Fog Season

It's a wonderful thing when you can step out the door on a January morning to find the temperature in the 60s. Unfortunately, that sort of wonderfulness often comes with fog, especially along the river where all that frigid northern water is rushing down toward the Gulf of Mexico. I guess some would think me crazy to have gone out today wearing knee and arm-warmers, but I've been lured into wearing summer clothes in January before and it doesn't always turn out very well.

I was feeling rather tired this morning, which probably had something to do with the fact that I hadn't gone to sleep until after midnight. I knew I shouldn't have had that second cup of coffee in the afternoon! Perhaps I should explain. You see, for me, coffee is mostly just a readily available hot liquid that's necessary in order to create a supersaturated sucrose solution. When the barista asks if I need room for cream, I just tell him to make sure there's enough room for sugar. Turbinado sugar, dissolved in a fresh aqueous extract of the berries of the coffea bush. One of the consequences of drinking coffee without milk (yes, I'm a bit on the lactose-intolerant side) is that a small (aka "tall") cup of coffee makes for a pretty hefty dose of caffeine.

So anyway, tired or not, I showed up for the morning ride which started out with a bit of a tailwind. Every mile or so the speed would notch up just a tiny bit more until, by the time we were at Williams Blvd., we were cruising along comfortably at 26-27 mph. Between there and the turnaround we gradually ramped it all the way up to 31 or so. The whole time it was just getting more and more foggy, however. As it turned out, I was quite comfortable and happy that I'd gone with that little bit of extra clothing.

Of course the return trip wasn't quite so fast, but we did have a nice rotation going almost the whole way, so the speed stayed up around 23 mph. Under the circumstances, that required a pretty decent effort for whoever was on the front. Somewhere out on the road yesterday my trusty Campagnolo Ergobrain hit 95,000 miles. Amazing that thing's still going considering all of the road trips, dripping sweat, rainstorms, crashes and Rouge-Roubaixs it's been exposed to.


Back at home I scavenged around for something to eat, which ended up being a handful of milk chocolate silver bells, while I brewed up some coffee to take with me to the office. For years I've been using a nice little stainless steel travel mug that I can put into my messenger bag. It seals really well and has never leaked. Well, not until today. When I lifted it out of my bag at work I knew immediately that something was wrong. For one thing, it wasn't heavy enough. For another, it was wet. Crap. A good half-cup of coffee had escaped into the depths of my bag, most of which had been conveniently soaked up by a small wool scarf that I had in there. Oh well. Guess it's time to empty out the bag and give it a good cleaning anyway.


So after the recent flurry of emails on the NOBC list regarding RoadID, and being the experimental sort, I recently ordered the competing product, VitalID, through the USAC website (to get the discount). Aside from the fact that I couldn't see wearing what amounts to a dog collar around my ankle all the time, the VitalID was cheaper. So I filled in the emergency contact information and stuck it to my helmet. Actually I stuck it sort of inside one of the vents where it's easy to see but out of the way. I like that it's reflective, too. Now I'm just hoping that it never needs to be used, as in, "Oh look, his name must have been Randy." Anyway, for $10 is seemed like it might be helpful. I've been rendered unconscious only once, the result of a little tangle during one of the weekday training races a number of years back. In that case there were lots of people around who knew me and once I regained semi-consciousness I was promptly dumped into someone's car and deposited at home, only to be immediately taken to the ER for the requisite CAT scan. At least that's what they tell me . . . . .