Summer Cold

May 28 Morning Ride group     

For a while I refused to believe it. That scratchy throat feeling slowly poking its way into my consciousness on a Monday afternoon at work couldn't actually be a summer cold. I tried to ignore it, but by late evening there was just no getting around it. My throat was so sore it hurt to swallow, and after a rather sleepless night I'd already thrown in the towel by 6 am on Tuesday. As often happens with these things, I was feeling a little better after a cup of coffee and a little activity, so I decided not to reschedule my 10:30 eye doctor appointment. I was on my last pair of contacts and hadn't had a checkup in a couple of years. As it turned out, my vision was pretty much the same as last time, so I re-ordered a batch of lenses and walked out into the bright sunlight with full-dilated pupils.  Ouch. Luckily I had a pair of sunglasses in the car and made it home safely, but I was pretty much worthless the rest of the day. By Thursday it had moved down into my lungs, which I suppose wasn't helped by the fact that I went out and did the usual group rides on Wednesday and Thursday mornings. Then again, maybe it would have done that anyway. It's always a tough call this time of year. I hate to lose more than one day of riding.

Anyway, last weekend was the annual NOBC 2-Person Time Trial, which I was officiating. I'd been a little worried the week before about having enough help for this one, but a bunch of people turned up a the last minute, so it was fine. There was some bad weather heading our way from Texas, but fortunately we had everything wrapped up well before any of it arrived. Frank Moak and Jaden Kifer turned in a course record time of 51:22 for the 40 km event this year. I cannot even imagine holding a 29-31 mph pace that long, even if I was just glued to someone else's wheel the whole time. I got back home and unloaded the car, and then an hour or so later they sky opened up.

Oak Street flooding, near Zotz

The rest of the evening featured some dramatic rain storm action.  I guess there were times when we got extended rainfall at a rate of 4" per hour or so, which is usually more than the city's pumps can handle.  That results in some street flooding in rather predictable locations, especially the underpasses. There was one cab driver who was on the news talking about having to abandon his taxi with his passenger when it stalled out under the Canal Blvd. underpass. A little while later the cab was completely submerged.

So on Wednesday morning the sore throat was a little better and I went out to meet the morning WeMoRi. My plan was to stay in the draft to limit the effort level as much as possible. I picked up the group around Marconi and Robert E. Lee and fortunately nobody was at the front really drilling it, so although the speed was in the 25-28 mph range it wasn't too hard to find a comfy wheel to follow. The next day I went out to the regular 5:45 am ride with pretty much the same plan. It was a little more difficult to limit my effort level for that ride, but I wasn't really feeling too bad. Even so, after I got home I could tell I was more tired from the ride than usual. Later that morning when I rolled the bike out the door to ride to work I found a chicken walking around in the middle of the street. I posed a photo on the neighborhood FB page but we haven't been able to find the owner yet. The neighbor says it's been hanging around for the past three or four days.

The Tour de Louisiane is only a week away now, so there are a few loose ends left to tie up. I had decided to use up some of the many leftover bib numbers I have from prior races this year, so didn't order any new ones. We used some for the 2-Person TT and discovered that some of the small numbers were apparently bio-degradable and when people tried to handle them they basically crumbled, so now I'll have to check all of the numbers I have set aside for the Tour to make sure they are OK. I hope they are, because it's too late to order new ones at this point. I finally got the new race bible posted to the website yesterday. There weren't really too many changes since last year except for sponsor logos, so that wasn't too difficult. Bob has been working on the criterium venue, so it should be interesting this year. On Sunday some of us will be heading up to the Tour road course to check it out, freshen  up the road markings, etc.  Otherwise, I think things are pretty much in place, so I'm just hoping the weather cooperates this year.