I am a Rock

Rolling in behind the Cat. 4 sprint to ask Ricky if I should do another lap

Last week started out windy. Is it just me, or have we had a lot of high winds lately? Tuesday, up on the levee, there was a 16-20 mph south wind, which means mostly crosswind for our usual 40 mile route that we unanimously shortened to 30 for obvious reasons. At least it wasn't cold. By Wednesday morning's WeMoRi the wind had settled down (I use the term loosely here) to a mere 9-10 mph, which given the extra horsepower at the front along Lakeshore Drive was more than adequate to shatter the group, a consequence that I thankfully did not witness in person since I didn't jump into the group until Marconi. The wind and the pace offered little shelter for the weak and decrepit like myself, and even if it had, my recent shift into a slightly more racing-oriented mindset saw me making a bit more of an effort here and there, sufficient to nudge my heart rate, however momentarily, above 170, which is by no means sustainable. As a side-note, though, I really wonder what my heart rate was during efforts like this back when I was, say, 25. Back then heart rate was measured with a wrist watch, a finger, and math. 

But I digress.

River's up a bit

So back at the levee on Thursday the wind had finally died down to practically nothing, the temperature had dropped back into the 50s, it was foggy as hell, and other than the fact that we couldn't really see what we might or might not run into at any moment, things were going along just swimmingly until Rich flatted - twice. By then I was starting to think (to be honest, a more appropriate word might be "worry") about the upcoming 70 mile masters race in Hattiesburg on Saturday. That certainly factored into my calculations on the length and speed of my visits to the front of the paceline, but probably had little effect on the ultimate outcome two days later.

The new dog has been routinely waking us up two or three times a night, and Thursday night being no exception I decided to skip my usual morning ride on Friday. It was really due to the convenient combination of laziness, sleep deprivation, and the ready availability of that well-worn "recovery day" excuse. That evening I put the race wheels on the bike, took off the saddle bag and tail light, threw some stuff in my race bag, and set the alarm for 5:00 am. I wanted to get to the race early since I was bringing some signs and stuff for them to use. I was a little worried about the temperature, which dipped down to the low 40s during the drive, so I'd included a couple of base layer options along with knee and arm warmers. The forecast called for sunny skies and a temperature increase of over 20 degrees before noon, and by the time I had to make my wardrobe decisions for our 9:00 am start I went with a short sleeve base layer and sunscreen arm warmers under a very thing summer race jersey. Surprisingly, I was never particularly cold.

The masters race started behind the Cat. 1/2/3s and ahead of the Cat. 4s on a beautiful and smooth 23-mile circuit with a number of turns, most of which were well-manned. I had neglected to pay much attention to the course profile ahead of time, other than to note that there didn't seem to be any super-steep climbs, an unfortunate omission that would soon come back to bite me. Our race started out surprisingly slowly and after a mile or two I found myself more or less accidentally on the front. Even worse, in my effort to get warmed up I rolled off the front without realizing it until I glanced back to see a surprising gap. Well, of course there was a reason for the gap and the slow pace. There was a one-kilometer climb about 5 miles into the loop that was maybe 4-6%. Normally that wouldn't be too much of a problem, but of course there were those back in the pack with plans for that little climb. Just as I got to it and was trying to drop back down into the group someone attacked down the right side as I was drifting backwards. This was no bueno. I was quickly gapped off and had to basically sprint just to get back up to the last person, who himself was rapidly blowing up. My heart rate redlined before I came over the top and along with the other rider I was dropped like a rock. So I'm like 6 miles into a 70 mile race and already OTB. It was immediately clear that the two of us were not going to make it back into the shelter of the pack and in fact the other rider I was with didn't really seem to be interested in trying anyway. So we rode together for a number of miles until we started to see another rider up ahead who I was eventually able to identify as Eddie Corcoran. Now if you know Eddie, whose WeMoRi nickname is "Eddie the Hammer," you know that there is no way he should have been dropped in the first ten miles of a masters race like this. As we got closer I took one last pull to close the gap, which unintentionally dropped the rider I'd been with. Eddie had apparently hit his sprint shifter by mistake, unintentionally shifting to the small ring, and then when trying to get it back onto the big ring it had just completely fallen off, requiring him to stop to put it back in place. Anyway, I was glad to have him to ride with and we traded pulls for the rest of that lap. As we approached the start of lap #2, though, he looked at me and said, "Randy, I think I'm going to bail."

