The Cold, and Other Maladies

No, not the kind of cold you're thinking of. It was another week of managing the status of my still-congested lungs, thanks to the cold that started around Christmas. Managing a cold while still doing group rides is perhaps a skill, or perhaps just stupidity, so whether skilled or stupid I somehow managed to accumulate 299 miles last week despite a few shortened rides. Take Wednesday for example. There had been all sorts of dire warnings about severe thunderstorms moving through on Tuesday, but the timing kept being pushed back. Ultimately the line of storms blew through in the wee hours of the morning, accompanied by some impressive thunder and rain. It was all over by the time I looked out the window at 5:20 am, but the streets were still plenty wet. On the plus side, it wasn't very cold, so I went ahead and over-dressed like I've been doing for the past couple of weeks and headed out to meet the WeMoRi which, as I might  have guessed, consisted of only five riders. So it was kind of an easy ride that was shortened when we turned at the Elysian Fields traffic circle because the eastern end of Lakeshore Drive was still somewhat underwater. Although the larger fields I'd been hoping to draft off of wasn't there to keep my effort level quite as low as I'd been aiming for, the pace was nonetheless pretty moderate so I don't think I did too much lung damage.

Thursday's levee ride had a decent turnout and featured a nice temperature in the mid-50s, so that one was pretty normal. Then on Friday the Friendly Friday ride was actually quite friendly, which is to say that it never got very fast. Toward the end I pushed a bit going up the Bayou St. John bridge, which of course resulted in a brief coughing fit, so I backed off and caught back up by turning around early on Canal Street. 

That evening we walked over to the streetcar barn to watch the Phunny Pforty Pfellows start their annual 12th Night streetcar ride, stopping for a quick dinner on Carrollton beforehand. There was a pretty good crowd on hand for the event that essentially kicks off the Mardi Gras season. The next day it was time to start taking down the Christmas decorations, which is a long process still in progress. Then, of course, it will be time to put up the Mardi Gras decorations. The highlight of the day, though, was when the city finally picked up the garbage that was supposed to be picked up on Wednesday. Despite having gone from twice a week pickup to once a week pickup (without reducing what we are paying), they have now resorted to bringing in additional contractors to pick up what the actual contractors can't, or won't.

The batture trail - you can see where the water level was last year when the river was a flood stage for so long that the trees started sprouting roots five feet above ground.

The Saturday Giro had a somewhat smaller turnout than usual, perhaps thanks to the gravel race/ride that day up in Oxford. As a result, the pace remained quite steady and relatively subdued, which was fine with me under the circumstances. Before the ride while I was having coffee at Starbucks, Samuel (one of the Tulane riders) showed up. It would be his first Giro, so I was a little concerned that he might be getting in over his head, but as it turned out he did impressively well and survived to the end where he received lots of encouragement and questionable advice from a few of the regulars. That afternoon the weather was so nice that I jumped on the 'Cross bike and rode out to the batture trail that starts just downriver from the old country club. I was happy to find it entirely dry. That was a nice change of pace, even if it was a short one. On the way back I ran into Bill Burke. He had just told me that the Etape de Tour de France that they were trying to get going for New Orleans was officially not going to happen. He said it was mainly because of the City. Wish I could say I was surprised.

Later that night I absent-mindedly bit into one of the candy canes that had been hanging on the tree and pulled the cap off of one of my teeth on the opposite side of my mouth from where I had a tooth pulled in December. The next step in getting the first gap filled isn't until February (waiting for the bone graft to heal), so now I am missing two of the main teeth that I need in order to actually chew food. The cap is currently being held on with denture adhesive which of course doesn't hold for long. I have an appointment tomorrow for the cap and I'm pretty sure that is going to result in another extraction and implant so I don't know how that's going to work out.

Flat Number One

Sunday's Giro had a more normal group on hand as we rolled out from Starbucks, which was a little surprising because the forecast  had been for rain. I had scheduled an 8:30 am northshore ride for that morning but looking at the forecast it was obvious that it would start raining over there by 9 am or earlier, so that got cancelled, but it looked like we'd be OK on the southshore until at least 9 or 9:30.  Well, we didn't get halfway down Lakeshore Drive before Jaden flatted and we had to put a tube in his tubeless tire. I lent him a CO2 to speed things up, and Jaden was pretty quick with the repair, so we were back on the road fairly quickly. The group kind of kept rolling easy, so we had a bit of a chase after fixing that and didn't catch until the very end of Lakeshore Drive. Then early on Hayne there was another flat. That time the group kind of kept going, although maybe at a fairly easy pace. That left us with Jaden, Dan, Chris, and me. Jaden was determined to catch the group, which we could barely see in the distance. I took a pull or two before the coughing started so I spend the rest of the time sitting on the back of the 3-man time trial. We didn't catch them until we turned onto Chef, and under the circumstances I was just happy that I was still around. The rest of the Giro was pretty normal. The minute I walked back in the door at home after the ride, the rain started. It rained for most of the rest of the day.

When my alarm went off on Monday morning, and considering my accumulated mileage from the prior week, I made an executive decision to take a rest day. Tuesday morning it was a little chilly but the wind was calm. Surprisingly there were only four of us on hand for the levee ride, and only three after Bo turned back at Williams. Charles had an early meeting so we turned around at the big dip. For some reason the ride seemed harder than it should  have, at least to me, and I arrived back home quite over-dressed and sweaty. Then I rushed off to an eye exam that I'd made because the vision in my left eye has started to get kind of cloudy. I figured it was scar tissue from the cataract surgery a couple of years ago. It had been noted at one of my follow-up appointments earlier but wasn't causing any problems until fairly recently. My self-diagnosis turned out to be correct, so now I  have ophthalmology appointment on Friday and will probably end up having to go back in for a YAG capsulotomy on that eye. Fortunately those are generally quick and easy.