Winter Comes

Winter comes.....

It was almost 8 am when I finally got up and checked the radar. I'd been hearing the water dripping from the broken gutter above the bedroom window for hours, but now it seemed to be slacking off. Outside, the streets were wet but the rain was barely noticeable in the little pools of water in the potholes.

The radar was looking surprisingly good, which is to say the rain appeared to be about over. The wind and the temperature, well, those were rapidly going from bad to worse. By 10:00 it looked like the rain was gone for good and I decided I might as well take the Rain Bike out for what would be essentially a ceremonial end-of-year spin on the levee. I knew it would still be wet, and I knew the temperature would be dropping and the wind increasing, but it was the last chance to get in a few miles before the arrival of even more uncomfortable winter weather later in the evening.

The temperature was still 52 F when I went out. It would be 48 when I returned less than two hours later. Knowing that my feet would probably get wet despite the Rain Bike's ample fenders, and considering there would probably be a cold mist falling, I dressed as if I was going out for a ride in the low 40s - long tights, shoe-covers, and wind vest. I didn't regret it.

By New Orleans standards, this week is
looking to be miserable.

I was quite surprised by the number of other riders I saw up on the levee. Perhaps they were all thinking the same thing I was. An easy spin in this morning's wind meant spinning along at like 14 mph a lot of the time, so I was not very motivated to go beyond Williams Blvd. where I turned around, picking up a bit of tailwind here and there, but mostly just more crosswind. Coming down off of the levee at Dakin Street I felt my rear tire go squishy as I made the fast downhill right curve onto River Road. Another flat. I barely made it across the railroad tracks before the rim started hitting the ground, so I stopped at Breads on Oak to fix it, finally putting about 35 psi into the tire with my ancient and barely functional Silca frame pump before limping the last couple of miles home.

At least I know that absolutely my last flat tire of the year. The coming week is looking to be really cold, at least by New Orleans standards. Multiple days that dip below freezing are fairly unusual, and for those of us who ride before work in the mornings the combination of wind and cold is definitely going to take its toll. At least I nowadays have enough winter riding gear on hand to make it feasible, if not comfortable or even advisable, to ride. The city has its freeze warnings up and although it probably won't get cold enough long enough to freeze anybody's pipes here in town south of the lake, folks on the northshore and elsewhere are probably busy insulating pipes and bringing in plants today.

Last Giro of the Year, or Not - Playing it by Ear

Après-Giro scenery along the lakefront bike path. Too nice to go home yet.

What a difference a day makes! Despite the clear sunny sky, yesterday's ride was rough because of the wind and the cold. This morning, however, the Giro Ride enjoyed much warmer temperatures, barely noticeable wind, and the same clear sky. There was no comparison. I left home in the dark at 6 am with the temperature hovering at 48F. As soon as I stepped out the door I knew I'd end up a little over-dressed, but at least I was comfy-cozy on the way to Starbucks with my long tights, base layers, shoe covers and vest. By the time the group was halfway down Hayne Blvd. the temperature had risen a good seven or eight degrees and riders, most of whom were in knickers or shorts with knee-warmers, were already peeling off vests and gloves. My vest and long-sleeve jersey were unzipped and I was looking forward to the turnaround when I could safely stuff some of the excess wardrobe into my pockets. The ride out to Venetian Isles was brisk with a few fast sections, but this time of year the number of people willing to take hard pulls is small so the efforts tend to be relatively short.

Heading back along the service road. I called the city a
couple of weeks ago and they actually came out and
picked up the piles of junk that had been dumped along
this section of road.

On the way back, just as things were starting to ramp up a bit, one of the guys flatted. Everyone stopped, and the interruption must have taken the wind out of everyone's sails because most of the rest of the ride was at a nice conversational pace.