Alone again.

I was about halfway around my second lap, cruising at a nice enough training pace, when I glanced back to see Will and TJ, who were off the front of the Cat. 4 race, approaching. We said "Hi" as they rode past, neither looking particularly stressed. I stood up and took a hard look back again but the rest of the Cat. 4 race was nowhere in sight. I was maybe three miles from the end of the second lap when I finally heard the lead moto coming up on me ahead of them. As we made the final turn they came past and a minute later their sprint started. I easily followed behind and as I rolled past the finish line I looked over at Ricky, the CR, and asked, "Should I go ahead and ride out my last lap?"  Although I would have liked to have done another lap, I knew I was probably the last rider in the Masters race and so I'd really just be in the way. Ricky looked up and said, "I'll excuse you for the last lap." That allowed me to hang around the finish line and watch Scott and Brett sprint it out for first place, and then see Lisa, who was with one other rider in-between the lead break and the pack, come through for third. The pack was way back there somewhere and eventually sprinted it out for, I think, 5th place. So although it was a pretty disappointing day for me, I'm still counting it as a good solid 46-mile training ride. I guess I need to start making more hard efforts, or heaven forbid 30-second intervals, in training, although it's entirely questionable whether either can overcome the ravages of time.

Sunday Giro returning along Lakeshore Drive

Undeterred, and resolving not to sell all my bikes quite yet, I went out and rode the Sunday Giro where the weather was great and the pace was less than brutal. I was happy to find my legs working normally enough that I went ahead and sprinted up the Seabrook bridge at the end. It would have been better if I hadn't blown up before reaching the top, but it felt good and under the circumstances I couldn't really complain.

Foggy Monday on the Lakefront

Monday morning I went out in a thick humid fog for the Mellow Monday ride, which was mostly mellow and mostly wet. My glasses didn't make it two blocks from the house before I had to stow them in my pocket, and of course I arrived back home pretty wet, but at least the fog was mostly gone by then, which was good because despite an heroic effort to keep me safe my tail light's battery, which I'd forgotten to recharge and which had been giving me "low battery" warnings since I'd started, finally died on the way home.

Rouleurs, Sprinters, and Climbers

The past week was, for me, relatively low-volume but with a much-needed high-intensity weekend. It was also another week for flat tires, one of which was mine. After a pretty normal Mellow Monday ride, things went South weather-wise and Tuesday morning's ride was rained out. On Wednesday there was a Northwest wind that was at least strong enough to split the WeMoRi group on its return trip from the Seabrook end of Lakeshore Drive. I got out there at my usual time and, also as usual rode a bit on Lakeshore Drive looking for the telltale cluster of flashing white lights to the east. As they approached I turned onto Marconi and waited to be swept up into the group. When I merged into the group in the dark I was surprised that it wasn't larger (I had no idea it has splintered earlier). It took a while for my physiology to adjust to the faster effort but as my heart rate and breathing settled down to what is normal for this sort of thing I was starting to wonder why there seemed to be such a sense of urgency up at the front. Of course it was because there was, somewhere behind us, another group that was presumably chasing. After we made the final loop around the Elysian Fields circle I finally got a glimpse of the other group. Anyway, that turned out to be a pretty good workout. 

Thursday's weather was better with a temperature in the mid-50s and not nearly as much wind. I'd brought a couple of patched tubes along to give to Dan or whoever needed them. We ended up using both of the patched tubes I'd brought along, so I guess that was good. Little did I know I'd be returning home with two more tubes, both with holes in them! At least we got in the full Thursday ride, even though we were a good fifteen minutes late getting back.

Friday morning I was headed north with a serious 15 mph south tailwind to meet the Friendly Friday ride when I suddenly heard the rear tire explode. The tire had a clean slash all the way across the tread, and I could feel something inside. That turned out to be half of an old box-cutter blade. The tube was almost sliced in half. So on the side of Carrollton Avenue in the dark I scanned the gutter and found a discarded cigarette box that I used as a boot. MacGyver would have been proud.

Slashed!

