Holiday Miles

Thanksgiving Day waiting for the bridge to open.

It was some time on Wednesday afternoon when some sort of consensus seemed to materialize on doing a Thanksgiving Day Giro Ride. Thus started for me a string of longish city rides that would ultimately push my weekly mileage well over 300. Thanksgiving day started out really nicely, with warm temperatures and moderate wind. One never knows who will show up for these holiday rides since some people actually have lives outside of cycling, but as it turned out we had a pretty good-sized group for what I hoped would be a moderate-paced Giro. After getting stopped on the Seabrook drawbridge just as a sailboat was coming, we came down onto Hayne Blvd. at a relatively tame speed, and with really only a handful of riders interested in pushing the pace, things stayed mostly under control. The weather forecast was calling for rain on Friday, and since Thursday morning's weather was still rather spectacular, other than a significant east wind, I decided to get in a few extra miles along the lakefront bike trail before going home. I ended up with 74 miles and by the time I was on my way home the sky was already getting cloudy. I had been planning on doing a long birthday ride on the levee the following day, but considering the weather was not making any promises to myself or anyone else about that. Also, Thanksgiving evening was going to involve some slightly excessive eating and drinking.

So Friday morning was rainy, as predicted, but the last of the bad weather moved through in the morning and by 8:00 or so it was looking like things would dry up and aside from some wind the feasibility of a long ride was looking pretty good. Charles had asked me to let him know if I was going to go out for a long ride, so I told him I'd be hitting the levee for 9:30. I figured that would give the road a little time to dry out. My optimistic prognostication was soon dashed, however, and by the time I rolled out of the house there was a heavy cold mist starting to fall. I dressed more warmly than I would have otherwise, since I figured I'd be a little wet for a while. As it turned out, I would be much more than a little wet, and for much longer than a little while. Despite the fact that we were essentially riding in a cloud, we headed  up the river at a gentle pace. My only goal was to log at least my age in miles. I kept thinking that the mist would go away, but it never did, and by the time we were halfway out I could feel the water squishing around in my shoes. We continued anyway, riding two-abreast on the deserted bike path, and probably didn't break 20 mph the whole time. It wasn't pretty, but at least I logged 72 miles for my 69th birthday.

Naturally I'd just put on a new tire a couple of days earlier.

By Saturday morning the weather was a little better so I headed out around 6 am for coffee and to meet the Giro Ride. It was still fairly misty and damp, but not quite as bad as it had been on Friday. Going up the Seabrook bridge I somehow managed to impale my rear tire with a big sheetrock screw. Fortunately everyone stopped while I quickly threw in a new tube and got going again. There was a pretty strong east wind blowing, and we were missing a fair amount of the usual Giro horsepower, so the speeds stayed relatively low all the way out to Venetian Isles. Of course that meant there was a tailwind for much of the way back, which of course meant that it got pretty fast even though only a handful of riders were willing to put a whole lot of effort into it. We hadn't gotten to the end of Hayne when someone else flatted, so a few of us stopped to help with that while most of the group continued on, presumably unaware. After that we just got a little paceline going at an easy pace until we saw the group on its way back somewhere out on Chef Highway where we turned around and got back into the pack. I was fairly wet from the mist by the time I got back  home with another 55 miles.

Mississippi Amish??

Charles and Steve had been hatching a plan for another Pass Christian ride for Sunday, so I decided to make the drive over there for a change. I loaded the 68-mile route map into the Garmin early Sunday morning right before jumping in the car. This ride had a small group of about six, and from the first pedal stroke I could tell it was going to be kind of a difficult day for me. The weather was warmer and there was no mist for a change, so that was good. I guess it was really time for an easy recovery ride rather than three hours in the rolling hills. It seemed like half of the group wanted to go a little faster and half a little slower, with me somewhere in the middle trying to cautiously parse out my efforts to avoid doing more damage than I'd already done over the prior three days. The ride was a bit of a struggle for me for some reason - manageable but by no means feeling easy. By the end I knew I'd probably strung together one long day too many and was going to need a couple of easier days to fully recover. So the bottom line for the week, through no fault of my own, was 358 miles, which although not my highest mileage week of the year, was one of the highest. I usually consider a 250 mile week to be a pretty solid one, and indeed my monthly average tends to be around 1,000 miles. Somehow, though, those extra 58 miles seemed to push me just over the edge this time!

More fog on Monday

This morning's Mellow Monday ride had the usual group and once again there was a thick fog here and there, especially along the lakefront. The pace was mostly slower than usual with just a couple of brief surges in the usual places, so thanks to staying mostly off the front, and despite my tired legs, I didn't feel like I'd done any more damage.

Next weekend is going to be complicated. Tulane won their football game last week so they are hosting their conference championship next Saturday. There are cyclocross races up in Ridgeland Saturday and Sunday. I have to take the car in for service on Thursday. Candy bought football tickets for the game on Saturday, so I definitely won't be racing on Saturday (although I'd prefer that to watching a football game). Sunday will be up in the air until I find out if I'll have the car back before the weekend. It's at around 110k miles so aside from the usual oil change it's time for a new timing belt and possibly brakes, and the "check engine" light has been on for about three weeks. That could be the oxygen sensor or something at this point, so until they read the codes on Thursday I won't really have a good idea of what's going on there.