Lost Week

Back at the Giro after being sick during the week.

It started on Monday with a scratchy throat and by Tuesday morning it was clear I had a cold, aka upper respiratory virus, possibly COVID. I'd been expecting another fairly high-mileage week. Lots of people were trying to cram for NOMA2NOMA, just like you'd cram for an exam, and this would be the last week you could do some longer rides before needing to shift to recovery mode ahead of the event, which is this coming Sunday. It was also the week of Six Gap. None of the Tulane riders seemed interested in going this year, and only Pat seemed committed to going. At any rate, by Tuesday any hope of doing Six Gap was clearly out the window. I spent Tuesday and Wednesday at home sucking on zinc lozenges and trying to get at least some work done on the computer. By late Wednesday the throat was much improved, although I now had some minor chest congestion to deal with. Otherwise, though, I was feeling good enough to go out for a ride Thursday morning. Rather than try to meet the regular 6 am group, which would probably not have been advisable, I instead waited another half hour and went out alone for a short 20 mile ride to test the water. The water seemed OK, so on Friday I joined up with the early Friendly Friday ride, which thankfully wasn't too fast. I was still being careful and staying in the draft to minimize how much snot I was aspirating into my lungs. After that ride I went straight to the levee to see if I could catch the Tulane group, but apparently I turned around too early and missed them.

Jaden and his daughter #aerotuck

Saturday was the regular Giro Ride which unsurprisingly wasn't too terribly fast since some of the usual horsepower was planning on doing a bunch of extra miles, or in some cases were riding elsewhere. My brother and niece came in on Friday, so I wasn't very interested in doing any extra miles, which was probably a good thing, considering. Sunday was the Bike Easy "Bicycle Second Line" ride. I had lent the group some of the big NOBC coolers and had sent them some cash so the NOBC would be one of the sponsors. Candy, Jay, and Elise were planning on doing the 10-mile ride through town that started at 11:00. My plan was to ride the Giro and then go straight to the registration area on the Lafitte Greenway to help out, and then to do the ride. It was a plan. None of the aforementioned people had ridden any significant amount in at least a year, but the ride is basically done inside of a police rolling enclosure at well under 10 mph. Speed wouldn't be the problem, but the heat might be.

The ride started promptly at 11:00 with our little group more or less at the end. I ran into Jaden who was riding with his daughter in a seat between the handlebar and saddle, and Will who had his kid in a trailer. Candy was riding the 1970's Peugeot mixte, Jay was on my old Trek mountain bike, and Elise was on Candy's beach cruiser. Things were going fine, but Candy's grocery pannier kept coming unclipped from the rear rack. She ended up with it over her shoulder like a messenger bag. Fortunately it has a shoulder strap. Elise seemed to be doing fine until all of a sudden she and Jay kind of disappeared. I didn't know if they had just been going really slowly or had some sort of problem, but at any rate I couldn't see them when I looked back. By then we were only half a mile from the end of the ride. Just after turning off of Canal Street I got a text from Jay saying that they had stopped because Elise was not feeling well. I turned around and rushed back to find them and ultimately decided to ride back home and pick up the car. Meanwhile Candy got the message and turned back to meet them too. So it was kind of a shame that we missed the after-ride party at Second Line Brewing, but it was nice to get back to air-conditioning anyway. 

So with the two missed days and the one short day I ended up with a 204-mile week which I guess wasn't too bad under the circumstances. Of course about half of those miles didn't really qualify as training, but I guess they were still better than sitting on the couch eating potato chips. It's Tuesday now and I still have some lingering chest congestion that I guess will take a while to fully go away. Meanwhile, I am expecting delivery of an old used cyclocross bike some time this evening. It's just a simple Blue Norcross with rim brakes and all, but at least it can handle wide tires and give me the option of doing an occasional gravel ride or cyclocross race. We'll see.

Things have been kind of interesting at work lately as Tulane is making some big plans in the downtown area and things are finally winding down on the COVID front. I am still doing daily COVID reports but the day to day changes have been unremarkable and the numbers generally quite low. The LDH person keeps forgetting to publish the downloadable data that I need and in fact I am still waiting to see today's numbers. At this point I'm pretty sure nobody would even notice if I skipped an update. If the trend continues as it has I'm thinking we will discontinue that some time next month since it's not really very useful any more now that so few people are being tested and most of those who are being tested are probably doing so because they are sick.