Dull Ache

After a really good ride Wednesday morning, I was guardedly looking forward to the long Thursday ride.  Unfortunately, the weather forecast was not being particularly cooperative.  By Wednesday night it was raining off and on, and although the temperatures remained in the mid to upper 60s, the street was quite wet when I reluctantly awoke this morning. I took some time to consider my options, one of which was definitely to pull the covers back over my head.  The night before I'd had one of my rare migraine variants, which in my case is probably not so much a migraine thing as a sinus infection thing.  Anyway, when I get that visual aura thing with the jagged lines in the periphery of my visual field I know that within an hour it will be replaced by a dull headache.  Indeed, I awoke this morning with a unilateral headache.  It wasn't really very bad, so after checking the weather radar I decided a ride on the levee probably wouldn't do much harm.  Considering the wet roads I went for the rain bike once again, mainly to reduce the chance of flatting, but also because I figured I might well be riding by myself anyway.  No point dealing with the road spray if you don't have to. 

As I started down the street and went over the first little bump in the road I felt my head throb.  That pretty much eliminated any ideas I might have been harboring about doing any sort of hard workout.  I considered turning back to seek out some Advil, but figured I could at least get in twenty miles or so before resorting to pharmaceutical support.  Up on the levee I found Jeff LeBauve who is in town for Mardi Gras, I guess, and along with a couple others we started off down the wet bike path. At 20 mph there was a fair amount of wheel spray coming from the bikes ahead and after tolerating that for a few miles I decided to just drop off the back, ratchet down my speed a notch, enjoy my fenders, and try to forget about that dull ache in my head.  Turning around at Williams Blvd. I found one of the group who had turned around early, so I had some company for the ride back.  Naturally, he flatted just before the bridge. I wonder how many other flats there were out there today.  Anyway, despite the drugs I'm not feeling too chipper today.....