Since the weather was so nice - it had warmed up to 57 by the time we were back to Lakeshore Drive - and since the forecast for Sunday was calling for rain, I decided to add a few miles by riding out along the lakefront bike path to Kenner. I'd planned to turn left at the end, go over the levee, and ride along the floodwall at the edge of civilization, but it was fenced off and I didn't want to get off the bike to climb over the erosion barrier and up the gravel road just for a few additional miles, so I turned around and headed back in to a light headwind. A few miles later I saw Pat coming toward me. He'd ridden the Giro, and maybe stopped at his boathouse for a minute before riding out to the bike path a few minutes behind me, so we had a nice ride back into town. I ended up logging 83 miles, arriving home feeling hungry but enormously better that I had after a mere 59 miles just the day before. Go figure.

Conversational pace along Hayne Blvd. to finish out the Saturday Giro Ride

Today's ride brings my 2017 total up to 12,225 miles, not counting my daily commutes to and from work, and I suspect I will have to be satisfied with that unless we get very lucky tomorrow morning. The rest of next week is looking like it will be pretty challenging. From Monday morning the wind won't die down to less than 10 mph until Friday, which is also the first time the morning temperature will be above freezing. On the plus side, there's no rain in the forecast once the cold front comes through. My guess is that there may be a few mornings in there where it will be just above freezing at my house, but when it's in the 30s with a 15 mph wind blowing, two or three degrees don't help very much. So when I got home from riding today I gathered up all of the sweaty dirty winter riding clothes from last week and threw the whole batch into the washer so I can at least start out 2018 on the right foot. I'll probably need all of it if I'm going to be doing morning rides over the next five days.

The Hardest Rides

Out at the Spillway

Sometimes it seems like the hardest rides are the slowest rides. It usually start with a hard time actually getting out the door. Wednesday morning I was determined to make the WeMoRi despite the wet streets and strong wind and cold temperatures that seem to have become normal around here lately. I went out anyway, of course, a little late, of course. I was worried I might miss the group if I went straight to Lakeshore Drive from Wisner Blvd., so I turned onto Robert E. Lee and then Marconi so I'd be sure to see them coming. When I got to Lakeshore Drive there was a brutal north wind coming off the lake and no blinky lights in sight. I figured they had decided to skip Lakeshore Drive and do an extra lap of Lakeshore Drive instead, so I turned around and continued alone on the WeMoRi loop. As I made the turn back onto Wisner I looked back and saw some riders, so I figured I'd made the right decision. As it turned out, the "group" was composed of only four riders, including Scott from D.C., and they hand actually done the Lakeshore Drive lap but were going so much more slowly than the usual group does that my timing had been wrong. Anyway, we all came together and had a nice ride, even if it wasn't particularly fast. Once again, I got home cold, wet and dirty.

The forecast for Thursday hadn't looked too bad, and I didn't check it when I got up in the dark that morning. I dressed for the 40-something degree temperature and headed out the door and was immediately surprised to see a light drizzle in the beam of my headlight. I thought that perhaps it was just one of those quick little showers passing through and continued on, but by the time I got to the deserted meeting spot it was a legitimate light rain so I had to turn back and head home, logging a total of 3.8 miles for the day. Oh well.  Later that evening we took a long walk down to Freret Street for lunch at High Hat Cafe, which was nice except for the walking part.

This morning the sky was finally clear, but the temperature was in the low 40s and a steady north wind was blowing. I decided to wait until the sun came up since there wasn't a group ride and I didn't have plans anyway. I wanted to ride out to the Spillway, which would give me a nice 50 mile ride. I'd already decided it would be an easy ride. This turned out to be one of the slowest, hardest rides I'd done in a while. I tacked on a few extra miles on the other side of the Spillway up to Airline Highway just to see what that road was like. The entire ride seemed like it was either headwind or crosswind, and although I got back home just shy of 60 miles with an average speed of something south of 17 mph, I was tired and achy and hungry like I'd just finished a 90 mile group ride.

