Pain and Rain

I awoke at 4:30 am Sunday morning to the sound of rain. I'd set the alarm for 5:15 but couldn't go back to sleep. The Time Trial in LaPlace was scheduled to begin at 8 am. I had to be there around 6:30 am. This was not looking good. I moved my legs to get out of bed and winced in pain. The quads felt like blocks of wood. Any thoughts I may have been harboring about actually riding the TT were immediately dismissed as I hobbled about getting dressed. I was disappointed that I couldn't ride, but it would have been pointless to have even tried. I'd already staged all of the equipment I needed to bring down in the basement, but when I opened that door and looked at those steps, I paused. This was going to hurt. If' you've ever overcooked your quads you know that the most painful thing you can possibly do is to walk *down* a staircase, especially one without a banister. I clomped down one stair at a time, sideways.

By the time I was ready to load up the car the rain had eased up a little bit so I was able to make the seven or eight trips back and forth with the generator, clock, bins of clipboards, tables, coolers, etc., without getting too terribly wet. It was still too dark to get a good read on the sky, but by the time I was out around Kenner I had no doubt what it looked like. Once again the rain started falling -- sideways -- complete with a full thunder and lightning show. That's when I started getting text messages that mostly all said the same thing, "Is the race still on?"

At 6:45 I was standing in the rain with Eddie and Mark and Carey and we were debating what to do. Someone pulled up the weather radar and it actually looked like things might improve, so we decided to wait until 7 am before making any hasty decisions. Five minutes later the rain stopped and the clouds parted a bit and we were good to go. I guess we lost about ten riders to the weather, but otherwise the turnout was good, we actually started right on time, and everything went smoothly. In fact, there were some really fast times. The fastest of the day came from a Triathlete, disguised as a Cat. 5, who posted a 54:29 for the 40 km TT. Since the wind was gradually increasing throughout the hour and a half that we were starting riders, and the Cat. 1/2s went last, the closest any of them could come was 55:38. I wonder how much closer it would have been without the difference in wind. I mean, it was still a whole minute, and the wind wasn't all that terribly strong. Anyway, somehow we managed to pull off the time trial, which was the final event of the 2010 LCCS season, without rain. By the time I got back home and unloaded the car it was already raining again and I don't think it stopped for any appreciable length of time for the rest of the day.

Monday was wet and rainy, so I figured I'd spare my sore legs for another day. Tuesday it was raining again. It was just as well, I guess. I've been kind of down the last couple of days anyway. Some of that probably has to do with the unavoidable TV and web coverage of the 5th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, and then hearing that Laurent Fignon had died was a little sad as well. Fignon really represented the end of an era to me. His career reached its peak just as bike racing was about to undergo some big changes. TT bikes were becoming more specialized (and expensive), cables were getting hidden, shifting was getting indexed, pedals were getting clipless, and then Lemond won the Tour de France by 7 seconds by beating Fignon in the final Time Trial thanks to the then-experimental clip-on aero bars and Fignon's decision to ride without a TT helmet. I'll always remember the contrast between Lemond with his big yellow Giro TT helmet, huge Oakley glasses, and Scott clipons and Fignon, helmetless, bespectacled, and with his ponytail flapping in the wind. The 5-year anniversary of Katrina seems like a turning point as well. Kenny finally pulled together all of his photos from the days immediately after the hurricane when he was helping rescue people from the flood. You can see them here, but be forewarned, a few of the photos are pretty graphic and show people who did not survive.

I finally made it back onto the road this morning for a nice smooth Wednesday ride. The legs have recovered enough that I can now walk without my knees locked. Surprisingly, it doesn't hurt much at all to ride. Yesterday I registered for Six Gap. I'll probably make the stage race in Pensacola in a couple of weeks, follow it up with Six Gap the following weekend, and start thinking about long easy rides in the country.