Blue-shirt Weekend, Screwed Again

It all started Friday afternoon.  I skipped out of work early, loaded the Volvo up to the ceiling, and headed up to Baton Rouge for a long weekend of officiating the South Central Collegiate Cycling Conference road championships.  There was a Friday night registration that ran from 6 pm until around 10:30 pm, and then it was probably not until midnight that I was satisfied with the registration data and finally hit the sack.  Officiating collegiate racing is a bit of a different experience.  Since everything is done on a shoestring, the conference assigns "permanent" bib numbers to each rider.  They keep a less than perfect record of those numbers, and the riders keep less than perfect track of them. When riders upgrade they get different numbers, when they forget their numbers they get different numbers, and by the end of the road season a good 30% of the bib number data are wrong.  And then there's the whole category thing.  Despite the new USAC rule (7H1 if you are one of the few people who read the rulebook), collegiate riders below Category A tend to register in whatever category races they want, so the license categories in the USAC database can't really be trusted.  We had Cat. D riders in the Men's A race, and the majority of the Category B Women's race were actually Category D.  Go figure.  Anyway, despite those complications we got most of the riders registered Friday night and somehow managed to get the Saturday morning road races started on time, which is to say they were only ten minutes late. 

It was unseasonably cold on Saturday, and although it was ideal for racing, I spent most of the day wearing my Goretex rain jacket since I hadn't brought an appropriate wardrobe.  At least it was blue!  Maybe I should attach an official's patch to the front?  Shortly after the last group started, a guy in a clean starched shirt with a cellphone in his ear found us.  He was not happy.  Apparently the promoter hadn't actually gotten official permission to use the school parking lot (and rest rooms).  It was an election day and guess what?  Yep, the school was a polling location.  Little old ladies with handicap tags were confused.  We did our best to smooth things over since the promoter was somewhere out on the course racing in the A race.  Results went pretty well, there were not crashes, it didn't rain despite a 50% chance of thunderstorms, and we reconvened at the Team Time Trial course down on River Road late that afternoon.

Team TTs are always complicated.  Teams will wait until the last minute to decide who is riding on which team, categories get mixed, etc.  Somehow we once again got it all sorted out and started right on time.  Once I finished starting all of the teams I drove down to the finish, about half a mile away, and started plugging finish times into the computer, so ten minutes after the last team finished I had the results ready.  Unfortunately that's when the printer, or more likely the spooler, decided to go south on me.  I think it thought it was out of ink for some reason.  Anyway, that cost us about half an hour until we got the backup printer connected, rebooted, and printed out the TTT results.  After dinner I uploaded the results to the LAMBRA site and got things ready for Sunday's criterium around the Capitol building.

When we arrived at the criterium course I immediately noticed a rather big problem.  Right in the middle of the final 200 meters there were two crosswalk caution signs sticking up IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD.  The local capitol police had refused to allow the promoter to remove them.  I sent someone looking for a crescent wrench and at least got the one closest to the finish removed.  Amazingly this did not result in the complete breakdown of the state's pedestrian safety infrastructure.  Also amazingly, none of the riders hit the remaining one all morning.  The races went quite well, staying right on schedule.  Remarkably, there was not a single crash all weekend, at least as far as I know.  I particularly enjoyed the Men's Cat. B race.  Toward the end of the race a 2-rider break rolled off the front and gradually accumulated a 30 or 40-second lead on a fairly large pack.  Tulane wasn't represented in the break, but one of the Tulane riders, Ben Bradley, went to the front and held the gap steady for a few laps.  Then, with four or five laps to go they launched their teammate Stephen Noya off the front of the pack.  He put his head down and within two laps had caught the break as his teammates controlled the pack.  The three-rider break came through on the bell lap together and we anxiously watched the final corner for the sprint.  Somewhere on that last lap, though, Noya had attacked and he ended up coasting across the finish line with ten seconds to spare.  One of the other Tulane sprinters then took the pack sprint.  Nicely done.  They won the division II conference championship.