I put a new tube in and inflated the tire and it looked like the boot would hold. I'd already missed the group, but I decided to ride easy out to Lakeshore Drive and pick the group up on its way back. After all, I still had another tube and two CO2 cartridges, so I wasn't too likely to get stranded and have to call for emergency extraction. I waited and waited but never saw the group, and finally turned back to ride home. As I later learned, only Charles had shown up for the ride that morning, and he'd turned off of Lakeshore Drive early, at Wisner, so I even missed him. At least I made it back home with air still in the tire.

Chris lines up for the D race as race director Tim Molyneaux checks out the field.

There was a collegiate/USAC race on Saturday up near Atlanta, put on by Georgia Tech. I'd been thinking earlier that I might skip that one since there was a race in Hattiesburg the following week. At the last minute, though, I decided to go ahead and drive up with Christopher, Julia, and Dustin in one of the larger Tulane vans in order to help with the driving duties and get in a 50-mile Masters road race. We didn't leave until I guess 1:30 or so, and therefore didn't arrive at the hotel near the road course until pretty late, but otherwise everything went smoothly and we were up early the next morning, arriving at the course around 7 am for Christopher's 8:00 Category D race. The lollipop course was on a short but silky smooth loop with only a couple of troublesome climbs, so the only thing I was worried about was the cold temperature's effect on my lungs and the moderate crosswind on the outbound segment. Christopher's race took off more or less on time, so I had plenty of time to contemplate wardrobe options. The temperature didn't look like it was going to increase a whole lot because of the overcast sky, so I rolled up to the line with knee-warmers and a long-sleeve base layer under regular arm-warmers. I had just enough time to see Christopher roll across the line alone but in 3rd place before my race started.

Emily Barrera photo. GW, the Rouleur guy, and me

The 40+/50+ Masters field was pretty big for this kind of thing, with 28 riders, 17 of whom were 50+, which was surprising. The lollipop course featured a short loop of about five miles with just a couple of short but significant climbs. The entire course was nearly perfect smooth asphalt, which made it feel quite fast. 

Julia's Category A race started just behind the Masters, and she would end up finishing 8th in the field of 18.

The race started out with a fairly strong crosswind coming from the left and of course the riders up in front were immediately pushing the pace. I spent that whole segment on the white line scrapping for a little draft and closing gaps. The average speed along that stretch was something over 28 mph. Of course I knew better than to be at the back, but I was suffering from a serious lack of confidence and was just hoping things would settle down. Well, they did settle down -- until we hit that crosswind stretch again. This time the speed surged into the 30s and soon enough gaps started opening up ahead of me as riders began to blow. I closed a couple of gaps but the last one was too long and too late. I ended up getting together with three other riders and we started a rather nice paceline rotation. One of these guys was a tall Rouleur who was taking longer pulls than the rest of us. I spent a lot of time on his wheel in the paceline. The other was GW from Auburn who is another road dinosaur like me. A couple of laps later we lost one of the riders but it didn't really affect our speed. Eventually we started seeing a group of riders up the road that turned out to be another group that had gotten shelled. After chasing pretty hard for another lap we caught that group about halfway through the last lap. That made for a group of seven that was, of course, mostly 50+ riders. We were still the back half of the race, a good five hopeless minutes off the pace of the front group, but at least I'd get to sprint, even if it was just for something like 16th place. It would probably be the first legitimate sprint in an actual race in two years. After the left turn taking us onto the final mile or so before the finish one rider rolled off the front. I knew I shouldn't but I went ahead and closed that gap anyway since, honestly, the real race was already in the parking lot. So I'm sitting there second wheel with a kilometer to go and the guy starts to blow up, at which point, quite predictably, I get streamed on the left by most of the rest as the drag race to the finish line starts. I managed to get into the back of that line and launched a reasonable sprint from an entirely unreasonable position, finishing 3rd in our off-the-back group for an unimpressive 9th place in the 50+. 

Yeah, that's broken.

As soon as I got back I found out from Dustin, who was about to line up for his race, that Christopher had actually crashed on the final turn in his Category D race when his chain somehow slipped, and had finished with wat turned out to be a broken collarbone. By the time I finished he had already gotten a ride to the nearby hospital. Then a little while later we were surprised to find Dustin riding back to the van after dropping out of the big Cat. 1/2/3 field. At least that allowed us to pick Chris up from the emergency room. Since he wasn't feeling too terrible we decided to go ahead with our original plan for Sunday which was to drive over to Oxford, Alabama for a quick ride up to the top of Cheaha Mountain.

