Winter

So I guess it's finally winter here, at least for a couple of days.  By "winter," of course, I mean nighttime temperatures of 40F and below.  Long tights, shoe-covers, helmet liner and jacket were all deployed when I left home this morning.  It was a little darker than I'd expected and I was glad I had the front blinky light for the ride over to the levee where I found, well, nobody.  I stopped for just a couple of minutes, hiding from the wind behind the big pumps, hoping someone would show, but nobody did, so I rolled out alone.  A mile later Big Richard came up from behind, and a few minutes after that Howard joined in around the playground where we then picked up Donald.  As we plodded along at about 20 mph, taking long pulls as the wind kept switching from one side to the other.  I was already contemplating an early turn-around.  It was just one of those mornings when I just wasn't having any fun at all.  Besides the cold and wind, I had a number of distractions bouncing around in my head and was rather unsure about  how I was going to get everything done that needed to be done this week.  There is something about this time of year that I always find particularly stressful.  It always seems like there are just too many things that start piling atop each other, all competing for limited time and even more limited energy.  This week The Daughter is in Hawaii, we're taking care of The Sister's dog, I'm meeting a roofer about a chimney leak, there's a cyclocross race and the LAMBRA business meeting over the weekend in Jackson, and of course there are the usual things to do at work.  My feet are cold, and I'm on my second, and inadvisable, cup of coffee in hopes that it will help clear the stuffiness I'm feeling in my head. We're about to buy a car for The Daughter, which will likely entail a cross-country expedition from New Orleans to Olympia and back - basically a week's worth of non-stop driving.

Interestingly, it's the LAMBRA meeting that seems to be weighing most heavily on my mind today.  The preliminary race calendar needs to be assembled, I want to draft a proposal for some fairly significant organizational changes to address changes in the way USAC is moving, there are a bunch of recommendations to consider for the 2012 LCCS points series that I need to really think through, and a host of "deferred maintenance" administrative issues to deal with related to tax-exempt status, bank accounts, uncollected surcharges, etc., etc.  It was all so simple back in the (very) old days when we'd gather around the dining room table at Greg Gulotta's house with a calendar and put together a year's worth of races that, collectively, probably cost half as much to produce than any little local race does now.  There were no police, usually no follow cars, homemade race numbers, no cash prizes, insurance, or video cameras, and $2 entry fees.  Oh well.  It's about time for a webinar entitled, "President Obama's Initiative on University Research Commercialization: How Universities Plan To Respond."  I know, I know.  You wish you were here, don't you?

Three for Three

So yes, I made it out to the Giro Ride on Saturday.  In fact, I think most of those who had made the Thanksgiving ride and the prior day's Slidell ride were also on hand.  Surprisingly, I was feeling just a little stiffness in the legs, but otherwise I was ready to make it three for three.  The slightly warmer weather made for a fast and well-attended Giro Ride.  There was still a fair amount of wind around, so naturally that resulted in some fast sections.  It wasn't until I was most of the way back that it all started to catch up with me a bit, and by the time I got home all I wanted to do was sit on the couch, eat chips, and watch reruns of Star Wars. A long Sunday ride was still on the table, but because I had to leave for Baton Rouge around 10 am to help with some last-minute pre-Act of Sale packing for my niece. I'd already set my sights on the Sunday Giro rather than the Northshore Ride.

A cool front had started coming through and when I peeked out the window at 5:45 am on Sunday I could see that the street was still rather damp.  I got dressed anyway, buckled on the helmet, stepped out the door, and was surprised to feel a light misty drizzle falling.  I took it as a sign from the Recovery Gods and instead took the dogs for a walk.  It was probably a wise decision because the weather remained chilly, windy and damp all day.  Last night the effects of the cold front really started to take hold and by this morning the temperature was down to the lower 40s and the street was still just a little wet.  I figured it was time to bite the bullet and get started on my winter acclimatization, however, so I pulled on the long tights and winter jacket and went out for a short spin, more as a character-building exercise than actual training ride.  Looks like a few days of cold mornings ahead, though. When I got back to the house I fired up the heater for the first time this season, letting it run just long enough to burn off that smell you always get when you do that.