So the rest of this week was quite busy all-around and by Wednesday afternoon I was looking forward to the Wednesday Night Worlds training race out at the lakefront.  For a change, I actually got home and then out the door on the bike with enough time to make the start, or so I thought.  Somewhere on Carrollton Avenue, about halfway between home and the lakefront, I managed to put a screw neatly through the center of my rear tire and nearly through the rim as well.  I actually had to pull out the little Swiss Army Knife on my keychain in order to unscrew it from the tire.  The whole process set me back about ten minutes and about 50 psi (my little mini pump is subject to diminishing returns past about 60 psi), so I missed about a lap and a half.  A 3-man break was already off the front, so I latched onto it for a little while to get warmed up.  I watched from the back as Tim and Stephen reacted to Mike's rather erratic riding (he was riding a disc wheel in a strong crosswind, probably on a TT bike.....).  Eventually, Stephen attacked in order to drop him.  We were absorbed into the pack a little while later, and the break was caught.  I was feeling OK except that the low rear tire was not inspiring a lot of confidence, so I stayed off the front and followed wheels.  There was a lot of attrition as the pace would ramp up to 28-30 mph in the crosswind, so staying on the back was by no means an easy task.  The finish stretch was the worst of the crosswind, so when the leaders jumped everyone beyond about 5th wheel, including me, was pretty much screwed.  "Live by the draft, die by the draft."

Rob's back after having twins
a few weeks ago

Today's long Thursday ride started out pretty easy, but eventually things got animated at the front and together with the strong wind it turned out to be a pretty hard ride both coming and going.  I was not feeling particularly strong, but did a lot of work on the way out, so by the time we were half-way back I was content to ride wheels while certain other riders pretended to be racing.  Now I'm just plain tired.....

Rain and Routine

The legs were feeling OK on Monday, so I went out for an easy ride on the levee to loosen things up. It was just a routine ride - more about time on the bike than actual training. 

The streets were good and wet Tuesday morning, but I went out anyway. I'd checked the radar and it looked clear (it wasn't, however - just a weather.com glitch apparently). Since the temperature was warm I figured a few miles on the Rain Bike couldn't hurt, even though there was no chance that the routine Tuesday long ride was going to happen.  I was fully expecting to ride alone, of course, but soon after I hit the levee bike path, a rain-jacketed Brian rolled up to me and moments later Howard turned around to join us. The rain started a few miles later and continued for the rest of the ride.  It was warm enough, though, that I knocked off 23 easy miles and arrived back home with dry feet and air in both tires.  It had been a good call because it rained pretty much the rest of the day.  When I got home I checked the radar again and discovered that the one radar frame I'd looked at happened to be lacking the rain data.

Wednesday was another routine levee ride, at least until my rear tire went flat about halfway out.  I took ten minutes to fix it after prying a particularly well-embedded shard out of the tread with my pocket knife. Having told the rest of the group to continue on without me, I met back up with them around Williams Blvd.  The Wednesday Night Worlds were scheduled for 6 pm, but during the day there were reports that the storm that had come through earlier had flooded Lakeshore Drive and it was therefore full of dirt and debris.  This happens fairly routinely out there, and the police just barricade it off for a few days until the guys come out and put all of the dirt back where it came from.  I was a little late getting out of the office, and so I arrived at Lakeshore Drive a few minutes after the race had started, joining the group out near Franklin Avenue.  They had decided on a modified route that went from the fountain to Franklin, then up and over the levee to a U-turn and then back to Lakeshore Drive. The only problem was that the group had to negotiate barricades three or four times per lap.  One of them required single-file.  None of that stopped the training race, however.  I wasn't feeling too sharp and spent a lot of time hanging around near the back, which eventually resulted in my getting gapped off when Eddie sat up about halfway into the last lap.  Oh well.  Live by the draft, die by the draft.

This morning the weather was awesome.  Clear blue skies, light winds, temperature in the mid-60s.  That brought out a fairly big group for the long Thursday ride and within a few miles of the start the pace really started to get fast.  I guess we averaged close to 25 mph most of the way out to Ormond.  The return trip was somewhat less intense.  Otherwise it was a pretty routine ride.