Observation tower

The next morning we dropped Chris off at a Starbucks in Oxford and went over to the Choccolocco Sports Park to start our ride. The temperature was still quite cold (it had been 34° earlier that morning) but the sun was out and I think we all under-estimated how quickly we would warm up when the climbing started and over-dressed a bit. As we started the climbing someone remarked, "three sprinters walk into a bar..." in reference to the fact that none of us was what you'd call a climber but all of us might qualify as sprinters that, as everyone knows, suffer on the climbs. That ride went pretty nicely despite my somewhat sore legs. Since I should really have been taking a rest day considering the prior day's unfamiliar intensity, I decided to keep my effort level under control. That meant spending a fair amount of time in my lowest gear at 6-7 mph, which still required some significant wattage, but not so much that I was ever redlined. It was kind of nice to be able to actually look at some of the scenery during the climb. I've done Six Gap over ten times and hardly ever see much of the scenery. The Cheaha climb itself is broken up by a few easier and even downhill segments, and I'd guess that the grade is mostly in the 6% range, so it didn't seem nearly as difficult as the longer Six Gap climbs. Our whole ride out and back was only 35 miles, albeit with over 4,000 feet of climbing.

We went up the observation tower at the top, took a couple of photos, and then hit the downhill. The earlier sections of steep downhill felt pretty sketchy because of a fairly gusty wind that was blowing my aero front wheel around a bit, so I used a whole lot more brake than normal. Later on, though, we must have had more wind protection, or been going in a different relative direction, so it was easier to just let it fly. I think Dustin hit around 53 mph while I hit just 50 ... coasting. It was fun and the road surface was practically perfect, so other that that crosswind at the time it felt pretty good.

The drive back went really smoothly and we arrived back in town around 6:30 pm. I went out to the Mellow Monday ride this morning and was happy to find that my legs felt fine despite the fact that the weekend featured, for me, some of the highest intensity of the year so far.

Rain, Wind, Waves, and Fam

Thursday was flat tire day

It was a busy week, complete with a complete power failure downtown, an almost-complete failure of my laptop, rained-out rides, rides that should not have been ridden, flooded streets, and a house full of family. 

But we survived.

Wednesday morning I headed out for the last WeMoRi before the time change to DST puts us all back into the dark. As luck would have it, I flatted somewhere on Carrollton Avenue as I was riding into a 12 mph north wind. That put me way behind schedule so I turned around at the north end of Wisner and was soon swept up by what there was of the group which had already been shattered by the crosswinds on the lakefront. First, Sam went flying past fast enough that I didn't even consider trying to catch his wheel. Quite a while later a little group came along that was going more my speed. That turned out to be the second group of at least three.

That morning as I rode to work I could hear the big generators running at LSUHSC, which is never a good sign. Sure enough, there was no power to 1555 Poydras or any of the buildings around that area of the CBD. Apparently a bird managed to blow out some key transformer or something. So I turned right back around and headed back with the intention of working from home. I fired up my old laptop and it was installing some push update to Office that ultimately corrupted the operating system. I had to jump though numerous flaming hoops to get the computer to revert to an earlier Restore Point. That process took a couple of hours but fortunately was successful at rendering my computer operational again. I felt lucky even though I'd lost the better part of a day when I really needed the computer for an impending grant deadline. My daily COVID report was, of course, quite late. The power situation hadn't improved by Thursday morning, so that was another work-from-home day.

Thursday morning the levee was pretty wet from earlier rain, but we headed out anyway for the usual 6 am ride. The group was small and the wind was down to a relatively mild 7 mph. As often happens when it's wet, the flats started pretty early, and by the time we were fixing the third we'd already decided to cut the ride a little short in the interest of time. Somehow none of the flats were mine, which was a little surprising considering the condition of my tires.

A cold front was moving through on Friday and looking at the radar I thought I could squeeze in the Friendly Friday ride before the torrential rain and gale force winds arrived. I got about six blocks from home when I started to feel raindrops, so I pulled the plug and went back home, which of course caused the rain to stop. Oh well. As expected, a strong cold front pushed through overnight, dropping the temperature from the 60s to the low 40s. Family started arriving Friday evening. 

