Mother Nature always seems to have a way of balancing things out so the averages remain average despite the magnitudes of the highs and lows. And so it has been the past few weeks since the snow Armageddon. Before we knew what hit us, we'd gone from sub-freezing winter to balmy springtime. Of course those of us experienced in the local weather patterns, or lack of same, knew that the event was little more than just another "fools springtime." It is, after all, February.
On the plus side, we had a quite a nice stretch of unseasonably warm mornings. Granted, they were often interspersed with rain, or fog, or both, but really, February beggars cannot be choosers, and it was all oh so much better than three weeks of bitter cold and double-digit north winds.
It was quite nice to be able to, at least temporarily, ditch the thermal undergarments and venture out to the local group rides in summer kit. There were a couple of weekends when I am pretty sure everybody with a bicycle logged Strava miles. Also, with the Superbowl in town, and my office being on Poydras Street which was tented and barricaded a week in advance of the event, I was working from home the entire week of February 3-7, and then again on the 10th. That's a double-edged sword, of course, because it means that every day the wife walks in and asks, "What do you want to do about lunch?' which really means, "Let's go to a restaurant and spend some money."
I had started the month of February off well, with a fairly easy Giro Ride, augmented by some additional miles on the levee, leaving me with a nice 92 mile day. Thanks to the stretch of relatively nice riding weather, I was feeling good about having put in a couple of 280-mile weeks back-to-back after having spent so many days off the bike because of the snow and ice that had preceeded those weeks. I was thinking that the days lost to the snow and ice hadn't put much of a dent in my training.
Last Saturday we had a small group of Tulane riders on hand for a little northshore ride. The weather would be great temperature-wise, but there were dense fog advisories all over the place the evening before. Sure enough, when we got to the Causeway that morning it was "right lane only and 35 mph" all the way across the lake. I've seen it worse, but I was glad that it was controlled. Up in Abita Springs the fog wasn't an issue, and six of us headed out a little late for a planned 58-mile ride. I knew that it would be a challenge for two of our group, and when they dropped off the back about ten miles into the ride, I knew it would be an easy day for me. After another mile or two I looked back and couldn't even see them, so I told the others to go ahead and swung back around to see what happened. I found them stopped on the side of the road where one of them was nursing a side stitch. We got going again, but for the rest of the ride I was trying to keep the speed low and the climbs easy. We stopped a number of times, and the average speed was only 15 mph, but they both made it.
The next day was a very foggy Giro Ride. It was a smallish group, so the pace was fairly slow. The week's mileage was OK, but for me there had been little in the way of intensity. I figured I could make up for that the following week. I was sadly mistaken about that.
The next Monday we had a nice Mellow Monday ride, and then on Tuesday the usual ride out to the Casino and back. I was feeling a little something in my throat. By that night I had a full-on sore throat and knew I was about to come down with a cold. I started popping zinc tablets and hoping for the best. I didn't sleep at all that night and so did not even consider riding on Wednesday. As the cold moved down from my head to my chest, I also had to skip riding Thursday and Friday. By Saturday I was feeling a little better, but still had a lot of chest congestion. The weather was still fairly warm, so I decided to go ahead and ride out to Starbucks to meet the Giro group, but with a plan to turn back at the end of Lakeshore Drive before things got out of the warmup stage. Progress from there has been painfully slow. I went out to the Sunday Giro, but it was very windy and there was only a small group on hand. As soon as we got the Hayne, there was the usual acceleration, and I was quickly gapped. I put in a brief effort until I started coughing and decided that I'd best try to live and fight another day. Charles, who had also been under the weather, was also gapped off, so we rode together to the end of Hayne and turned back. I was clearly not yet ready for any hard efforts.
So now it's another Monday, and a big cold front came through last night. It was barely above 40° this morning, but the real problem was the 20 mph north wind. Josiah and a new Tulane rider were planning on doing the Mellow Monday ride. Still feeling some lung congestion, I decided to layer up underneath my old winter riding jacket, which is pretty much of a parachute, but is also very warm and roomy. I wasn't planning on riding hard. I was almost to City Park, riding straight into the wind the whole way, when I finally looked at the time and realized I was going to be a minute or two late. Turned into City Park and could see a tail light way in the distance. That was when Charles, who was also running late, came up alongside and we picked up the pace a bit, thinking we would easily catch whoever was up there while they were still in warm-up mode. We went around the next turn and the light was gone. We looked at each other and figured it must have been someone else, and that we had been the only ones to show up, which was not hard to believe under the circumstances. Lakeshore Drive was brutal. It was a NE wind, and we were struggling to maintain 14 or 15 mph all the way to the Armory. Then, just as we started on the way back, we found Josiah and the new rider coming the other way. They turned around and joined us for the remainder of the ride. It's looking like freezing cold mornings for the next few days. I'm scheduled to go up to Auburn for a collegiate race Saturday and Sunday, and I'm not too happy about the forecast for that with lows in the 30s and highs in the 50s. Saturday is supposed to be cloudy and Sunday morning could have some rain, but it's still pretty early to put too much stock in the forecast, so ... fingers crossed.
I did at least get the Tour de La event permit done, and should be able to finish up the one for the Time Trial tonight.
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