Tomorrow is what might be the last Giro Ride of the year. It should be in the mid-40s with little chance of rain and a light wind, so that's good. Sunday's forecast is not looking so good, though. Looks like a pretty good chance of rain that morning ahead of a very cold front that will be hitting full-force on Monday. The low on Sunday night will be around freezing and then Monday night will be in the 20s, which is pretty damned cold for New Orleans. Morning lows will be in the 30s through next Friday, so that's going to make the morning rides difficult.

Holiday at Home

This pretty much sums up the weekday morning rides last week.

As predicted, the weekday morning rides the week before Christmas were less than ideal. Tuesday's long ride turned into a shortened ride with Darren, the only other person who showed up, on a wet and foggy levee bike path. I got home wet and dirty, but was glad I'd taken the old Orbea that eliminated any feelings of guilt when I took it out back and sprayed it down with the garden hose before lubing the chain. I was hoping for a good WeMoRi on Wednesday but I got my timing wrong and when I met up with the unusually small group on Lakeshore Drive, it was right at the place where there's a median and so I couldn't make the necessary U-turn and missed the group. I ended up short-cutting across City Park to get back into the pack, but by then it was only five or six miles from the end, so basically I didn't get much intensity out of it. And then there was Thursday. That turned out to be another wet lonely shortened ride on the levee. At least I had taken Thursday and Friday off from work and so spent a while drinking coffee in front of Zotz before going home to hose down the bike again. Friday was basically more of the same, although at least I had time to add a few extra miles.

Heading back from Venetian Isles - not feeling too optimistic as Adrian rides off into the rain.

With some extended family coming to town for the weekend through Christmas, options for the weekend were limited to the Giro. Saturday morning it was still fairly warm, but there was a cold front making its way across Louisiana that included a narrow but dense band of rain heading straight for New Orleans. Once again, I went out on the old Orbea because I knew there was no way in hell I'd be making it back home dry. But after all of the shortened rides earlier in the week I was feeling a little desperate for mileage. Looking at the radar, I figured we had a chance we'd get in most of the Giro route before the rain, so I went out to Starbucks to find out who the other insane people were. As it turned out, we had maybe fifteen by the time we started. Most of the strong riders who normally populate the front of the Giro stayed home, however, so the pace wasn't anything to write home about. Adrian was spending a lot of time on the front, along with Jim and me, and nobody else seemed very interested in coming around to take a pull. On the service road heading toward Chef Highway, the three of us found ourselves strangely off the front. I looked back and though someone had flatted, but apparently not. We waited up to re-group and headed down Chef. Soon, just the three of us were rotating at the front again. We weren't going all that fast, so that was fine with me. We were maybe halfway out to Venetian Isles when we saw the 6:45 am group heading back. At that point everyone except the three of us turned around and joined them. Unfortunately, the three of us didn't know that!  Mike W. appeared somewhere and Jim sprinted with him to the line at Venetian. That's when I turned around and realized we had been abandoned. It's also when I realized that there was a huge, dark cloud between us and home! I was with Adrian, while Jim was well behind us since he and Mike had gone all the way to the turnaround. I sat up to wait, but Adrian didn't, so I ended up with Mike for a bit, but by then I could feel the first little raindrops falling and Mike wasn't waiting. I told him I was going to wait for Jim. Of course he just kept going. So Jim and I get together and soon the real rain starts falling. I was really glad I had my new super-bright Bontrager Flare tail light, a gift from Danielle, especially for the ten of fifteen minutes when we were on Chef in a heavy rain. As expected, though, the line of rain was thin and passed through quickly, so although the rest of the ride was wet, the rain eased up quickly and stopped before I got home.

Sunday's Giro was much better attended, although being Christmas eve, nobody was pushing the pace very hard. It was considerably cooler, though, and at least I put in a few brief but reasonably intense efforts. Somewhere out there on Sunday my total 2017 mileage inched past the 12,000 mile mark, which for me means a pretty decent year, especially considering that it was one of those broken collarbone years.