Saturday morning the temperature was in the 39-40° range and there was a 23 mph north wind with gusts up to at least 40, but the clouds were gone and the roads were dry. When I turned on my Garmin computer I had a Gale warning, high wind warning, and freeze warning. I figured I'd ride out to Starbucks and see if anyone else was stupid enough to show up. After a struggle into the cold wind that had me down to 11 mph at times I went inside and ordered my usual small dark roast with 4 packets of raw sugar and sat down to see who would show. A little while later Christopher arrived (Julia had been pushing the Tulane riders to do the Giro that day), than Chris from St. Louis who had contacted me earlier that he would be in town. That was about it. We headed for the lakefront, more out of curiosity than anything else. It was clear we wouldn't be doing the Giro. Plan B for situations like this is to ride laps around City Park. 

Waves breaking over the seawall flooded parts of Lakeshore Drive

When we turned onto Lakeshore Drive we could see the waves splashing over the seawall. A couple hundred feet to the east the road was under water, and right there were Julia, Gavin, Dustin, and Jaden. After briefly documenting the situation with photos we headed back toward City Park where, given the 20 mph tailwind, Jaden decided to take a shot at one of the Strava KOMs. I redlined pretty quickly and dropped off the back, eventually getting back together with a few of them to complete the lap and then just head back home. It was really too windy and cold to do much of anything productive, so I didn't feel too bad about it. At least we tried!

The aborted Giro got me home in time to join everyone for breakfast at Satsuma on Maple Street, so that was nice. Later that day we took the kids over to the City Park amusement area where they had a blast riding all of the rides while I sat around watching and freezing. It was pretty cold all day. Dinner was at Frankie & Johnny's where they were playing Irish music in honor of St. Patrick's day (the parade was that day).

It was still windy on Sunday, but nothing near as bad as Saturday had been. The Giro group was a little smaller than usual, and the temperature was in the low 40s. The east end of Lakeshore Drive was covered with deep sand from Friday night's gale-force north wind, so we had to detour at Franklin Avenue to Leon C. Simon. It was the first day of Daylight Saving Time, which meant that the sun wasn't quite above the horizon when we rolled out at 7 am. A little group went off the front on Paris Road and nobody seemed too interested in trying to catch it, so we had a nice paceline going on Chef out to Venetian. Pretty much the same group, led by Brett and Lisa, took off early on the way back so the situation was basically repeated for the return ride. It did have its fast moments, of course. Charles was finally back in the pack after surviving a bout with COVID.

Not Riding Rouge Week

Sunday Giro rolls out along Lakeshore Drive

I have to admit, not registering for Rouge Roubaix this year, the first time it was run in Gran Fondo format (no officials, categories, etc.) was kind of hard since so many people I know were doing it. Despite my right brain's desire to go with the crowd, however, my more rational left brain knew better. With additional miles and additional gravel sectors bringing the "long" ride out to 127 miles I knew for certain that even under the best of circumstances I'd probably need narcotics to ride the last 45 miles. Given the rather steep entry fee, I'd likely also need narcotics to actually register. I could add to my list of excuses my lack of a suitable bike capable of using tires wider than 25mm. On the plus side, I had a nice week of riding without the attendant stress such an impending race - I mean fondo - would undoubtedly entail.

Wednesday morning just before being swept up by the WeMoRi group

So the day after Mardi Gras I went out to the 6 am WeMoRi that had a reasonable number of riders, jumping in as usual on Lakeshore Drive around Marconi. Just before being swept up by the group I took a quick photo over my shoulder of the not-quite sunrise. Other than one of the riders turning right in front of an oncoming car at Marconi and Toussaint (aka RE Lee) it was a fairly moderate WeMo, I thought - not surprising for the day after Mardi Gras, however.

Skeleton crew on the levee Thursday

Thursday morning's levee ride had a small contingent this week. Charles is in isolation after testing positive for COVID, Dan is out of town on business, and Rich is out of town on fun. For the full ride we ended up with just Pat, Howard, and me. Even at a slightly slower pace than usual, having just three riders means a lot more time at the front, so it was a pretty good workout. It's nice to have a lot of light in the sky for most of the ride right now, and I really just need the headlight for maybe 30 minutes. Of course, that will all change a week from now after the change to DST plunges us back into an hour of darkness in the morning.