So this weekend I'll be officiating the LSU collegiate race, which is also the South Central Collegiate Cycling Conference championship.  That means I probably won't get to ride all weekend.  Unfortunately it also means I'll miss the other stuff going on this weekend, such as the Ochsner triathlon, the Blue Angels air show, etc.  The weather forecast for Saturday is not looking good at all with the chance of rain well above 50%.  That would mean officiating a road race in the rain and possibly an evening team time trial in the rain.  Rain really complicates that stuff a lot.  I'm going to need to bring extra socks!  Hopefully it will be over by the time they have the criterium on Sunday morning because I think that course will be kind of slippery when wet.

The MSGP

The Mississippi Gran Prix is a regionally significant stage race held in Brookhaven, Mississippi.  Now in its 11th year, it is really the offspring of the Natchez Classic stage race that had been held for about the same number of years in nearby Natchez.  The godfather of the race is Frank Moak, commander and chief of the Herring Gas team. This year's race featured a new road race course and nearly flawless race results.

So I rushed around late Friday afternoon in order to get myself and some of the LAMBRA race officiating equipment up to Brookhaven in time for the Cat. 1/2/3 criterium (Video!) that evening.  By the time I got through the New Orleans rush-hour traffic I was running a little late and as I sat waiting at the train crossing in Brookhaven I got a text from the Chief Referee, Ricky, asking me what my ETA would be.  The crit is fun to watch and usually quite animated since everyone is fresh and there's a pretty hefty stage prizelist in addition to the overall GC prizelist. Only the Cat. 1/2/3s have the Friday night criterium.  For the rest of us, the race starts on Saturday with the road race.  Local rider Jacob Schoen and new NOBC rider Mat Street were staying with me at the local Day's Inn which, despite being rated better than a couple of the neighboring hotels, was definitely nothing to write home about.  The Herring team, however, was staying right on the Criterium course at a new and freshly remodeled luxury bed and breakfast place.

The Master's field was a little on the small side with about 30 riders and the road course looked to be manageable with mostly low rolling stuff punctuated by about five miles of more significant hills mid-way around the long 20-something mile loop.  Midsouth had all of their riders on hand for this one.  The NOBC had Mark McMurry, Steve J., Rolan J., and John Egan.  In the field were strong riders like Donald Davis, Hunter East, Glenn Richard and others from area teams.  The road race started out at a pretty moderate pace for the first of the two laps required to make our 54 mile race, but somewhere along the line a group of three rolled off the front.  At the time I was too far back in the pack to do much about that, and since three teams were represented in it there was barely any response at the front.  I looked up the road and thought to myself, "Really?  None of these other guys are going to react to a break with Hunter East, Glenn Richard, and Jason Miller??"  Sometimes I just can't figure out what riders are thinking.  Anyway, it was a couple of miles before I worked my way up to the front and decided to see if I could get anything going amidst the blocking.  It was, however, too little, too late and I eventually gave up, rather frustrated at both my ineffective fitness level and the group's apparent willingness to settle for racing for fourth place.  Since there were still a few strong riders in the pack, however, I figured there would be some fireworks when we hit the hilly section on the second lap, so I set my sights on that.  Well, wouldn't you know it?  As we flew down the first big downhill before the first big climb I nailed some rock or something with my front wheel and a moment later heard the dreaded pssssst, psssst, psssst. Worst possible time to flat.  Well, I got a pretty fast wheel change, but I figured my race was essentially over.  (I would later discover a completely loose spoke and healthy wobble in my rear wheel.)  After a little while I could see the group follow car about a minute up the road and was surprised that I seemed to be actually gaining ground on it.  I soon caught VJ and Eddie and thought that if we worked together right away before there was an attack we might catch and salvage pack time.  Unfortunately they were both pretty cooked and when I wiggled my elbow at the top of one of the climbs nobody was there.  I figured it was as good a day for a time trial as any and just motored on, still surprised that the group up ahead wasn't pulling away.  Little did I know at the time that there had been an attack shortly after I'd flatted that had split the pack and the group I was chasing was already a good two minutes behind the other group, which itself was two minutes behind the break, unless you counted Hunter who would finish another minute and a half ahead of the two other riders who had been in the original break. I was essentially seven minutes back, and it's probably a good thing I didn't know it at the time. Anyway, six or seven kilometers before the finish I looked back and saw the entire Cat. 3/4 field that had started out with 60 riders closing in on me.  When the lead motor came by I motioned to him and let him know that the Masters group was right up the road and that they would probably all come together right at the finish (they did, much to the consternation of the officials).  I eased up as the Cat. 3/4s passed and sat a few bikelengths off the back of them for the last few miles, picking up Lenny who had flatted out of the Masters group too.  I ended up only about 20 seconds behind that second Masters group, but since there had been ten riders ahead of them and they numbered nine or ten themselves, I was already out of GC contention, way, way down in 21st place. There had been a fair amount of carnage in the other races.  Jacob had crashed and done in his mom's Zip 404 in the Cat. 4/5 race and NOBC rider Chris M. had crashed and DNF'd in that race as well. One of the women had gone to the hospital with a broken arm or wrist and a number of others had crashed as well. 