Out-n-Back

After yesterday's faster-than-expected Thanksgiving Day ride, it would have been easy to go with a nice easy ride today.  But then I saw Woody's email. A 7 am ride out to Slidell and back.  My legs didn't feel all that bad, and a 95 mile ride couldn't possibly be worse than a shopping trip to the mall.  Besides, it's my birthday and I should be able to go for a long ride if I want to, right?  So at 6 am I stuck a couple of PowerBars in my pocket, pulled on the arm and knee-warmers, and took off to meet whoever might show up at Starbucks.

The weather was nearly perfect, except for the east wind, as our little six-rider group rolled out down Lakeshore Drive.  Everyone was pretty much on the same page as far as the pace was concerned. With the headwind, "moderate" translated into a smooth paceline at 21-23 mph except for a brief surge to chase down Howard.  By the time we crossed the Chef Menteur bridge the group was down to Woody, Rob, Chuck, Judd and me, and although we were mostly riding straight in to the wind, traffic was mercifully light and the pace remarkably smooth. The temperature had warmed up a bit, and I was already planning stash the knee-warmers in my pocket for the return trip.  Woody started taking somewhat longer pulls, along with Rob and Chuck, while I was being careful to keep my own pulls a little on the short side to ensure I'd make it all the way back without needing cab fare.

The return trip, once we turned back onto Chef Highway, was really nice.  With a steady tailwind, our moderate effort level was yielding speeds in the 26-28 mph range, although by then most were starting to feel the effects of the distance, especially considering the fact that we'd all, I think, been part of the prior day's hammerfest on the levee. We finally backed off a notch toward the end of Chef Highway, but the pace nonetheless remained respectable for the duration.  Woody split off at Leon C. Simon to ride back to the West Bank (he'd been at Lakeside Mall with his wife at 2:30 that morning and had ridden from there to meet the ride at 7:00).  His day would tally up to at least 100 miles.  By the time walked in the door at home the odometer was showing 95 and my legs were pretty well toasted.  Now the question is, "Giro tomorrow??"

Not What I Was Expecting

This morning's ad hoc Thanksgiving Day ride certainly didn't turn out the way I'd been expecting.  Mignon has sent out an email earlier in the week suggesting a nice civilized 7:15 am start time, to which she'd received maybe two replies. I thought maybe we'd have a nice little group of six or seven, but apparently everyone got his turkey into the oven early today because when I arrived to meet the group up on the levee there were already fifteen or so there. A cool front had come though last night, leaving us with a clear blue sky and somewhat gusty northeast wind. By the time we rolled out and met up with some more riders at the playground, our group must have numbered at least twenty-five. 

There was a pretty good little tailwind that came and went as the river wound its way toward Ormond, and although I'd expected a nice conversational pace, I soon found myself down on the drops in the big ring as the pace hovered in the 26-29 mph range.  There were more than a couple of riders who were determined to get in a good workout today.  I was trying to stay near the front and in the rotation for a couple of reasons, one of which was the occasional crosswind section that would leave twenty riders lined up along the edge of the asphalt pretending they were getting a draft. It was a good day for the power riders.  Brady filtered up to the front at one point and pulled the whole bunch along at 28 mph for what seemed like miles.  He wasn't the only one, either.  Anyway, by the time we were past The Dip, things seemed to have settled down a bit.  I don't know how many were left in the front group by then, but I guess we must have broken up into two or three groups by then.  Eventually, Woody, who had been cruising along in the middle of the group, must have gotten frustrated with the "inconsistent" pace, which is to say there was a lot of surging going on, and blew past the paceline.  Of course, the guys at the front weren't going to let that stand, and next thing I know there are gaps all over the place.  When Scott blew up ahead of me I made a half-hearted effort to bridge. Up ahead I could see that the front group had eased up a bit, but just then Rob jumped past me and motored up to them.  I thought, "This can't be good."  Sure enough, Rob went to the front and when I saw the riders at the back come off their saddles to accelerate I knew my chase was over.

So that was the ride on the way out to the turnaround.  The ride back wasn't a whole lot different except that we had a lot more headwind than tailwind, and we spent the first five miles chasing Woody and someone else who had slipped off the front.  On the plus side, I wasn't feeling all that bad.  The chest congestion is finally starting to clear up, so although I'm feeling a bit out of shape, at least I'm not afraid to make a few hard efforts.  I'm not sure what I'll do tomorrow.  Maybe just the usual morning ride on the levee unless someone suggests something more interesting. Rob was talking about some guys planning to ride out to Slidell, but I don't know if I'm quite ready to jump into what would probably be a 90 mile day right now.

