One Too Many

Riders hiding from the sun under the only tree near the Giro Ride turnaround.

The past week or so has been pretty routine as far as riding goes. On the one hand it's been kind of boring, but on the other it's been kind of relaxed ... and hot ... very hot.  Over the July 4th long weekend I did three Giro Rides.  Same course, all pretty fast, all pretty insanely hot. That was the weekend that I started keeping one of those insulated water bottles in the freezer at all times. After those three rides I went out for the morning ride on Tuesday quickly realized I'd probably done one too many.  That Tuesday morning ride seemed, for reasons unknown, super fast along Lakeshore Drive. I was OK, but my head was reminding me the whole time that I really didn't want to be going that hard. When we got to the bike path along the lakefront I finally conceded and eased off the back so I could cruise the rest of the way out at a more amenable 16 mph.  It was the right thing to do. When you can't get mentally into a regular training pace you probably need to back off and listen because your body is trying to tell you something. For me it was something like, "Hey, dumbass, you've done three fast Giro Rides and driven yourself into moderate dehydration for three days in a row. How long do you think you can keep this up?"

4th of July Giro Ride

By Wednesday morning's WeMoRi I was feeling pretty much back to normal and jumping onto the back of the day's not-too-fast breakaway group felt easy, which is probably why we got caught at the end of the City Park section. I was even feeling recovered enough to launch a late but fast sprint at West End that topped out at 34 mph.

Last weekend was another hot and fast Giro Ride weekend. Nothing much to report there except that I have been forcing myself to sprint up the Seabrook Bridge lately, which has been on the one hand satisfying because it feels pretty good, and disturbing because I keep blowing up before getting to the top!

Next weekend is the Rocky Mount stage race up in Shreveport which should be interesting since I haven't raced since the Gulfport criterium in mid-June.  Interestingly, Rocky Mount always reminds me of Hurricane Katrina.  It was the last race that season before the hurricane, which effectively cancelled the remainder of the LAMBRA calendar that year.  Hard to believe it was 11 years ago. What I remember most was that I was in pretty good shape at the time and was looking forward to a few more races. Instead, I ended up riding alone in Texas and later up around Jackson, Louisiana for a month or so worrying about lots of things except cycling.

Tulane Friday Coffee Ride

So yesterday I finally brought the Volvo in for its scheduled maintenance. I'd been looking at that "maintenance overdue" notice on the dashboard for a couple of months.  I'd called the Thursday before and they said it would be fine to bring it in on Friday.  Then when I got there on Friday they guy just shook his head and said he wasn't even sure they'd be able to get it done that day and besides, they didn't have any loaner cars available. So I rescheduled for Monday.  That went fine. I got a nice S60 Turbo loaner and by 2:00 they called to say my car was ready to pick up. I went out there, paid the $120 (they also replaced one of the engine mounts on warranty) and by the time I was signing the credit card slip my car was waiting for me outside the door with the engine running and the a/c on high.  I jumped in and headed back to the office. I was all the way uptown when my phone rang.  "Do you happen to still have the key to the loaner car?"  Crap. It was still in my pocket. I had to turn around and go back out there to return it. Then, when I got in the car to go home I noticed they'd forgotten to reset the service reminder, so I went back out there this afternoon for that. Oh well.  At least they were nice about it all.