Watermarks and High Heels

It was late Thursday night when I finally conceded.  There was just no way I was going to make the weekend of racing up in Tupelo and still get the Tour de Louisiane race bible finished in time to avoid a last-minute rush.  Although it would have been a long drive, I knew the racing would be great and that the event would have strong fields with riders from Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama.  And so I came to find myself sitting at the Starbucks on Harrison Avenue at 6:30 this morning, sipping an iced coffee and looking up at the permanent marker on the wall memorializing the Hurricane Katrina water mark.  I had made good time from the house, hitting nearly every green light on the quiet early morning streets.  I'd been awakened around 2 am by one of the dogs trying to dig a hole in the carpet in response to an unexpected thunderstorm.  I spent an hour lying on the couch with the light on and one hand on the dog's collar.  It might have all been worth it if the aforementioned thunderstorm had graced us with at least a few drops of badly needed rain, but the streets were still dry and the plants still parched in the morning.

There was a big group for the Giro today, but since the Herring guys were racing in Mississippi I thought maybe the ride would be relatively sedate.  I couldn't have been more wrong.  By the time we were halfway down Hayne Blvd. I was spinning the 53x15 at 28 mph and my glasses were already obscured with the sweat dripping from my face.  As it turned out, 28 mph was just the warmup speed.  Shortly after turning onto Chef Highway someone toward the back of the pack flatted. The group slowed for a while, but only a handful of us actually turned back to help.  The rest of the pack soft-pedaled for a while, but by the time we got going again they were three minutes up the road and going hard again.  So we just pacelined out toward Venetian Isles and caught them on the way back.  It wasn't long before we were going 31 mph again, and for the most part the pressure stayed on the rest of the way back. I was really feeling the heat today (it's 94° F right now).  Riding back home down Fontainbleau Drive with Jordan I glanced up to see a pair of black high heels hanging from one of the overhead wires. My first thought was, "We must be Uptown!"  Definitely more classy than the usual tennis shoes.  Anyway, I'm sure there's an interesting story behind that pair of shoes.

So things are ramping up for the 40th annual Tour de Louisiane.  It's hard to believe it's been 40 years; even harder to believe I was there with my Pocket Instamatic for the first one.  We're doing a ride on the road race course tomorrow during which I'll be re-painting the turn arrows and marking any potholes or other road hazards.  At some point today or tonight I'll start working seriously on the race bible so that it will be ready for printing on Monday.  Late last night I *think* I fixed the West Feliciana stage race results, which I still need to post to the website.  Then I need to score those races for LCCS points, update the LCCS web pages and upload the detailed workbook before reformatting it all for uploading to the USAC database.  Hopefully I'll get that done before I get the results from the Tupelo races, at which point I'll have to score those 21 or so separate races for points and do it all over again.