The evening time trial was a short 2.8 mile affair on a rolling course with a significant tailwind of which I apparently totally failed to take advantage. Although I'd intentionally started out well below maximum, I thought I was going pretty hard en route to my time of 6:39.  That turned out to be a damned slow time that ranked only 21st in the Masters and the less I say about that the better.  The fastest time in our field was Ed Novak's 5:44, practically a minute faster in only 2.8 miles. That was pretty demoralizing even though the TT was pretty pointless for me from the outset since my GC hopes had already gone down the tubes.  I decided there and then that I'd race the next morning's circuit race more seriously and if I blew up at then end, well, so be it.

Sunday morning was windy and a little overcast as we lined up for the 4-lap, 26 mile circuit race.  The course (http://app.strava.com/rides/6791898) featured one big climb up to the finish, one or two much smaller ones, and was otherwise pretty flat.  Considering that the Midsouth guys, and likely Hunter East who was leading, would probably be riding defensively, the chances of a break getting off the front on this course seemed pretty low.  If one did manage to go, however, I was determined to be in it.  Other than the big climb at the finish, which we would be doing only three times, the only other place likely to allow for a breakaway was a rather brief section of really bad asphalt where there was a really strong crosswind.  The first lap started really fast as we flew down the longest descent on the course going from zero to 42 mph in about a minute, but with a hot spot bonus in store at the end of the second lap I wasn't too surprised that things weren't very aggressive.  We went up the big climb at the end of lap one without a big attack.  Then, on the crosswind section of that lap someone at the front really put the hammer down and strung things out pretty badly.  Mark, who was in full-on sprinter mode for this race, nearly got shelled along there as he took a little ride in the dirt.  I guess a few were dropped along that stretch, but then it eased up as riders started thinking about the hot spot.  For me, the hot spot presented only the danger of getting dropped since I was so far down on GC anyway, so I was just trying to maintain a decent position near the front of the group.  Naturally there was a sprint to the top that opened up some gaps, and the leaders kept the pressure on coming over the top and into the long downhill on the other side.  The rest of us had to really hammer down the hill at about 37 mph in order to close the gap, but once we did things slowed down again. With one lap to go we climbed the big hill relatively slowly and it was looking like it was going to come down to a pack sprint.  With a mile or so to go riders started crowding the front of the pack and maintaining a good position required a lot of focus. I noticed Mark kind of stuck in the middle when things kind of opened up along the right side, so I tapped him on the hip and when I saw him start to move over onto my wheel I went all the way up to the front of the group without looking back again.  I later found out that someone had pushed him out of position.  Fortunately, being an experienced sprinter, he found his way toward the front anyway.  For some reason the front of the group slacked off just before the 200M mark, but then the sprint up the hill started in earnest and immediately a big gap opened between the front six and rest of us.  I cursed myself for hesitating so long and hammered up the hill finishing 7th with Steve and Rolan right behind me.  Mark had exploded up the hill and taken 3rd, ending up 7th on GC.  Anyway, I was reasonably satisfied with my finish, considering the circumstances.  I should note that I'm including as a "circumstance" the fact that I suck at time trials.  Anyway, results are on the LAMBRA website.  I'd put up some photos, but my camera spend the weekend sitting on my dresser plugged into the charger all weekend.  At least I didn't leave my Shimano Di2 battery plugged in at my hotel room causing me to miss the road race like one rider did.

