A Busy Week

Tuesday heading back downriver from Ormond

Last week was a pretty busy one. Danielle arrived around midnight on Wednesday. Jason F came by Wednesday evening to collect stuff for Saturday's Lakeshore Summer Scramble race. Candy's hip replacement surgery was Thursday morning. The drain plumbing (I use the term loosely) under the old concrete wash basin in the basement started to disintegrate on Thursday, which meant we couldn't wash clothes until it was fixed without flooding the basement. And of course there's work, complete with hot and sweaty rides to and from.

Candy's surgery over at Oschner's Elmwood facility went pretty smoothly. We arrived around 10 am and were pack home by around 6 pm. It's kind of amazing that they can do a complete hip replacement and send the patient home the same day. Of course she was kind of loopy for another 24 hours or so from the drugs. She's hobbling around with a walker for a while, of course, until everything heals up. I had been a bit non-committal about what I'd be able to do for Saturday's race, but with Danielle on hand to take care of Candy and the fact that she seemed to be doing fine, I went downstairs Friday night and put the race wheels on the bike. The only complication with that is replacing the regular brake pads with the ones designed for carbon rims, and then re-adjusting the cable since those rims are so much wider than my regular ones. Even so, it's basically a five-minute job. That was pretty much the extent of my preparation, since I'd really be there to officiate, and racing was mostly just wishful thinking.

Getting ready to call the next race to the line (Boedi's photo)

I arrived at the lakefront early, right about the same time as Jason, and started getting things set up. Ricky showed up a little while later. It was all complicated by a strong northwest wind coming off the lake that I'd estimate at 10-14 mph minimum. We tied the tents off to sign posts and staked and weighted everything down well since anything can happen when you spend the whole day on the lakefront. Fortunately, the first race of the day was the Juniors, for which there were only five or six, so once that got going it was clear that Ricky wasn't going to need much backup, which gave me a chance to go change into my kit. If you've never tried to change clothes and pull on tight lycra while sweaty and sitting in a burning hot car in the summer in New Orleans you have no idea how difficult that task can be. 

As usual when I try to jump into a race while also officiating, my head wasn't really in it and my warmup was dramatically insufficient. I lined up in the back row for the masters race so I wouldn't get in the way. There was no question that I'd be dropped, I just didn't yet know when or where. The answers to those two questions came quickly, though. The course started heading east on Lakeshore Drive for just a couple hundred meters before a U-turn in the middle of the road. Naturally Acadiana and maybe a couple others went from the gun, so by the time I finally came around the U-turn, way on the outside where the wind was, I looked up to see them attacking down the left side to gutter as many people as possible. I never even got into the draft and by the time I made the left turn onto Franklin and went up and over the levee I knew this would be a training ride for me. Heading back toward Lakeshore Drive on Franklin was brutal with the combination of the strong headwind and the rise over the levee. I kept some pressure on, though, and eventually caught and passed a few riders who had been ejected from the group. The wind eventually shattered much of the field and the lead rider lapped me a lap or two before the finish, with the remnant of the chase group sprinting past me just before the finish line. I was actually kind of surprised it took them so long. 

Russell showed up with his new TR-3

It was a really long day because there were a lot of separate raced on the schedule, some of which were pretty sparsely attended. In the case of the Women 1/2/3 race, sparsely would mean zero. Three separate races for Women attracted a total of only 7 women, which was pretty disappointing. Even the men's 1/2/3 race had only nine. The other races had reasonable fields, but I thought they all should have been better attended for something right there in the city with zero chance of rain. As the day went on the wind calmed down a little bit, so that was good, but it also got hotter. I went through quite a bit of gatorade and water that, thankfully, Jason had provided, and even had a nice lunch from a food pop-up that he got to come out. It was probably 6:30 by the time I got back home and unloaded the car. Jason still has some stuff with him, like traffic cones, etc.

The obsolete drain parts for the old sink arrived on Monday, so yesterday after work I went over to Lowe's and picked up a plastic p-trap and stuff, knowing full well I'd probably run into some kind of problem and would be back there later. The replacement drain was not quite an exact fit, and of course everything it was attaching to was old and corroded, so I didn't go into it with very high hopes. The drain line threads were so bad that I couldn't thread on the plastic nut on the trap, and I ended up going back to Lowe's at 9:30 pm to find, luckily, a metal one. That one was strong enough to kind of chase the threads, so that kind of worked, but the seal at the bottom of the sink was never good and even after a couple of hours and a rubber gasket it still leaks like it always has. There's always been a little bucket underneath to catch the leaks. Still is. At least I was able to wash a load of cycling clothes without flooding the basement. I can probably seal things up a little better, but I think a new wash basin and a plumber are in my future there.

No good news here

Monday morning I got to work and instead of our in-person staff meeting we did it via Zoom even though most of us were in our offices because we're back to an indoor-masking advisory due to the Delta variant that has already driven up the positivity rates to where they were back around Christmas holidays. At the start of the meeting Marcia said she had a head cold and had lost her sense of smell. She said she was fine. We sent her home anyway. Yeah, she ultimately tested positive for COVID-19, and yeah, she had been vaccinated. Lots of vaccinated people are testing positive - way more than I'd have expected - right now. Most seem to have mild symptoms, which of course means they're still out and about and likely helping spread the virus around even more. Danielle had tested positive a couple of weeks before coming here and Shannon has been sick for weeks.

This morning I went out to meet up with the WeMoRi. There was already a break of five or six off the front, so I jumped in with them after the turn onto Marconi. I mostly just hung onto the back of the paceline. A gap opened a couple of times but we were mostly still together back on Lakeshore Drive. After the Elysian Fields traffic circle another gap opened somewhere up ahead but then Eddie C, who was on his TT bike, came back and ultimately dragged me back up the group. After coming over the bridge, though, I threw in the towel and let them go for that last half mile. It was a good enough workout already.