One More Day

I went out to meet the levee group on Thursday still feeling rather ragged. The throat was still scratchy and the chest congestion was in full force. Even so, I just couldn't take another day of not riding. I had a plan, of course. I figured I'd stay protected near the back of the paceline and back off any time I was tempted to do any heavy breathing. The group was big, and once the pace got going we strung out into a long, long line. I was feeling pretty decent, under the circumstances, sitting in the draft as the speed hovered in the vicinity of 28 mph. Somewhere around the country club we had a close call with a small group of riders that was coming from the opposite direction. There was a walker or runner or something in the right lane, and the front of the paceline had lots of room to go around and get back over to the right before the oncoming riders got there. The riders near the back weren't so lucky, however, and at some point all three came together. I saw the riders coming and had just enough time to get back over to the right, then I heard someone scream something behind me and a little while later found out that one of the oncoming riders had needed to bail out onto the grass.

Anyway, the pace remained fast and around the dip the group started to come apart. I had already decided to back off at The Dip anyway, so I sat up and enjoyed the scenery for a while, finally jumping back onto the back of the paceline when it came back. Even though I'd taken it about as easy as possible for the Thursday ride, I still felt pretty tired for the rest of the morning as I struggled with a runny nose and chest congestion and the foggy head that goes along with that and the OTC cold pills I was taking.

The Daughter was supposed to arrive from Iowa last night, but between broken airplanes and weather it wasn't until this morning that she finally got here. Once again, it took longer to fly than it would have to drive. First, the plane out of Moline had mechanical problems and their flight kept getting pushed back farther and farther. Once it got pushed back so far that they wouldn't be able to make the last flight out of Chicago to New Orleans, we got them re-booked on a different flight through Dallas. That would have worked out OK, except that the bad weather in Dallas had caused all sorts of additional delays. They ended up taking the very last flight out of Moline and missing the last flight out of Dallas, all the while smuggling the little min-pin past the ticket counters and hotel managers in a backpack.

Anyway, since I hadn't been able to breathe well last night, and had to make a trip out to the airport in the morning, I figured I'd take off one more day from riding and hope that things would be more or less back to normal for the Saturday Giro Ride. So for a week that should have been a big-mileage week for me, I ended up with one recovery ride and one shortened Thursday ride, and of course, a cold.