Zero Mile Weekend

You can say what you will about training schedules and the need for rest and recovery, but the fact is that for a lot of riders like me, especially this time of year, taking two whole days off the bike is rather frightening. It's like you can just feel your fitness dropping away like sand in an hourglass. It's one thing if you've spend three or four or five days absolutely hammering, pounding out intervals and hill repeats (whatever those are), but if most of your riding has been easy, known in current parlance as "Zone Two," there is really no need for recovery.  That's exactly why you're riding in Zone Two in the first place. To make matters even worse, once you're well on the down-slope of the aging bell curve you pretty much start getting out of shape fifteen minutes after you get off the bike, and there is no longer any guarantee that even your best efforts will get you back where you were six months ago.

My 1-lap ride

And so last weekend found me up in Jackson, Mississippi for two days of cyclocross officiating plus the annual LAMBRA meeting in-between.  I'd gone up with Ben S in the car and my old Pennine on the roof even though the cold morning temperature quickly persuaded me to abandon all thoughts of actually sneaking into a race. The course up there was a pretty good one, made even better by the fact that you could see about 90% of it from the finish straight.  There was a nice set of stairs to run up, a log or two, an artificial barrier, some significant elevation changes, and a stretch of single-track. I would guess that rider speeds on the course ranged from walking to at least 25 mph. On Saturday morning I did a lap or so around the course just for fun, but it really just confirmed that I probably shouldn't race it. It was the first time I'd been on the dirt in over a year and there was enough technical stuff on this course that faking it just wasn't going to be wise.  Anyway, the races went very well and turnout was pretty good. A few years ago we'd had a race around there and probably got a total of twelve riders. This time it was more like 70. In one of the first races Ben slid out on a turn and probably bent his derailleur hanger, so the next time he shifted to his lowest gear he put the derailleur into the spokes and ripped it off the bike, actually breaking the derailleur in the process.  Luckily one of his Tulane teammates was coming up the next day for Sunday's races so he called him to get him to bring his single-speed (which was massively over-geared for this course).

We had a Cat. 1 woman who was very smooth!

The LAMBRA meeting went reasonably well. We tried to Skype in a few people with only partial success. I guess I should have experimented with a group Skype call ahead of time. I was both surprised and interested to hear from one of the Mississippi mountain bike guys who was at the meeting that he thought it would be a good thing if LAMBRA could bring Mississippi and Louisiana mountain bike racing somewhat under its umbrella to help coordinate the calendar, officiate, etc.  We'll be looking into that. The calendar itself is looking OK, but I am still hoping a couple more races will pop up to fill in some of the gaps. I'm also tasked with writing a draft of some bylaw revisions that would change the LAMBRA organizational structure to something with an elected Board rather than the current one-member-club, one-vote system. That will require some significant thought and probably also a good deal of plagiarism.

Those road racing instincts will get you in trouble!

This coming weekend will be the final race of the 2014 LAMBRA season and also the cyclocross championship, and I am very glad it will be held in New Orleans so I don't have to lose too much of the weekend. The riding this week has been quite chilly in the mornings with temperatures in the upper 40s, but the real problem has been the persistent strong winds from the north and, eventually, east. On Wednesday I went out to meet the WeMoRi as usual. As I wrote in an email to the group about it,

"With the twinkling WeMo orbs closing in on me I made a quick U-turn on Lakeshore Drive and booked it through the turn onto Marconi before hearing LBB come by with a cordial “Hey Randy.” I jumped on his 27 mph wheel that had thankfully decelerated a bit from tailwind territory and tucked myself into the draft. Two cars at Robt. E. Lee, then back to speed in the headwind and cleanly through the right-hander onto Wisner as my lungs struggled to keep up with my legs. LBB was pausing from his steady 25 mph pace only to check the lackluster pursuit behind him every few minutes while I maintained my documentary position three inches from his rear wheel. Up and over the interstate and still no catch, so a final glance behind him rounding the CPB corner and a little surge up to 29 to the sprint with the pitiful rest still too far back to hear."

Thursday's wind was no better. One group got gapped off going through the turn and traffic at the end of Lakeshore Drive and we ended up chasing the entire length of the Lake Trail bike path where there was a nice little tail/cross wind. (Tuesday's ride there had been nothing less than miserable with the group split into 4 and 5-rider eschelons since that's all that could fit in the crosswind.) I think we probably averaged 17 mph on the way back into the wind. This morning I went with the Tulane group for what is now the traditional Friday Coffee Ride. Charlotte flatted on Jeff Davis Pky and the front of the group didn't know for a while, so half of the group went back to help while the rest continued on. We eventually met back up on Lakeshore Drive. I have a lot of LAMBRA and NOBC stuff on my to-do list for the next week or two.  Hopefully I can get the NOBC online membership up and running this weekend, and the 2015 race calendar posted to the website(s). I will be glad to get the final cyclocross race done and results posted, and then perhaps I can start thinking about next year.