As has now become routine, I went out Friday morning for the Friendly Friday ride, which is virtually identical to the Mellow Monday ride, out of City Park. They are not always so Friendly or Mellow in terms of speed, but this one was pretty civilized. It has been pretty busy at work lately and so I like getting home from these little 6 am rides early enough to relax a bit with a cup of coffee before heading off to work.

Friday morning along Filmore

Saturday was Rouge Roubaix day and I wondered what the Giro Ride turnout would look like. I needn't have worried, however, as it was surprisingly well attended. It also seemed surprisingly hard. That was probably attributable to the steady southerly crosswind. Just after the Goodyear Sign sprint on Chef Menteur we saw a group of riders off on the shoulder, one of whom was sitting down. That is never a good sign, and once I realized that they were just past the infamous "Subway" bump I knew exactly what had happened. There's this smooth buckle in the asphalt there that's been there for a couple of years now and has caused at least four crashes. It sticks out about 18 inches from the right edge of the road, and is remarkably easy to miss, especially if you are behind a few people. Jeff, aka "Subway" has crashed on it twice. Someone had gone out there and spray painted it, which lasted for a while, but with so much traffic that paint has been worn off for about a year now. Anyway, this time the victim was Kerry K and the outcome was a broken collarbone. The group stopped for a while but as I was bringing Kerry her ejected water bottle most of them took off. I jumped back on the road and started to chase down the interstate on-ramp, but even at 30 mph it was clear I wasn't making any progress. Up ahead I could see someone, probably Matt, on a TT bike at the front. Behind were a few other riders who, like me, had been caught by surprise, so I eased up and we regrouped for the rest of the ride. I had earlier been considering doing some extra miles, but by the time I got back to Lakeshore Drive I'd taken that right off the table.

Saturday night I finally broke down and re-cabled the Bianchi. I had to install a new chain anyway, which is relatively easy, but running new cables on a small bike with internal cable routing is always kind of a pain. There's practically no way to get the cable routing at the handlebars quite right on a small frame because there is really not enough cable anywhere to allow for the flexibility that is needed. As a result, cables always end up rubbing on each other, and the handlebar, and the computer mount. Anyway, I got it done eventually and only had to re-run one cable when I discovered I'd gone over instead of under one of the guides coming off of the left shifter.

Sunday was another Giro Ride with pretty much the same attendance as Saturday's. Although it was again windy, the wind direction was more from the east than south. Lured by the ample tailwind I decided to add an out and back to "The Wall" at the end of the Lake Trail after the Giro. As nice and relaxing as the ride out there was, the ride back was right into the wind. By then I'd burned off those four packets of sugar from my morning coffee and was starting to run a little low on calories, so it was a long slow slog back home where I logged a bit over 80 miles for the day. I was then arm-twisted into going for a long walk around Carrollton, and later for a walk over to Panola Street Café for a badly needed late lunch.

The weather forecast for this week is not looking too great. We got a few drops of rain this morning out by the lake, and looking out the window at the office I see a gray sky and wet streets. The chance of rain is kind of high all week, and then a cold front comes through ahead of the weekend. Fortunately, Saturday and Sunday currently look to be dry, although fairly cool. Friday and Saturday should be pretty windy as well. So it will be one of those weekends where I'll have to play it by ear and get in riding when I can.

Auburn and Mardi Gras

A couple of things that hadn't happened in 2021 happened. One was the Auburn Classic collegiate weekend and the other was Mardi Gras. Neither was quite normal. Both were great anyway. I think it was Thursday when Julia texted that she wasn't going to be able to make the road trip to Auburn because she still had some mild but lingering concussion symptoms from her crash. That left just Sean, Joey, Evan, Christopher and me. Fortunately the university is OK with me driving the whole way and even more fortunately we got a big Ford 12-passenger van with a couple of the rear seat rows removed. That made it way easier to load and unload the five bikes, spare wheels, and other luggage. In fact, we should have thrown in a couple of stationary trainers since we had the room. We left around 10:00 am and made the easy 5.5 hour drive, staying below 75 mph because the Big Brother alarm and GPS would beep at me if we exceeded that. Rather than to straight to the Best Western we made a little detour and headed for the Road Race course to do a lap before dark. There were a few teams there doing the same thing. For some reason the guys kind of attacked the first hill while I was still off the back and so I just let them go since I was still having some pulmonary congestion from the COVID case I'd had three weeks earlier. I'd done this race a number of times so I was pretty familiar with the course.