Christmas at Ginger's Place

Christmas day was much colder and I was more than happy to take the day off from riding, but in retrospect perhaps I should have gone out early and logged an hour or so anyway because Tuesday morning was another messed-up ride. Christmas day we went over to my sister's place for a big late lunch, and lots of wine with pecan pie and lemon meringue pie, and blackberry pie.

I got to the start this morning at 6 am to find only four, including myself. I'd looked at the forecast, and it looked like some light rain was in the area. It was. We weren't five miles into the ride when a light rain started falling and immediately two of the guys turned around. Having seen the radar, I didn't think it would be a downpour, so even though the temperature was in the 40s, I continued, along with Scott from D.C. who shows up around here occasionally. He was definitely looking for some exercise, so we traded pulls in the off-and-on misty drizzle. It wasn't quite rain to soak your feet right away, so I figured I'd stick it out until my feet started to get cold.

Breakfast on Panola Street

We got a bit past the little dip before the rain got a little heavier and more steady, at which point we turned around. A few miles later we'd out-ridden most of the rain, but the path was wet and by then my feet and legs were starting to feel cold despite the cotton shoe-covers and thermal tights. Every time I'd go to the front I'd get in 30 or 40 pedal strokes and then my quads would load up and start to ache, which is pretty normal for me in cold weather. Anyway, I was happy to have gotten in 32 miles under the circumstances, even if it did leave my bike a mess. Scott ended up riding another 25 miles or so by himself while I went to Riccobono's with Candy and her sister and friend for coffee, eggs, potato, and toast (I passed on the breakfast Bloody Mary and Andouille Omlette). The forecast for tomorrow has more rain, so I guess I'll be checking the radar at 5:30 am.

Crazy Weather

The front of the Giro Ride regrouping after the turnaround on Saturday.

The crazy weather continues to interfere with my normally comfortable routine. I know I shouldn't be complaining. It's not like I'm in Minneapolis or something where by now I'd probably be riding a pretend bike in a pretend race on a pretend course with other pretend riders while dripping sweat in a basement or garage or something. Looking back, I did at least get out on the road five days last week, which under the circumstances wasn't all that bad I guess.

After being rained out Friday morning I was glad to see a break in the rain Saturday morning that would easily accommodate the Giro. Things had warmed up a bit into the 40s, and a decent enough group was on hand, so I was a little surprised that the pace rarely got out of the "moderate" range. I suppose the rather brisk east wind had something to do with that. On the way home I took a little detour and rode a lap around Audubon Park to log a couple of extra miles since the forecast for Sunday was for more rain.

Wheel spray in the headlight on Sunday

Indeed, when I awoke and looked out the window Sunday morning the streets were wet. Checking the radar, though, it looked like, maybe, if I was lucky, and if I was back home before 8 am, I might possibly be able to get in a couple of hours on the levee. So I rushed out the door at 6 am, figuring that the Giro wouldn't be happening anyway, and headed for the levee. Despite the relatively balmy 65 degree temperature I was wearing a wind-resistant base layer and arm-warmers because I knew there was no chance in hell I'd actually get back home dry. The levee bike path was wet, of course, and I rolled along upriver for a while with a nice southeast tailwind while watching the spray from my front wheel as it caught the beam from the headlight. The sky was nothing but grey clouds and every now and then a light rain would fall. If the temperature hadn't been in the 60s, I would have turned back right away, but as it was, I decided to go at least to the parish line. That would get me around 25 miles, which was about as much as I could hope for. By the time I got out to the far end of the ride there was a steady light rain falling and my feet were starting to get cold, but it wasn't too bad. I'd taken the old Orbea for this ride since I knew it would end up full of grit and dirt and water, which it did. The rain stopped for most of the ride back, but returned a bit for the last couple of miles. The rest of the day it rained. Heavily. Although I ended up wet and chilled and dirty, I'd at least gotten in an hour and a half during what turned out to have been the best part of the day.

