Three Days

A foggy December morning on the lakefront for the Tulane Coffee Ride

Having skipped the Wednesday morning WeMoRi because of the weather, I was looking forward to getting back on the bike on Thursday, even though I was supposed to avoid "strenuous" exercise. I figured that what that really meant was not to be doing 200 pound clean and jerks at the gym, which of course I could never do anyway. So I headed out to meet the 6 am group, only to be stopped in my tracks by a train that was stopped in its tracks and blocking both Oak and Willow streets. It was well over five minutes before it finally began to move, so of course by then I'd missed the group. Just as well, I figured, since that would allow me to ease into my ride and see if I could detect any negative impact on my left eye. It was cold and windy, so I was a little concerned about that, but as it turned out I never detected anything unusual at all. With the new lens in the left eye, I was wearing only my right eye contact lens, along with my regular photochromic riding glasses with the stick-on reading lenses, and all seemed fine as I cruised along at an easy 18 mph or so, pushed along here and there by a nice little tailwind. I was not quite to the little dip when I saw the group on its way back (they'd obviously turned around at the big dip), so turned around myself and merged into the 5-rider group that was now battling a significant Northeast wind. I took a few short pulls but never got my heart rate over 145 bpm or so just in case a hard effort would somehow cause my left eye to explode.

Found another old photo, this one from the
Bastille Day race in '79. Glenn Gulotta, me, and Tom Finklea.

With Tulane at the end of what we used to call dead week ahead of exams, some of which have probably already happened, the TUCA group decided to push back the Friday coffee ride to 7:30. With things at the office already rapidly descending into holiday paralysis, I decided to go out around 6:30 for a few extra make-up miles on the levee before meeting up with them at the Reily Center. There was a dense fog alert in place, which for riding basically means you will be getting wet and, eventually, cold, so I dressed as if it was 45 degrees rather than the 53 that it actually was. I did not regret that decision, and other than my feet that eventually got a bit damp, I was comfortable throughout. Tonight is the WeMoRi party over at Blue Crab that I'll probably go to for a while. My weekend will be consumed with cyclocross officiating here in New Orleans, together with the annual LAMBRA meeting Saturday night, so it will probably be one of my lowest-mileage weeks of the year.