Saturday morning everyone met for breakfast at the hotel and we took off for the Road Race course nice and early. The temperature was in the 40s but the sky was clear so I knew it would warm up. Three of the riders were Category D and Sean was Category C, so we didn't have people in all of the waves. Brett and Lisa were there, though. Lisa would race the combined Women's race and then turn right around and race the Masters race with Brett and me. My race didn't start until 10:00, so the rest of the Tulane crew would be finished by the time I started. Sean was a bit sick with some upper respiratory problem and ended up with a DNF after a few laps. 

In the D race some kid, reportedly a triathlete, rolled off the front from the start, caught the women who had started minutes ahead of him, and finished 5 minutes up on the lead group. Joey was with that lead group for most of the race but finished 2 minutes behind it in 6th place and 5 minutes ahead of Christopher in 7th and the rest of the field. My race started out with a fairly brisk first lap, as usual. Every time I would have to make a sustained effort I could feel my lungs burning, and since it didn't look like things would settle down much for the rest of the race I decided to limit the damage and pulled the plug early on the second lap. For some reason the group eased up at one point during that lap and I made contact with it for a mile or two before the next attack up the hill on the back side when I eased off the back again. I was fine cruising at a moderate pace, so I decided to finish out the distance solo. Mid-way through the last lap the A race caught me right around the "big" hill. I eased over to the right to give them a lot of room. Over the top I noticed one of the riders having a conversation with the moto ref and then dropping off the back. He'd been disqualified for centerline violations. I caught up to him and we rode the rest of the lap together. Meanwhile, Brett got into a 5-rider break that finished 5 minutes ahead of the rest of the field, putting him into 2nd place in the 45+ age group (it was 35+/45+). Lisa finished 7th in the 45+ race after placing 2nd in the Women's race. There was a TT after the road race in which Joey placed 3rd, Christopher 4th, and Evan 5th. Sean was 3rd in the Cs.

My greatest personal success on Saturday was convincing everyone we should have dinner at Olive Garden! While waiting for a table I chatted a bit with Julie Carter who is the coach for the Lindenwood varsity team. They were there with a full-size bus and athletics staff.

The forecast for Sunday had been looking like rain, but as the evening went on the forecast started to change a bit making it quite uncertain. As it turned out the rain missed the race entirely. I never do the criterium since everyone would have to wait around for hours just for me. The Category D race was at 8 am, and since Sean had already decided not to race, that meant we'd have three people in the first race and then be basically done. Then Evan kind of crashed during warmup and backed out of the race too, leaving us with just Christopher and Joey. Category D is very much a beginners race, so things can get sketchy. On the very first lap there was a big crash on the tight bumpy turn #3. Somehow both Joey and Christopher managed to get with the front group after that. Both were in a nice 5-rider lead group until Christopher dropped his chain on the bumpy turn. He was eventually lapped but latched onto the front group when that happened and ended up passing a couple of riders who had been ahead of him. Joey finished 4th and Christopher 7th, so that wasn't too bad.

After the long drive back to New Orleans I was glad that we had Monday off because of Mardi Gras the next day. There was a Mardi Gras Giro Ride Tuesday morning, and given the fact that I'd logged a total of 40 unimpressive miles all weekend I decided to skip my usual Fat Tuesday routine of the Royal Run followed by a stop on St. Charles to watch Rex and then a long walk down to the French Quarter and back. 

Instead, I did the Giro and then we rode bikes down to the Quarter, which meant I missed all of Rex, Zulu, and the truck parades. Candy walked around with me for a bit and then headed back while I made a few more passes around the Quarter looking at the people and taking a few photos. I was glad that I managed to catch the Société de Saint Anne group just as they got to the river to throw wreaths and ashes for departed loved ones (OK, some of those are pets, but some are people). I came back with photos but not even a single strand of beads.

I guess it's back to work today!