More of the same.....

This morning it was raining again. I went downstairs and found that both tires on the rain bike were flat. I went back upstairs, got under the covers, and decided it was a sign and I should stay out of the rain today. As it turned out, the rain stopped an hour or so later and I ended up riding the bike to work. The forecast for the rest of the week looks a little sketchy, especially for the end of December. On the one hand, it won't be very cold at all. On the other, there's a chance of morning rain on Tuesday and Wednesday and Friday looks like a potential wash-out. More of the same. As much as I hate riding in the cold, I'd take that easily over riding in the rain every day.

Abbreviations

"Well, Jane, it just goes to show you, it's always something — if it ain't one thing, it's another." -Roseanne Roseannadanna

 Things were going along quite nicely until a couple of weeks ago. Sure, the intensity was dropping and the mileage was getting inconsistent, but those are just normal things that happen every year in November and December. Then I came down with a head cold, and then the weather got nasty, and then I had to officiate cyclocross races. In the last couple of weeks I logged about as much mileage as I did when I was riding around with a broken collarbone last February. It's been pretty frustrating. Ideally, I'd have spent the week or two after the cold symptoms subsided sitting on the back of the group rides, gradually building back up to normal. Unfortunately, the weather, and I guess also the early pre-holiday entanglements, have been making that almost impossible. Of course I have a couple of rather unsavory options, namely riding a trainer indoors and/or riding alone in the dark.

I started the week with high hopes of getting back into the groove even though I still have some nagging head and lung congestion. That didn't last long. Candy had some sort of stomach virus Sunday night and when I woke up with a scratchy throat I decided not to go out into the cold for my usual Monday solo ride on the levee. In retrospect, that was a mistake, but at the time I figured that I'd be doing a good solid 42 mile ride on Tuesday morning, so it wouldn't be much of a loss. Well, Tuesday morning there were only I think three of us. As often happens when the turnout is low and the wind is high, we did a somewhat abbreviated ride, turning around at The Dip. It was a decent enough paceline and I definitely spent a good bit of time pulling into the wind, but I still came up ten miles short. Not to worry, I'd just ride harder the next morning at the WeMoRi.

So Wednesday it's 39 degrees and windy but I intentionally under-dress since I'm planning on a hard ride. I ride out to the lakefront in the dark and jump into the group somewhere along Lakeshore Drive. The group splits when it turns onto Marconi because some of the riders at the front turn in front of an oncoming car. The car slows, the rest of us slow, eventually we get through and chase back up to the front half of the group which is much smaller than usual because it's cold and windy. We make the turn onto Robert E. Lee and I feel my rear tire going flat. I haven't even recovered from the effort of jumping into the group without an adequate warm-up. It's still dark. My fingers are freezing. I pull a piece of glass from the tread and struggle to get the tire bead off the rim with my gloves on. I put the new tube in, re-seat the tire, and pump up the tire with my CO2 inflator. I remove it and then ever so carefully start to unscrew the cartridge. There's always residual pressure in the cartridge, of course, but it's so cold out that as it escapes, it's making CO2 snowflakes. Once it eases I unscrew it all the way, only to have more CO2 suddenly explode from what I assume was the frozen-up hole. I see something white and round go flying into the grass. Crap! It must be the o-ring. I look down and see a little white circle in the grass and pick it up. It's so cold it burns my fingers. Then it evaporates!  It was a ring of frozen CO2 and perhaps water. Anyway, I assume the O-ring is lost. I pack everything back into pockets and saddle bag and head for Lakeshore Drive hoping to catch the group, but I never see them. I must  have just missed them. I'm all the way back to Canal before I see a few of them coming toward me for the cool-down quarter-lap of Lakeshore Drive. By now I'm freezing cold since I've spent almost as much time standing in the dark as I have riding hard enough to generate any heat. I decide to skip my usual stop at Starbucks and head straight home. Total mileage for the morning: 24.5, about ten miles short. Total number of miles of moderate intensity: 2. Not a good morning.