A Little Psycho

By Friday afternoon I'd just about had it with this chest cold.  I knew it was kind of a crazy idea, but I decided to go up to Natchez for the PsychoCross race.  It was time to roll the dice and see what happened.  I still had that deep chest congestion, but took some comfort in the knowledge that the temperature would be in the 70s by the time any heavy breathing would be required.  Allie was planning on going, so I hitched a ride with her, loading my not-quite-a cyclocross bike into her car at the quite civilized time of 7:30 am, leaving us plenty of time make the drive before the 11:00 am start time.  Considering my delicate condition, I planned to keep my effort level low, my head up, and my ass off the ground -- not necessarily in that order.

We arrived to find the usual small but enthusiastic turnout, and after riding one lap of the course I knew it would be a challenge regardless of any plans I might have had to take it easy.  The course wound through a park with some rolling terrain, which was nice, but each lap included two sets of artificial barriers plus a very deep sand pit.  As if that wasn't enough, the first set of double barriers came right before an iron pipe fence that was so high that I could barely step over it from a dead stop.  The fast (and tall) guys would run at it, plant one foot on top, and leap over it.  And then there was the sand pit.  Each lap there would be one or two deep tracks through it that had been made by someone ahead of me.  If I charged the sand pit and somehow managed to stay in the track all the way across I could make it through. 

That happened exactly once. Most of the time I'd get halfway through before coming to sudden stop, and the would have to try and clip back in before riding straight up a steep incline.  A few times, the best I could do was to shoulder the bike and run up the hill. The last set of double barriers was the easiest, and I was usually able to keep a lot of momentum through those. Anyway, I started the race last, passed Allie at some point, and pretty much stayed there for the whole race.  A couple of laps before the finish I caught the rider ahead of me and was considering going for it on the last lap, but when I completely flubbed the sand trap on the last lap, the gap a bit longer than my motivation was willing to close.  Anyway, it was a fun diversion and I didn't think I'd done too much damage.

Sunday morning I boldly headed off to meet the Giro Ride.  It was fairly warm and quite foggy, so I clipped on both head and tail lights. They would stay on until the fog cleared around 9 am, which was about when I flatted right after turning off of Chef Highway onto the service road. 

I felt pretty good on the Giro Ride until we were about halfway back when my earlier cyclocross exploits began to catch up with me.  By the time I got home I was feeling pretty well cooked, but had only a couple of hours to recover before walking down to the Oak Street Po-boy festival.  We made kind of a quick run up and down the street, experimented with some new po-boys, had a beer at the secret St. Andrew's location (where's it's half the price they charge on Oak St.), and picked up a big cup of iced mint tea at Zotz before heading back home.  The festival was just getting started when we were there and since the weather was great I'm sure it was a big success.  By then, however, I was starting to feel like was losing ground to the chest cold and my voice was not sounding too good, so I guess I was due for a little recovery time anyway.

Seasons

Cold and flu, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Holiday, Cyclocross - this is the season of seasons, and as usual they all seem to pile on top of each other, competing for my time and energy. The last couple of weeks have been pretty much a disaster, riding-wise.  The chest congestion is stubbornly hanging on, and together with the off-and-on cold temperatures, rain and wind, I've had ample excuses for skipping training rides.  I'd fully intended to ride this morning, but when I woke up to a cold and windy morning, accompanied by a dash for the kitchen to stop a coughing fit caused by a "tickle" in my throat, I decided that discretion was indeed the better part of valor.  I always take those little coughing fits - you know the ones where your eyes water and you can't stop coughing until that tickle in your throat goes away - to be a sign of healing.  Anyway, it remains to be seen whether I will go up to Natchez for our second cyclocross race of the year. I'll be shelled immediately, of course, but on the other hand it would be nice to get away and do something different.  There are a lot of competing alternatives, of course.  The club is doing an easy no-drop ride on the Giro route, so if I didn't want to do the regular Giro Ride, there's that.  On Sunday there's the Giro, and I suppose a northshore ride, for the morning.  In the afternoon there's the Oak Street Po-boy Festival within walking distance from home. There's even a pre-festival city ride that ends at the festival, complete with "bike valet" parking sponsored by Bike Easy.