Uninspired

After a good solid 300+ mile week and a very late bedtime I didn't feel the slightest twinge of guilt about sleeping late Monday morning, which is to say that I skipped my usual 6:30 am ride.  Unfortunately, I didn't feel much better at 5:45 this morning when the alarm went off.  Although the weather has been great for riding, I just felt so uninspired.  So it was one of those mornings when I had to push myself out the door and grind out the miles, knowing it was the right thing to do while all the time wishing I was sitting on the front porch drinking coffee. It's not like I'm over-trained.  Over-aged, perhaps, but definitely not over-trained.  Perhaps I just need to get to sleep a little earlier for a couple of days.

When I arrived at the start today I was surprised how few riders there were.  There had been a report that the bike path would be closed under the Huey P. Long bridge, but apparently that has been delayed.  I wondered if that had scared some people away, but as it turned out it hadn't.  By the time we got to the playground we'd picked up enough additional riders to at least double or triple the size of the group, which is to say there were maybe 15. The pace going out was a little erratic, mostly around 24 mph, but occasionally surging closer to 28 for no apparent reason.  Every now and then Lenny would randomly attack.  I quickly retreated to the nether regions of the paceline where the temperament better suited my mood, reacting reluctantly to the sudden gaps with long steady efforts rather than quick out-of-the-saddle bursts. At any rate, the ride out to the turnaround was fairly fast today, which is probably good because I certainly needed a little push.  If I'd been riding alone today I have no doubt I would have ended up going 15 mph and looking at the scenery.  The return trip was considerably slower and I found myself raising the speed by a couple mph to 25 mph on those rare occasions when I'd hit the front.  I guess I wasn't the only one feeling lazy today.  Toward the end Lenny inexplicably attacked a couple of times.  I wondered if he was trying to do a little interval workout. Sometimes I may start a ride feeling sluggish and uninspired, but by the end I'm back to normal.  Not today.  Group training rides are like a box of chocolates......

Springtime Giro

I had been expecting a pretty small Giro Ride this morning.  As it happened, however, there was a pretty good turnout.  I guess the race in Mobile and Holiday weekend didn't take many of the local riders away.  Although the predicted high for the day was around 80F, it was nice and cool as I rode out to the start. My legs didn't feel exactly refreshed, but on the other hand they didn't feel all that bad either.  I figured I'd hang out near the back for most of the ride and then see if I had anything left later.  There was a pretty good ENE wind, and although the pace ramped up pretty well on the way out to the turnaround, it was easy to sit in.  I put in a little effort at the turnaround and then as usual there were a couple of slow miles as everyone regrouped.  Well, almost everyone.  A few riders rode off the front and by the time the group got back together they were a good 40 seconds up the road.  Once we picked up a little tailwind, however, the chase was on and they were caught by the time we were a mile or so from the Goodyear sign.  I was pretty far back when the actual sprint started, so for me it was mostly just weaving through riders who were blowing up.  Anyway, I think that the last five miles before the Goodyear sprint averaged close to 30 mph. I made just a couple more efforts, up the two overpasses.

As Good As It Gets

When John Dias sent out an email earlier this week looking for people to do an 80 mile Friday ride with him I thought to myself, "it must be nice!"  I'd completely forgotten that I was off from work this Friday.  Finally, some time Thursday, I realized that I could actually do a long ride on the northshore on a Friday.  So I picked up Ben at 7 am, stopped for some coffee, drove across the causeway and arrived at the Lee Road Middle School, well, a few minutes late.  Fortunately, the other three riders, John, David and Chuck, were still there.  It was cooler than I'd expected, and there was a pretty good north wind blowing, but otherwise the weather was absolutely spectacular.  We set out under a clear blue sky surrounded by the bright green foliage of spring with a nicely matched group.  I looked over at Ben and said, "It doesn't get better than this."

We were planning on doing around 80 miles, starting out along the standard winter ride route.  This group was clearly not interested in slowing down too much to take in the sights, but on the other hand the pace remained pretty steady and well within the sustainable range.  John and especially Ben were taking really, really long pulls with the rest of us coming through with more normal ones.  Way up at the top of the course we turned onto Highway 439 and finally picked up a little tailwind.  Ben was on the front and just stayed there for at least five miles.  He was definitely "in the zone" and I wasn't about to interfere.

