After feeling rather miserable all day yesterday, the fog in my head finally started to lift some time around 8 pm. Perhaps it was just a little sinus irritation taking its natural course, but I prefer to believe it was that bottle of Rogue Mocha Porter I had about that time. The 2010 LAMBRA event permits are just pouring in right now -- all four of them. The Shreveport and Monroe races are permitted and Rouge-Roubaix and Rocky Mount are pending. Our Commissioner of Officials is about to buy an official LAMBRA laptop (now that the Vista threat is behind us), and I'm looking into getting replacement parts for some of our broken stuff. Maybe I'll even find a decent bell! The NOBC has a great bell that has been with us since the 70s. I'm quite sure that riders like John Howard and Wayne Stetina sprinted to its sound. Back then, bells like that were commonplace at schools, and one could find a nice selection at the local school supply store. Nowadays, however, it's kind of hard to find a good utilitarian bell. You can find lots of small pretty decorative ones, but it's actually a bit of a challenge to find a good loud bell that will survive a few years of bike races.
So anyway, yesterday night I went over to the Reily Center and did the first Spin class I've done it maybe two years. Naturally my least favorite instructor was there. He's the one who seems to think "sprint" means sit down and push a huge gear, "rest" means stand up and bounce, and that the two activities should be done at 10-second intervals. If I'd listened to half of what he said my back would be screwed up, my legs would be sore, and I'd have a pulled hamstring. (I speak from experience.) His typical class includes pretty much everything I should NOT be doing for actual training this time of year. So I just ignore him and do more or less what I feel like doing. I'm sure it drives him nuts, but then so does the crappy RAP music he plays. I think I can successfully avoid him on Monday and Wednesday anyway, and I'll probably just do Spin classes on other days when the weather is really bad or some other complication keeps me from riding.
Compared to yesterday, it was easy to get out of bed this morning. Partly because I was feeling relatively normal, and partly because the temperature was in the 60s. I checked the radar because the sky was cloudy, but the real rain was still a long way away. As usual, the Friday group was pretty small. Like four or five riders. Tim and Woody were there ahead of their weekend Herring Gas training camp up in Natchez. The importance of knowing when the Herring training camp is actually mostly of meteorological significance. Based on its long history, there's about an 80% chance of severe miserable weather on whatever weekend they select. Our own training camp will be later, at the end of February. Anyway, I had to chuckle to myself this morning as we rode along with Woody and Tim in front and me kind of tucked in-between them. Woody has commented before that Tim tends to unconsciously half-wheel whoever he's next to, carrying on a conversation the whole time while looking over his shoulder. I think we rode about ten miles exactly like that this morning. When we hit the headwind on the way back, the effort level went up a couple of notches, so it ended up being not quite a recovery ride. This was good for me since I didn't really have anything from which to recover!
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