Random Recovery Program

Thursday morning on the levee, all alone.

The weather the past few days has been less than ideal. Today it's even less than less than ideal. My training program, and I use the term "program" in its loosest sense, determines its rest days not by the TrainingPeaks' Training Stress Score® or Strava's Fatigue & Freshness figures, but instead by a combination of subjective motivation and Mother Nature. Mostly Mother Nature. So when the weather is good for a long stretch, I ride every day. Sometimes that works out to a full month or more without a day off. It's not as bad as it sounds, though, because at least two of my usual weekly rides would barely qualify as Zone 2, however one might want to calculate that. Anyway, this haphazard approach always means more skipped days in the winter than in the summer, and the past few days definitely qualify as winter. 

After a nice few days of warm temperatures that actually saw me riding in shorts for the first time in a while, things started slipping downward Thursday morning. Temperatures were still fairly warm, but the wind was shifting and at 6 am the levee was wet and socked in with a thick fog. Pretty much everyone had bailed out on riding in that, so I wasn't a bit surprised to find the meeting spot deserted. The fog, as it turned out, was kind of patchy and the road wasn't terribly wet, so it turned out to be a nice enough ride on the old Orbea, if you overlook the entirely predictable flat tire I got on the way back. I was glad I'd ridden because Friday was looking to be rain, which it was, which clearly called for a recovery day. The forecast for the weekend was calling for cold and wind, to be followed by more cold and more wind and rain and maybe sleet and maybe snow.

Saturday Giro at the Turnaround Tree

Saturday morning the temperature was around 40°F with no chance of sunshine, but the temperature wasn't the problem. The problem was the 10 mph north wind. Thus, I was surprised that we ended up with a pretty decent group for the Giro Ride. It turned out to be a pretty hard ride with a lot of complications. Jeff started off the complications by hitting one of the drainage grates on the Casino bridge (everyone was hugging the right side because of the aforementioned north wind). A few people stopped with him as gaps opened in the back half of the group. I decided to continue, which meant a pretty hard chase with a few others to close it back up to the main group that thankfully wasn't going super-fast yet because of the wind. After the turn onto Paris Road and the interstate exit lanes we picked up a tailwind and the speed went up to almost 34 mph as things started to string out. It was practically the hardest section on the whole ride. Once we got onto Chef and were back into kind of a quartering headwind a nice paceline developed, and since I was feeling good after that "recovery day" I spent a lot of time in the rotation. Heading back from the turnaround we came across the group that had stopped with Jeff earlier. They were fixing yet another flat, I think their third or fourth, so we waited for them to finish so they could get back into the group for the return trip. Then, as we turned onto Bullard there was another flat, so I stopped with that one along with a few others. We fixed that and made it back without another flat unless you count the one Charles got on his way home. I had a good ride and got home feeling surprisingly good.

Sunday's Giro was even colder and every bit as windy. To make matters worse, it was a little foggy, which meant it was basically like riding in a mist. To make the worse matters even worse, only about a dozen riders even showed up. As we rolled out I was already questioning my own sanity and weighing my options to turn back early. Fortunately the speeds weren't too fast because I was feeling pretty miserable from the start. I nonetheless resigned myself to sitting on the back and honing my drafting skills as a matter of survival. Well, as we all know, drafting doesn't count for shit in a tailwind, and when we turned onto the Paris Road / Interstate section the speed ramped up and the group strung out, and somewhere around 31 mph I decided I'd had enough and dropped off the back of the group. Behind me, David had done the same, so somewhere on Chef we got together and had a somewhat less miserable ride out to almost Venetian Isles, turning around when we saw what was left of the group. As I learned later, one of the eight or so riders left had flatted right after the turnaround and Jaden had stopped with him. So the ride back was going fine, despite the fact that I was basically cold, wet, tired and miserable and things eased up a bit when we turned onto Bullard, which made negotiating that pinch-flat minefield a little easier than usual. After stopping at the light we were riding pretty easy toward the lake between I-10 and Morrison Road when all of a sudden I sense this car coming up on our left way, way too closely. Well, it wasn't an accident. The driver then steered the car over to the right in classic "punishment pass" style, except that this time someone threw open the passenger door in order to hit us. It made contact with Rob Konrad who, amazingly, didn't crash, an outcome I can only ascribe to his decades of competitive riding experience. I was toward the back and heard the hit and saw his water bottle to flying after catching a glimpse of the door opening. How he didn't end up with a broken leg, or knee, or ankle I have no idea because the impact broke off the front part of his left pedal and somehow also broke his rear brake. The car never slowed down, of course, since it was entirely intentional, so we couldn't get a license plate number or anything. So I guess I was glad to have gotten in most of a Giro Ride that morning, but I was pretty miserable the whole time. One of those "character-building" rides, I guess.

Some nice pastels on radar Monday morning

This morning, Monday, the temperature was in the 30s and it was raining (there was also a bit of sleet) and considering the forecast I will definitely be taking another "recovery day" today. Much of the state had snow and ice and sleet, and various Interstate highways have been shut down since we do not have snow plows or salt trucks around here. Tonight we're expecting ten to twelve hours of below-freezing temperatures, down to a low of 26°, which is pretty unusual and enough to freeze exposed plumbing of which there is much. Things should improve by tomorrow afternoon when the sun should come out, the wind should die down, and the temperature should get up to the high 30s. I'm fully expecting to get in a ride at that point since we're off from work because it's Mardi Gras, at least technically. With no parades and most of the French Quarter shut down to keep us from seeding the next national COVID-19 surge, it's a Mardi Gras like I've never seen. On the plus side, it will be so cold that even if the parades were rolling it's questionable whether I'd be up to going out in the freezing cold for very long.

I've already had quite enough of this winter stuff.