Burned, Drilled, Fogged, and on the Road

The weather around here has been unseasonably warm for about a week now. Naturally it's about to change pretty significantly, but it's been quite a relief to be able to ride in basically summer kit for a few days. Being early February, I have had a really hard time not over-dressing. Basically, I can't accept the thermometer at face value, and pulled on the arm-warmers a few times when they really weren't needed.

Last weekend, after a pretty routine Giro Ride on Saturday, I went with a small group of Tulane riders up to Independence for an easy 60+ miles in the country. The strongest riders weren't there, so I actually had a pretty relaxing ride. I needed it, I think. A week or so ago I broke down and visited the dermatologist, which of course resulted in a liberal application of liquid nitrogen and a scrape biopsy on a little spot on my back. Amazing how they can pick out that one spot from among the thousands of others on my sun-ravaged body. I guess I was about the last generation before sunscreen became readily available. As a child I would get sunburned to the point of blistering at least once or twice each year. Back then we used "suntan lotion" which was basically mineral oil that did essentially nothing but provide an excuse to rub your hands over your girlfriend's body on the beach. So anyway, with the LN2 burns are slowly healing, I found myself at the dentist yesterday for phase II of an implant I need to replace that tooth that had to be pulled back in December because it had cracked underneath an old crown. I had already been back the week before when they did a CAT scan of my mouth in order to figure out where to drill -- in to the bone. So I wasn't exactly looking forward to this little visit during which they would slice open my gum down to the bone, force my mouth open way past its normal limit, drill a hole into my jaw bone, thread the hole, screw in a post, and then stitch up the gum. After that I went home and briefly - very briefly - contemplated whether or not to go to work. Luckily I decided to stay home, because an hour later when the anesthetic started to wear off, I knew I was going to be in for a couple of uncomfortable days on Ibuprofen. It's still a bit swollen and obviously tender. Fortunately I am well-stocked on avocados and soup at home.

Levee fog - one of the better sections

This morning I ventured out to the levee for the Thursday ride. Although there were heavy fog warnings out, there was really no fog until I got to the river. There, there was plenty of fog. I guess there were six or seven of us by the time we got to the playground. So there we were riding along the levee bike path, in the dark, in a paceline, in fog so thick you could barely see the rider in front. It was stressful, even at a relatively sedate 22 mph. I was spending a lot of time about a bike length behind the rider in front of me, just so I'd have a slim chance of avoiding a crash if something suddenly appeared out of the darkness in front. By the time we got to Williams Blvd. all but three had turned back. We decided to continue on to the Big Dip. Things improved ever so slightly after sunrise, which I can only assume happened somewhere above the fog layer, but it was still pretty sketchy for most of it. At one point Rich, who was on the front at the time, hit the brakes pretty hard when we came up on a police car that was stopped on the bike path in a particularly foggy area. Once he finished playing with his phone he said something to us on his loudspeaker, but we couldn't understand it. I can only assume it was along the lines of "Slow the f^*k down!" Anyway, we all survived, and thanks to the shortened distance I had time to stop for coffee, which I sipped carefully in order to avoid hitting the injured gum where the stitches were.

Tomorrow we'll have a small component of the Tulane cycling team heading off to Texas State for the first collegiate road event of the brief season. Naturally, a cold front is coming through tonight and the temperature in San Marcos will be in the upper 30s for the start of the road race with rain in the forecast for Sunday. At least it shouldn't be as bad as it was a few years back when the whole weekend was basically freezing cold rain. I'm going to bring the bike and hopefully tag along with the A or B race in order to get in some miles. That never really works out too well for me. I tend to sit at the back so I don't affect the collegiate race, which means I inevitably hesitate when the pace surges and get gapped off at some point.