This morning it's a little warmer but for some reason there are only four of us who show up. Once again we do an abbreviated ride that nets only 33 miles, mostly at a pretty moderate pace. So going into Friday I'm down by at least 50 miles already and the forecast for Sunday is 100% chance of rain.  Hopefully I'll find a long ride on Saturday and salvage whatever's left of the week.

Predictably Unpredictable

Guess it's winter now.

The weather around here has been pretty unpredictable lately, a fact that is entirely predictable this time of year. Together with various early holiday activities, it has been playing havoc with my stuttering attempts to get my training routine back on track. After Wednesday's rain-out of the WeMoRi, along with the dismal weather forecast, I wasn't feeling too hopeful in Thursday morning when I awoke, even though it sounded like the streets outside were dry. Checking the radar moments later it looked like there might be a two-hour window before the rain started, so I piled on enough clothes to make sure I wouldn't be exacerbating my lingering cold and headed for the river levee. I knew I wouldn't seen anyone up there at the usual 6 am meeting time. I was right. Still, I was thinking there was a good chance I'd be able to do the full ride without getting wet. I wasn't even to Williams Blvd. when I felt the first raindrops, and although it didn't look like there would be a lot of rain, I turned back anyway since getting chilled and wet while trying to recover from a cold is never a good idea. Naturally, the rain stopped five minutes after I'd turned around, so I added a few miles around Audubon Park before going home. Oh well. Better than nothing, I guess.

Across the lake in Abita Springs they has some real snow on Friday (this is Alison, who I knew would be out riding in it).

The rest of the day it rained. I dropped Candy off at the Marriott in the afternoon where she would be at a Psych conference until Saturday afternoon. Friday was more of the same - cold rain, but it was at least interesting because a lot of places were getting some actual genuine snow, which really only happens once ever 7-10 years. Metro New Orleans was on the edge, protected a bit by the relatively warm lake, so all we saw were a few very brief flurries - and lots of rain that finally started to let up in the afternoon. Friday night I went downtown to the Marriott for the Psych party. I'd been drafted earlier in the week to make a surprise photo video for Jim, who would be leaving the department soon to take another job. When I arrived I was handed a camera and asked to take a bunch of photos. It took me a while to get comfortable with the big DLSR and took a few photos of the floor along the way. So dinner was party food and wine. The wine was pretty good, though, since Candy had gotten them to get some Phantom wine like we've been drinking at home lately.

Setting up the flyover for cyclocross championships

Saturday morning it was 34 degrees outside and as I rode out to Starbucks I wondered who, if anyone, would show up for the Giro. I found VJ, Taco, Phil, and Adam. We weren't too wild about riding Chef Highway with such a small group on such a cold and windy morning, so decided to do a lap of Lakeshore Drive and then maybe ride the lakefront bike path even though the sections that cross over the levee have still not been re-paved. On Lakeshore Drive it seemed nobody was really all that interested in riding much. I was at the front most of the time, not going very hard, but even so VJ and Taco turned off before we got to West End. Then, just after we got past Causeway, Phil flatted. This began a 20-minute tire-repair saga. As I was to discover only toward the end, Phil hadn't ever fixed a flat before. I should have realized something was amiss when he removed the tire completely from the rim and then, after I pried the offending piece of rock out of the tread, he started by putting the tube on the rim. I guess I should have stepped in at that point, but my brain was already beginning to freeze. He had all sorts of trouble inflating the tube, which needed an extender to get through his 404s, and emptied the first CO2 cartridge in to the air. I thought it was because the valve extender wasn't quite long enough, so got out my own inhalator, only to learn that he didn't actually know how to use the one he had. Ahh. So we get another CO2 cartridge and get the tire mostly filled, but it's still low, so we use one more to get it up to a reasonable pressure (Phil's a big guy). That's when we notice that the bead isn't quite seated one place. I figure there's a 50/50 chance it's going to blow off the rim at any moment, so I rode back to Starbucks with Phil just in case. Luckily, he made it. By then I was freezing, but determined to get in some badly needed mileage, so I headed through town to the river levee.