This morning it was pretty chilly and when I rode up to the local Starbucks I found them brewing Thanksgiving Blend, which I like, and the shelves full of Christmas Blend, which I also like.  Since I'd just finished off my last bag of Bike Fuel, I figured it was time to stock up on Christmas Blend, even though it's not even Thanksgiving yet.  Lots of stuff to catch up on today before the pseudoephrine wears off.....

Cold and Coffee

The conference went well, capped off with the usual Tuesday night party.  This year, however, they had a DJ instead of the traditional live band.  That wouldn't have been too bad, except that they were playing mostly crappy 2000s music - the kind with the monotonous over-amplified bass.  They even included "dancers," which were a couple of guys like you'd find break-dancing any day of the week in the French Quarter. Anyway, we made the best of it. I finally headed back to my hotel from the hospitality suite around 1 am, although things in there were still going strong.  The next morning's sessions were kind of tough, as usual.  Unfortunately my flight didn't leave until after 7 pm, so after meeting a colleague for lunch I still had a lot of time to kill before hopping on the Metro for DCA. Arrived back in NOLA from DC a few minutes after midnight on Thursday with a bag full of dirty laundry and a need for sleep.  It should come as no surprise that I wasn't out there on the levee at 6:15 that morning, especially considering the fact that it was around 40 degrees with a brutal north wind. 

After what essentially amounted to two weeks off the bike, and a lingering chest cold, I decided that trying to start training again in the cold air probably wasn't worth the risk and set my sights on today's Giro.  It was still pretty cold when I rolled out of bed today, but it was time to get back in the saddle, so I pumped up the tires, pulled on the knee-warmers and headed off for some pre-Giro French Roast.  I was really looking forward to that cup of hot coffee.  On the plus side, it was certainly nice to be riding out to meet the Giro with a little light in the sky for a change.  There was the usual cast of characters on hand at Starbucks, although they were all hanging out inside instead of outside today. 

Since I'm still feeling some chest congestion, I'm not planning on doing anything too hard until next week, so I spent most of the ride hanging out around mid-pack. The temperature was on the rise throughout today's ride, and there was a steady wind blowing out of the southeast.  The pace was fairly reasonable, so things stayed together for the most part. I dropped off the pace well before the turnaround for a little nature break, thanks no doubt to the combination of cold and coffee.  I wasn't the only one.

Tomorrow I'll be taking a pass on the northshore ride so I can help out with the timing for an informal time trial that the Tulane team is doing out on Lakeshore Drive in the morning.  I'll try and get back to a more normal routine on Monday.

Up in the Air

I’m writing this at 31,000 feet, somewhere between Colorado Springs and Chicago, en route to D.C. with a couple of hours to kill and a couple more hours to lose, and wishing I was on the bike.  The USAC Local Associations Conference went well, and somewhere in my overstuffed gate-checked carry-on is a long list of things to think about, investigate, and hopefully get done.  For the first time in a couple of years, there was almost no discussion of chip-timing systems.  The sessions were more focused on the business of improving the racing environment, attracting more riders, and especially streamlining the interactions with USA Cycling.  They are trying hard to go electronic, and at the core of that push are their online registration system and their results and rankings program. 

For 2012, there will be some new incentives for promoters, and possibly also the local associations, to use the registration system.  Although it’s already the least expensive option, albeit only slightly, they plan to give rebates amounting to 80 cents per registration next year.  They’re also developing a registration and results tool that race organizers will be able to use for their events  - probably something along the lines of the one that Sportsbase Online had.  Those of us who have been using BikeReg for years are just a little hesitant to turn our backs on the system that’s been working so well for us, but the cost difference, especially for larger events, will be hard to ignore.  They have already deployed iPhone and Android apps that allow riders to show race officials their current license status (and also notified the officials that they have to accept it).  Down the line, perhaps not all that far in fact, may be the ability to register for an event through the USAC registration system and then on race day just whip out your smartphone at the registration desk.  The thing that has really made that all feasible is a new system they are about to implement that will allow them to accept digital signatures from USAC members who register online (only through the USAC system, of course).  It’s interesting. 