Rather than take the usual shortcut at Sie Jenkins Road, we decided to tack on some additional mileage by going all the way in to Bogalusa before returning back to Enon.  At that point we headed back out and did the Tulane road race loop backwards. For some reason I had figured that would bring us back to the start with just about 80 miles, but as it turned out I was about ten miles off.  We ended up with right around 90 miles instead.  Oh well.  Ten bonus miles! I guess it'll be the Giro for me tomorrow.  Way too much stuff piling up right now to make the trip to Mobile for the Sunny South criterium.

Bumps in the Road

By Wednesday evening it was looking like we'd have a break in the rain, at least until the next line of rain was scheduled to arrive later that night, so the Wednesday Night Worlds was "on" despite the fact that the prior night's storm had closed a fair amount of Lakeshore Drive.  Being desperate for a ride, however, I decided I'd at least ride out to the lakefront to see how bad it was, and hope a few others would be there so I could log a few miles. Just after I made it to Lakeshore Drive I saw the group, understandable smaller than usual, heading the other way.  Rather than turn around and try to catch them, I decided to continue on and see how bad the road was.  I had already gone past one line of traffic barrels closing off part of the usual course and much of the lake side of the road was covered with a layer of dirt, rocks and miscellaneous debris that had washed up over the seawall. Another line of barrels awaited at the Elysian Fields traffic circle.  None of this, of course, deterred the intrepid WNW crew, and a couple of minutes later I merged into the group, dodging traffic barrels, sand, rocks and related debris on an abbreviated 3-mile circuit from the Elysian Fields traffic circle to the "fountain" traffic circle.  The smaller than usual group was going a little slower than usual, and the first lap was intentionally "neutral" so everyone could figure out where the course of the day was and how best to negotiate the various obstacles.  Once things got going, though, I soon found myself going more or less flat out chasing the first break of the day.  Suddenly I hit something big that I didn't even see, felt something hit my chest, and heard something tumble onto the ground at 30 mph.  I thought for sure I'd pinch-flatted since the impact had been so hard and eased over to the left to get out of the way.  Then, looking down, I saw that the tire was still holding air.  I looked around to see if something on the bike had broken and then noticed my computer was missing.  My venerable old Campi Ergobrain had launched out of its mount (I sometimes struggle to get it off the bike and after at least 110,000 miles have never had had one eject itself before), hit my chest, and landed somewhere on the muddy street.  Matt and I backtracked looking for it while the group continued and luckily found it still working.  I snapped it back into place just in time to get back into the group that was, luckily, not going too fast.  Anyway, Tim soon took a flyer, the pack caught, and we ended up all together for the last lap.  It wasn't the hardest WNW by a long shot, but considering the weather I felt really lucky to have gotten in any sort of ride at all.  It stormed later that night, as predicted, and everything was still soaking wet in the morning. Once again I skipped the morning ride.

So I'm thinking I'll join John Dias and others for a long ride in the country since I'm off work tomorrow.  That is likely to leave me pretty wasted, but I feel like I need a long ride in the hills right about now.  There's a little criterium in Mobile on Saturday that I probably won't be able to make because I have a fair amount of work to do over the weekend, not the least of which is to get my tax return stuff together.

Now it's time to head home from the office and I just remembered that my rear tire had gone flat about a block from here this morning.  Damn.....

Too Much for a Ride

A very impressive and slow-moving storm visited the New Orleans area in the early morning hours today - the same one that was throwing around semi trailers in Texas yesterday.  Although it was already raining when I went to bed at around 10:30 pm, I think it was around 3 am when the lightning, thunder, pouring rain, and terrified dog woke me up from my already inadequate and badly needed sleep.  The thunder and lightning show continued for the better part of the next four hours.  I ended up trying to sleep with the lights on in order to keep the dog from seeing the flashes of lightning.  Even so, I had to stop him countless times from trying to dig a hole in the carpet.  It was all still going strong at 6:30, and although I've been known to go out for an hour's ride in the rain, the combination of wind, rain, lightning and flooded streets was a little too much for a ride this morning. I made some coffee and eventually fired up the laptop which provided enough email to keep me busy until after 10:00 when the rain finally eased up and I was able to consider riding to work.  The Wife had a doctor's appointment today to look into a cold that she hasn't been able to kick, so taking the car wasn't really a good option.  I put extra pants and shoes into my messenger bag, zipped up my rain coat and felt quite lucky to have arrived at the office relatively dry.  Things seem to be improving now, so I'm thinking about trying to make the Wednesday Night Worlds out on the lakefront, although there are a couple of complications that might prevent it.  The photo above was definitely not taken by me.  It was posted to Facebook by a friend of a friend and looks like a shot down Bourbon Street around 2 or 3 am this morning.  Anyway, I really like it.

