Wind and Arm Warmers

Saturday Giro cool-down on a wet Lakeshore Drive thanks to that north wind.

Well, I guess we are getting our first hint of Fall. Most of the regular rides last week were merely warm as opposed to miserably hot, but even as early as Monday the meteorological handwriting was on the wall for the weekend. On Tuesday there were only a few there for the morning levee ride, and by the time I was past Williams Blvd. I was on my own. There was a not insignificant tailwind that kept me going out to Ormond, but I knew it would be a long ride back, which of course it was. As often happens this time of year my training motivation was a little lacking, and every now and then I'd just sit up and coast or soft-pedal before slowly and somewhat reluctantly getting back up to a more respectable speed. I didn't feel guilty about it, though, because y'know, there's always WeMoRi. Granted, my WeMoRi the next day wasn't any thing to write home about, but in terms of actual training it was at least notable for a few moments of high intensity, mostly when I was about to be dropped. Thursday's levee ride was at least not a solo one. Charles and Jeff both did the whole ride with me. The nagging east wind was still there, though, so the ride back was a lot longer than the ride out had been. Along the way we saw an eagle fly right across the bike path ahead of us, having just grabbed some unfortunate creature off of the levee batture. A bit later, near the Jefferson playground, we saw a bunch of pipe that we surmised must be for the parish's plan to run a fresh water pipeline up the river a few miles to alleviate the predicted saltwater intrusion. Later that day the Corps of Engineers pushed their forecasts for the dates that saltwater might affect the city's drinking water - the levee ride starts from the "new" Orleans parish water intake. The bottom line was that it was probably not going to be a problem after all, leading the city and the university to put their mitigation plans on hold.

So an actual cold front came through Friday night, bringing a mostly north wind and dropping the morning temperature down to around 70°F. Not enough to justify arm-warmers or anything quite yet since the temperature drop wouldn't really be until that night. Saturday's Giro turned out to be a pretty fast one despite the wind that was probably ranging between 10 and 20 mph. I never put my face into that wind but felt like I got a pretty good workout just staying in the draft and not getting dropped! The thing about windy days like that is the constant level of concentration required, especially near the tail end of the paceline, as riders are moving around more than usual and the wind makes the pace more uneven. As bad as it was on the way out, I knew it would be worse on the way back, which of course it was.

Indeed, Sunday morning it was down to 60° which led me to pull on a base layer and hunt briefly but unsuccessfully hunt in the dark through my "winter stuff" drawer for real arm-warmers. I ended up using just my thin sunscreen arm-warmers that were more readily available since 60° isn't really what you'd call "cold." Still, I was happy to have the extra layers as I rode out to Starbucks in the dark. Speaking of the dark, more and more of the morning rides are going to be in the dark until we change back to Standard Time on November 5. I'd been thinking that Sunday wouldn't be as windy as Saturday had been, but didn't seem to turn out that way. At least the pace was a little more forgiving.

Back at home it was Halloween decorating weekend and the usual battle between Candy, who wants to put a bunch of things out in front that require electricity, and me who wants to not overload the extension cords that are all plugged into the same outlet so as to avoid burning down the house. Along the way I put back the old garden border that the roadwork people had removed (and of course not replaced) when they replaced the sidewalk. I then went out and got some plastic border to finish off the section where it was missing entirely. While I was at Lowes I picked up a couple of Azaleas to plant in front of the house to replace some of the plants we've lost over the past year and especially during the drought.

Speaking of the drought, it looks like we will be getting some significant rain around Wednesday as a system that crossed over Mexico from the Pacific is now in the Gulf. It's heading straight north so we won't get much of it, but the current forecast for Wednesday is looking like a 100% chance of rain and 17-20 mph east wind. I guess the timing of the rain will determine the fate of this week's WeMoRi.