Online post-event reporting and payment systems that were supposed to be deployed earlier this year are still likely to need a few more months of development, but they’re also on the way.  In the Results and Rankings world, we may soon be able to use a rider’s ranking to do things like seed time trials or do call-ups for criteriums.  They’re already planning on using it to do call-ups for cyclocross nationals.  If you look at an event that is using the USAC system for online registration, you will see each riders predicted placing based on data in the results and rankings database.  Apparently it was pretty accurate at masters nationals this year.  So anyway, I’m still popping Sudafed and will be off the bike until Thursday at the earliest when I return to New Orleans. Right now I’m on the way to the NCURA annual conference and kind of looking forward to getting some more information on STAR Metrics and the Data Act, and hoping that if and when the universities have to start providing even more reporting data we might somehow be able to do so in a way that would allow us to actually make some productive use of it, which I’m pretty sure the government won’t.

Back at home, I was sorry to have to miss today’s NOBC coffee shop ride, but I may have to break out the old not-really-a Cyclocross bike for the upcoming race in Baton Rouge.  No doubt I will be woefully out of shape for it, and entirely devoid of most necessary skills, but the beauty of cyclocross is that nobody will really care, including me.  In the meantime I need to send out an email about the planned LAMBRA annual meeting, which will be Dec. 3 in Jackson MS, along with a request for proposed 2012 event dates.  I also need to get jersey sizes for all of our LCCS and track championship winners, pick up and ship out both the extremely late 2010 awards and surprisingly early 2011 LCCS awards.

I won’t be arriving at my little D.C. hotel until around 10 pm tonight, I think.  Perhaps I’ll get this all uploaded to Blogger before tomorrow.  Then it will be two and a half rather full days of sessions and related “networking opportunities” before a late night arrival back in NOLA on Wednesday.

Involuntary Fall Break

It was Tuesday evening of last week and I was sitting in a rather crowded conference room in the AAU office up in D.C. when I started to feel the scratchy throat.  Perhaps it was just coincidence, but I'd just spent a couple of hours at 30,000 feet breathing dry communal air.  I was trying to be optimistic, hoping that it wasn't what, deep down, I knew it probably was. Later that night I searched the little ziplock bag I'd brought to hold my toothbrush and stuff, hoping to find a couple of decongestant tablets, tylenol, aspirin, oxycodone - anything - but I'd packed light for this quick trip and hadn't brought my usual travel supplies.  The next morning I stopped at the local drug store before heading back for another six hours of workshopping. Although I didn't feel terribly sick, I had a pretty good sore throat and low-grade fever, held somewhat in check by the generic CVS cold medicine. By the time I got home late that night it was taking its usual course.  The sore throat was going away and the bronchitis was starting to kick in. I already knew it was going to be a week or so before I'd feel well again.  Naturally, The Daughter was also arriving that night for a visit.

I spent the next two days at home nursing the developing chest cold.  It seems there is always some combination of events, usually including work, illness, and other things beyond my control, that puts me off the bike for a while this time of year.  It's one reason I never actually plan to take a week off.  For one thing, I just don't train hard enough to justify a week or two of extended recovery.  For another, I know something like this will force me to take a break anyway.  One thing I know for sure.  You don't go out and try to train in the cold when you have a chest cold.  A bout with pneumonia will put a big kink in your fitness plans.  Been there, done that.

So although I wasn't feeling quite up to riding, I was reasonably busy over the weekend, went out for an easy little spin on Monday morning, and made it in to work with a pocket full of pharmaceuticals.  That evening we had our usual Halloween open house.  That tradition started the year of Katrina.  Halloween was the first weekend that most of the block was back at home, and we all ended up out on a neighbor's porch drinking wine, telling our Katrina stories, and waiting for the lone little trick-or-treater who ultimately showed up.  This year the street was packed with kids and lots of people stopped by the house for gumbo and pasta salad and related snacks and adult beverages.  I still had a nagging little cough and some chest congestion, but have been more or less on the road to recovery since then.  Even so, since there was no real urgency to get back on the bike, I figured I'd give it another day or two just to be on the safe side and set my sights on Wedesday.  As luck would have it, I ended up with an 8 am conference call appointment this morning, so rather than blow off yet another ride, I hit the road in the dark and put in 25 miles or so, arriving back at the house well before 7:30.  Riding solo on the levee in the dark with nothing but a little blinking LED headlight is remarkably stressful.  If I had to do that often I'd definitely be in the market for a real headlight that allows for seeing in addition to being seen.  Anyway, I survived it.  Hopefully I'll get in another ride tomorrow before heading off for the annual USAC Local Associations conference in Colorado on Friday and the NCURA conference in D.C. from Sunday through Wednesday.  Like it or not, I'll end up with essentially two weeks off the bike.  Situation normal.