Feast or Famine

Last week, specifically the one before the one we're currently in, was a nice solid training week for me. The weather has been starting to feel more and more like summer, which always makes me feel better on the bike, and there weren't many issues with rain or work to interfere with the routine. On the other hand, there weren't any races within reasonable driving distance, so although I may have felt good on the training rides, I know deep down that this feast or famine race calendar wasn't really doing me any good. You would think I'd have more than one race to my credit for the month of April.

Last weekend's Giro Rides were good, and it was nice to see Traci and Gary Rodosta in town from the relatively frigid northeast. With a number of the local riders up in Arkansas at Joe Martin, and one or two others missing, the Giro Rides seemed fast but maybe a little smoother than usual. Speaking of Fayetteville, there were some pretty impressive results turned in by LAMBRA riders. Although most of "our" guys in the extremely competitive Cat. 1/2 races didn't make the first page of results, there were some promising results to be found (there were apparently a fair amount of issues with results, but that's another story). In the Cat. 3 race, Lance Abshire was 5th in the TT, 15th in the RR, and 22nd in the Crit, so ended up 6th on GC, which would be impressive for this 65-rider race even if he wasn't 14 years old and riding junior gears. There were some others in there with impressive results as well. In the Cat. 5 race one of the local guys won, although I cannot figure out why that race had only 17 riders.

Early this week I had a visit from an old high school friend that was nice. It hardly seems like it's been over 45 years. On the other hand, we're at that age now when hearing about the death of someone you knew, either personally or as some sort of celebrity, is practically a weekly event. Late last week we learned that a former club member, Richard Beck, had died. That was around the same time I heard that Pat Fresneda had crashed on the levee bike path and broken a collarbone. I think he's supposed to have surgery next week to fix that since it was a well-displaced distal break.

This week's training has been pretty hit-and-miss. Although I got in 287 miles last week, work and other things have been getting in the way this week. I had to cut Tuesday's morning ride short, and then on Wednesday couldn't get out in the morning at all, so squeezed in a few miles after work on the levee instead. This morning I had to take Danielle to the airport in the morning, so it remains to be seen if the rain that subsequently moved in will allow for another evening ride. The Tulane team is heading over to College Station, Texas for the conference championship, so I think I will probably be driving. It looks like I'll be allowed to enter as an Alumnus and sit at the back of the A races, at least until I get gapped off, so at least I should be able to get in a few miles that way. Unfortunately it's looking like rain for the Saturday road races, but hopefully nothing like the complete wash-out they had at the last collegiate race. I think I'll be lucky to log 150 miles for the week with very little in the way of intensity.

Interestingly, and appropos to a blog by an old guy, a recent Tulane publication offers a credible explanation for why old guys like me have such a hard time dealing with sugar. The bottom line is basically that without adequate testosterone levels, blood sugar regulations goes south, which can end up clinically as diabetes. Of course, every cloud has a silver lining, and in this case I figure all I need to do is become clinically diabetic and then USAC might give me a TUE for testosterone.