come though, but I had nothing. In general, the race was rather slow today, perhaps because of the crosswind. On the last lap I got tired of the sluggishness and took off on my own. I knew it was doomed, but what the hell? So I dangled off the front for a whole lot longer than I should have. I looked down at the speedometer to see 21 mph and wondered, "where are those guys?" It soon dawned on me that they were probably all waiting for Diego to attack and start to bridge, which he wasn't doing. Instead he was waiting for them to make the first move. Damn. If I could time trial, I might have been able to make it to the finish under those conditions. The reality, though, was that the wind was just killing me. Finally, about half a kilometer before the finish, Kenny and Ed rocketed past, followed by the rest of the group.

So today I get a letter (a letter - on paper, with an actual stamp) from Nashbar telling me that their website servers were "recently the subject of an illegal attack that allowed unknown persons to obtain the names, addresses, email addresses, web account password, and credit of debit cart information..." Recently?? Digging through the 3-page letter I discovered that the actual breach was back in early March, which probably explains the fraudulent charges on my debit card back in April. So now, FOUR MONTHS LATER, they're telling me about it. Well, thank goodness they rushed that letter out via First Class Mail, which, by the way, is printed in bold letters at the top of the letter just to be sure you know that they didn't waste any time. Sheesh.