The Great Outdoors

Out in the great outdoors for the first time is seven weeks

For seven weeks now I've watched everyone I know logging rides, some virtual, some actual, on Strava. I could be wrong, but I'd bet most of them have been logging significantly more miles than they had last year at this time. Of course, there aren't really any of the regular big group rides, although a handful of riders have been getting together to keep the Giro and WeMoRi going. Those groups, as I gather from Strava, have been generally composed of four or five or six friends. Other riders have been logging long rides, either solo or with just one or two others. Meanwhile in Zwift land, there have been a number of pretty hard virtual group rides. So with all that active training going on all around me, it should come as no surprise that I have been feeling like I'm falling farther and farther behind. It is still uncomfortable to sit on the saddle for any length of time, and it's really not much better standing up on the bike either. Nonetheless, at seven weeks out I figured it was time to do a ride or two outside, especially since the weather has been so nice.

Baby steps

Saturday, yesterday, was the date that was supposed to be the Westbank Speed Fest. There are three big boxes of trophies, and another package of bib numbers, that are now orphaned down in the basement. Anyway, I figured that it might be an appropriate time to go outside on the bike and see what happened. So I rode about 15 miles, some of it while bumping along down the rather terrible and bumpy neighborhood side streets at 5 mph. It did hurt a bit. Once I got up onto the levee bike path things went more smoothly, figuratively and literally. Things were pretty achy in the pelvis area afterward, of course, but not a whole lot worse than they had been after riding on the trainer. So this morning I went out again, this time around 7 am, and ticked off around twenty miles, mostly at way under 20 mph and 120 bpm. It seems a little strange to get home from a ride and feel pain but not feel tired. Anyway, I survived two excursions out in the wild, so to speak, so I guess that's some kind of progress.

Visiting dad through the window

After riding today, I went over to Poydras Home to meet my sisters and visit my father by waving at him on the other side of the window. They've been locked down since all of this started, and when they tested everyone last week, his came back positive. So far he has not shown any symptoms, so we are hoping for the best there. He certainly looked fine today. It was also the first time I've driven the car since March 7th.

For the record, the City of New Orleans is still in shut-down mode. Coming back from the levee this morning I noticed that Zotz was serving coffee, having rearranged the counter so that it was just inside the door so that it was basically like a take-out window. The PJ's on Magazine Street is set up in a similar way. I doubt much will change in the city for another couple of weeks at best. New cases and deaths from COVID-19 in the city have stopped increasing at the rate they had been a few weeks ago, and of course pressure is mounting to let at least some businesses get back on their feet, but I don't see anything returning to normal for a long time yet.