Up there I ran into Darren, so we rode together all the way out to the Dip. Halfway out I saw Taco on his way back, so I guess he'd gone straight from Lakeshore Drive to the levee earlier. I ended up with 60 miles, which was good, even though my legs were feeling kind of sore by the end. That afternoon I went over to the park to help set up the big wooden Flyover they were using for Sunday's cyclocross race. About halfway through I got a call from Candy to come pick her up from downtown, which was probably a good thing because my arms are still sore from all the heavy lifting. That evening I went over to Pat's boathouse to watch the Christmas boat parade, which was nice, and then stopped over at Brian's house for a little cocktail party where the wine was quite nice. So dinner again was party food and wine. Since I knew Sunday would be a long day I didn't stay very late and slipped out around 10:00. I think I was asleep about ten minutes after I arrived home.

Masters and Single-speeds were combined

Sunday was the cyclocross championship in Audubon Park that I was officiating with Mike and Michelle, so my morning ride was basically just a coffee run to Starbucks and a couple of miles with the Giro before turning back.

Michelle, Mike, and Me in-between races

The cyclocross races were well-attended and the weather was pretty nice, although we did have some odd problems with placings for a couple of riders. I was using CrossMgr, which was working fairly well, although as usual I missed a few riders on a few laps and typed in the wrong numbers a few times which kind of screwed up those results. With two other officials also scoring the races it really shouldn't have been a problem, but somehow they were having trouble with missing some numbers and ended up placing a couple of people incorrectly. Getting those problems fixed of course delayed everything even more. I think we got it all right in the end, but we really need to work on a few things with the promoter. First off, the course was too short. The minimum for CX is really supposed to be 2.5 km, or about 1.5 mi.  This one was only 0.8 mi. which meant a lot of lapped riders in some of the races that had multiple fields on the course concurrently. Then, as usual, there were the badly placed bib numbers and, even worse, a lot of riders with numbers that were out of sequence for their groups. That meant I had to add specific numbers to CrossMgr's category setups to accommodate. To make matters even worse, there were riders who were deciding to race a second race at the last minute, usually with a number from a different race.

So basically, as difficult as it is normally to score a cyclocross race, it was even more confusing and prone to error on Sunday. At one point I scored one of the smaller races entirely by myself because things were running late and the other two officials had to spend almost the entire 45 minutes trying figure out the results of the prior race. Anyway, I finally got home around 4:30 or so, got the results posted, did the post-event report, generated the officials' invoices, and ordered a pizza. I think I was in bed by 8:30.

As Predicted

Not what you want to see in the morning.

It was just past 5 am when looked out the window. It looked windy, but the street was dry and for a moment, I thought I'd be able to make the WeMoRi. Then I checked weather.com. "Rain in view."  Crap. Right on cue, exactly as predicted, it started to rain.

I have few hard and fast rules about cycling. One of them is that I don't go out on training rides when the temperature is in the 40s, and it's raining, and I'm recovering from a cold, and it's dark.  Well, unless it's a race, of course. My luck had already run out yesterday evening anyway. I'd been happily tapping away at a big spreadsheet at work around 4:45 when I figured I'd better check the weather radar.  Yikes!  The big cold front was already knocking on the door and it was raining in Kenner.  I jumped up, grabbed my new highly waterproof Timbuktu messenger bag, and ran for the elevator.  "I think I can make it. I think I can. I think I can." As I jumped on the bike and headed down appropriately named "Perdido Street" I could already feel a light mist falling. The sky to the west - the direction I was heading - was black.  "I think I can.  I think I can."  I got across S. Claiborne, rounded the LSUHMC Medical Education Building, and the raindrops became dramatically larger. I thought, "I think I can't make it home without getting very wet."  I ducked underneath the overhead walkway and pulled out my rain jacket, wishing I'd brought my waterproof cap instead of the old cotton flat cap I was wearing. By the time I had the jacket on and was back on the road it was pouring rain and the gutters were already filling with standing water. I thought, "If I'd left just fifteen minutes earlier I'd have gotten home dry."

