Followup #1

Lots of lonely solo rides in my immediate future.

A rainy Tuesday morning offered a welcome excuse to sleep late yesterday. Although I've been able to sit on a bike and pedal, trying to do so on wet streets would be a very bad idea. With a compromised ability to take evasive action, and apply the front brake without pain from the smashed and still swollen finger, I have my hands full just riding slowly on quiet city streets in daylight.

Not there yet, but progressing I guess.

Later in the day I had my first followup with Dr. Savoie. They took a couple x-rays and he said that I was doing very will with the x-brace. From at least one perspective the collarbone pieces look to be quite nicely aligned. It still hurts, sometimes quite a bit, sometimes not so much, but I guess it's progressing more or less normally

Last night, after having to get picked up from work because it was raining, we went over to Dat Dog on Magazine Street for a fundraiser for CALM. Despite the pint of Tin Roof Parade Ground Porter, I was feeling pretty uncomfortable by then, partly because I was sitting on what was basically a bench, and partly because my back and collarbone were getting pretty achy by then. Back at home I was setting up the Excel workbook for the LSU collegiate races I'll be officiating this weekend and looking over the list of "permanent" bib numbers I got from the conference director when I noticed that things didn't look right.  Double-checking the list against the USAC collegiate database was easy, but unfortunately revealed numerous riders who had already been allowed to race in the wrong categories, along with some who were racing in the higher categories without collegiate licenses at all. Three riders from Rice raced in the Cat. D criterium despite having Cat. C licenses, and subsequently placed first, second and third.  Apparently nobody was checking licenses, or just didn't care, last weekend. That kind of puts me in a bad situation for next weekend. Do I enforce the rules or look the other way? It's rather frustrating because this seems to happen every year.

Better than nothing, but hate losing so much hard-earned fitness.

Anyway, the weather this morning was really nice with the temperature around 58, a light breeze, and a clear sky.  I strapped the brace over my jersey and rolled out at 6:30 for another cautious ride on the levee.  Along the way I rode with John for a little while, pointing out two Bald Eagles near the nest at River Ridge. He turned back shortly afterward, but I continued on to Williams Blvd. before heading back. As has been happening when riding with the x-brace, my left hand kept going numb and my neck was hurting, but under the circumstances I couldn't complain too much since I was at least outside on the bike. When I got back home I looked at my Strava stats and, wow, you can really see the training cliff I've fallen off of!  I guess it'll be at least two or three weeks before my weekly mileage even approaches normal again, but there's no point in pushing the envelope and risking a fall or even just interfering with healing.  Kind of sucks having this happen during what is usually some of the best riding weather of the year, though.