Return to Routine and Unfortunate U-Turns

The only thing that has been routine for the past couple of weeks has been the riding.  In fact, it's been routine enough to qualify as dull, but at least I'm starting to feel like I have a reasonable base again.

The weather has been, in general, pretty nice for riding lately, and as a result I can look back on three solid weeks of respectable mileage and a slowly improving level of intensity. Last weekend would have been a perfect time for me to have taken off for a weekend of racing, but there was absolutely no chance for that. Danielle graduated from Tulane with her MS in Epidemiology on Saturday, which was preceded on Friday by an awards presentation in which she was inducted into the Delta Omega honor society for epidemiology. I really couldn't miss that, especially since Candy wasn't able to be at graduation because of a meeting in Toronto.

After the awards presentation on Friday we went over to the uptown campus for the annual "Wave Goodbye" party, which was actually quite enjoyable.  The weather was relatively cool and the food was great. I don't know what other universities do, but having live music and lots of food that included grilled oysters on the half-shell, gumbo, red beans and rice, salad, various po-boys, and a cash bar was pretty nice.

The graduation ceremony for the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, not to be confused with the huge morning's "unified" graduation production at the Superdome, was held at the renovated Saenger Theatre, just down the street from the SPHTM. I love being in that theatre. I can remember going to movies there when I was a kid and being facinated by the stars on the ceiling and the general design that makes it look like you are in an outdoor amphitheatre. That hasn't changed one bit. On the down side, my little camera was really not up to the task of taking photos under those circumstances. I probably could have experimented with a lot of manual settings until I got it right, but my battery was low and I decided to play it safe and make sure I could get at least one good posed photo afterward. Yesterday afternoon I drove Danielle and the two dogs and a couple of over-weight bags to the airport for her flight back to Seattle/Olympia for the summer. When she returns in the fall she will be starting at LSU Health Sciences Center to begin work on her Ph.D.

Meanwhile, I've been back to a fairly regular riding routine for the past couple of weeks. With the Rocky Mount race going on last weekend up in Shreveport, the Giro Rides on Saturday and Sunday were a little thinner than usual, especially on Saturday. It had stormed Friday evening and I think a lot of people had just decided they wouldn't be able to ride Saturday morning and so didn't even try. As it turned out, everything was dried out by then and we had a good ride. For me, the missing riders actually gave me a better opportunity to mix in a little more intensity than usual, so that was good.

Glenn Gulotta

Last week we had a surprise visit from Glenn Gulotta, father of the Giro Ride. He's looking good and it was great catching up with him, at least until he dropped off the back when things started getting serious on Hayne Blvd.

On Sunday's ride we were flying down the service road on the way out when I heard someone next to me hit a rock which shot out to the left. His front tire immediately went flat, and after I turned around I was shocked to find that two other riders had also pinch-flatted their front tires on, apparently, the same thing.  It was almost comical. Then, on the way back after the turnaround, I found myself off the front with Laron while the rest of the group was still talking or doing whatever they do when they stop by that lonely tree out on Chef Highway. I wasn't planning on staying out there, but after a little while Laron started pushing the pace and when I looked back I couldn't even see the rest of the group. I think I took one pull and spent the rest of the time glued to his wheel.  I think we got all the way back to around the Goodyear sign before the rest of them finally caught up.

So Monday morning I was feeling a little stiff and just went out for a nice easy spin on the levee, which was great. Then this morning I met the usual 5:45 group to ride out to the lakefront. I could still feel the weekeend in my legs.

Jim's Hand

As usual, we met up with some other riders out near West End, and also as usual made a U-turn near Brisbi's to start our lap of Lakeshore Drive. I turned around and started riding easy as the rest of the group came together and then heard something odd.  Looking back I could see a group in the middle of the road and a pickup truck backing up in the right lane. Well, as it turned out, Jim (aka Professor) had started to make a u-turn and the truck, which must have been going substantially faster than the 25 mph speed limit, smashed into his left hand.  It could have been worse, of course, but the result was that Jim had broken all four metacarpals, two quite badly. We had to call for extraction to the ER, and last I heard he was in surgery. That really sucks since he had been training hard for the past couple of months and was planning on racing the Feliciana Road Race next weekend.

Coyotes on the Levee

I have a lot of backed-up stuff to do on the NOBC website, LAMBRA, Tour de La, upcoming 2-Person Time Trial, etc., and I am hoping I can make some significant progress on that stuff this week. Candy returns on Wednesday. I'm meeting with the City of Covington folks about the Tour de Louisiane on Thursday, and I'm planning on racing on Sunday.  Danielle's scooter is having electrical or starting problems that I need to diagnose, hedges and trees need trimming, the house needs painting, the car needs service, I need to schedule an eye doctor appointment (on my last pair of contact lenses right now) and some bills still need to be paid.