As it was, I got home soaking wet except for my torso that was nicely protected by my rain jacket. At least the temperature hadn't dropped yet. As I write, it's 7 am, raining, and the temperature is a couple of degrees colder than it was when I awoke. My shoes are still soaking wet from yesterday's ride home.

Guess there won't be any riding for me today. Again.

Sidelined

River fog for Thursday's levee ride.

"Well, at least I wasn't expecting to be able to ride this weekend anyway." The thought first went through my mind on Thursday afternoon. I could already feel the beginnings of the sore throat that, a few hours later, would be a full-fledged head cold. Thursday night I got basically no sleep at all. The only position that was tolerable was sitting. I sucked on whatever zinc lozenges I could find in the house, took pseudoephedrine and naproxen, and hoped for the best. By sunrise I knew I wouldn't be making it in to work on Friday. You'd think I would have gotten a lot of rest on Friday, but I guess I was so hopped up on caffeine and pseudoephedrine that I wasn't sleepy. Although I tried to rest, I ended up steam-cleaning carpet, sweeping floors, cleaning the kitchen, and generally doing random housework in-between sessions at the computer. By Friday evening the sore throat had abated and I could feel the lung congestion starting, but overall was feeling considerably better. This was a good thing because I was scheduled to get up at 5 am on Saturday and drive up to Ridgeland, Mississippi for two days of cyclocross officiating. Fortunately, the weather forecast wasn't up to the usual cyclocross standards of freezing cold rain. In fact, by the time the races started at 10 am the forecast called for sunny skies and temperatures in the 60s.

I hit the road Saturday a bit after 5:30 am and had a reasonably nice 200 mile drive up through Jackson to the Tri-County Mountain Bike Association's Ridgeland Trails. The only problem was all of the construction along I-55. Arriving at the race site I was surprised that Wes had decided to put the start/finish right at the entrance rather than alongside the nice big shelter where it had been last year. That meant we'd be relying on his truck for power. He also hadn't put up the pop-up shelters, which didn't really matter except that it made it hard to read the computer screen. With three officials on hand for this race, I felt a lot more comfortable about using CrossMgr for scoring. The only problem with CrossMgr is that if I screw up too much and key in bad bib numbers or click on them at the wrong time, the results can get pretty distorted, so you really need to have those backup officials doing manual scoring. As it turned out, everything worked pretty well and we were consistently getting the results out within ten minutes of the race finishes. Sunday's races were basically repeats of Saturday's, so all of that went quite smoothly as well. The whole time I was there I had a little voice in one ear telling me I should be riding and another little voice in the other ear telling me I was sick and definitely shouldn't be riding. Fortunately, I had not brought any riding clothes with me in order to eliminate the temptation. I did have my old mountain bike since I thought it would be useful for running back and forth from the pavillion to the parking area, but since the finish wasn't at the pavillion, it wasn't really needed.

I slept in this morning. I'm feeling a lot better but there's still some lung congestion and there's just no point in pushing it right now. The only problem is that the weather around here is about to take a turn for the worse, so it's looking increasingly unlikely that I'll be logging much mileage at all this week. A cold front will be coming through tomorrow afternoon, which means we'll be going from a high on Tuesday of 77 degrees to 51 by Wednesday morning. Oh, and of course there's rain the forecast through Friday. Once that front comes through we'll be looking at lows in the 40 for the forseeable future, including the cyclocross championships on Sunday.