Back in the Pack

Riding weather doesn't get much better than what we had on Saturday.     

After nearly three weeks of gradually increasing (some might use the term "sputtering") intensity, interspersed with long periods of overly cautious wheel-sucking, I finally started to feel like I was more or less back to normal last weekend. Although it was painfully obvious that the fitness is still lagging pretty far behind, and there's still some dull pain around the collarbone, Saturday's Giro was the first time I've gotten my heart rate above 90% in a couple of months. For the record, that was 52 days post-injury, so roughly 7 weeks. I guess that's about normal.

On Saturday the weather was perfect for riding. Blue sky, light wind, temperature in the low 70s. It wasn't surprising, therefore, that there was a big turnout for the Giro Ride, despite the fact that a few of the local guys were up in Fayetteville at the Joe Martin Stage Race, which I still think of as the Fayetteville Classic. It's one of the oldest stage races in the country and has evolved into a pretty big regional event with a professional event management company running things and lots of overlapping classes and categories that I find a little confusing. As expected, some of the local guys were in a bit over their heads, but that's exactly what makes going to races like that so important. A couple of the Tulane guys went with the 4D Racing team to ride the 2-day Cat.  1/2 race, which had a surprisingly small field of only 25. A few of them did pretty well there, although I was a little surprised to see that a couple of them got dropped pretty badly in the RR and Crit. I suppose there's a story there.

Anyway, I pretty much pulled out the stops last weekend, which is to say I sucked wheels a bit less than usual and didn't sit up too early for the Giro Ride sprints. I felt pretty good, considering, so I guess all of those easy rides I did early on helped me maintain a little bit of fitness. The weather was so nice on Saturday that after the Giro I continued out onto the lakefront bike path with Jaden and Stephanie to log a few more easy miles. By then the wind was picking up, so we had a pretty noticeable headwind on the way back, but we weren't going very fast so it didn't really matter.  I woke up Sunday morning with some soreness in my legs, which I totally expected, and headed out to do the Sunday Giro. Turnout there was a little lighter than Saturday, which is normal. The weather was changing and although it was warm, the sky was overcast and there was rain in the forecast. We got in a good ride, though. By the end I was happy to ride straight back home, having logged almost 310 miles for the week, which was about where I had been back in the first week of January.

Last night a big line of thunderstorms came through, along with tornado and flood watches, so I guess I won't be riding today unless I sneak out this evening. No matter, I probably should take a good recovery day anyway and get to work on the Tour de Louisiane.