Multitasking

It was around 5:15 am when I got up, pulled on my "blue shirt" and shuffled to the kitchen to boil a couple of eggs while I loaded up the car.  It was going to be one of those multitasking days where I officiate, race, and then officiate some more.  The term "Jack of all trades, master of none" comes to mind......   The Volvo was pretty well packed with two big bins full of clipboards, paper, stopwatches, radios, etc, another bin full of signs, the big finish line flag, the race clock and stand, the surprisingly heavy PA system, the big pop-up shelter, a folding table and chair, a couple of coolers full of water, the generator, and of course my own race bag, computer, printer, etc.  The bike went on the roof and I ended up squeezing my front wheel into the passenger seat alongside my race bag. There was some patchy dense fog for the 30-minute drive to LaPlace, and along the way I saw the police setting out flares along I-10 in Metairie where there must have been a serious accident.  Later, at the gas station just off the interstate at LaPlace, there was a big cluster of state police cars and wreckers loaded with wrecked cars.  There must have been a big pile-up in the fog somewhere nearby and as I filled the generator with gas I hoped nobody had been seriously injured.

We were missing a couple of our regular race volunteers this year and since this was a 2-person time trial there were a lot of race-day registrations.  Naturally most of them showed up about fifteen minutes before registration was scheduled to close, so there was a longer line than I like to see, but we somehow managed to get everybody into the computer, print out and post the start lists, and get the first team on the road on time for the 9 am start.  That left me about fifteen minutes to squeeze into my skinsuit and find my 55+ teammate Dennis.  Shortly before we were scheduled to start I stopped to redirect riders who were warming up in an area that the local police didn't want riders, and so I ended up sprinting from there to the start line with zero seconds to spare before we started.

Dennis is just starting to get back into shape after a very long time, maybe ten or fifteen years, away from racing.  Since I didn't really want to do a team time trial without warmup that would rip my legs off, and then have to compile the results, this seemed like a good match. Dennis started out with practically a full-out sprint from the line and right away we were up to about 28 mph, which I knew was entirely unsustainable, even despite the moderate tailwind we had.  Eventually we settled down to something in the 25 mph range, but I could tell Dennis was suffering right away.  Being the big guy in a 2-man time trial with me means scrapping around for relatively little draft.  So my pulls started getting longer and longer as we neared the turnaround and I dropped the pace a few times to keep us together.  On the way out we were doing a pretty good job of holding the gap to our minute-man, or minute-team, until the last few miles.  After the turnaround when we started into the headwind we really had to slow down a lot to keep it together and I spent a lot of time on the front at 22-23 mph which was a whole lot slower than the teams that flew past us were going! Needless to say our time was nothing to write home about. I think the surprise of the day was the team of Ben Bradley and Stephen Noya, both riding for the Tulane team, that posed the second fastest time of the day (54:39). On the plus side, after the finish I was still able to focus, there wasn't a thick layer of salt caked on my face, and my legs felt fine.  So I jumped into my car, changed back into my officiating clothes, and got started on the results within five minutes.  That all went quite smoothly and we had everything posted and awarded on schedule. Then we packed everything back into the car, unloaded it into my basement, and I went upstairs to clean up the results and post them and some podium photos to the website.  It was probably about 4 pm before I finally took a badly needed shower.

Rough Shoulders

A late afternoon meeting that ended a bit early prompted me to take care of some pre-event duties Thursday evening.  Despite the fact that I'd been late to that meeting because of a sudden rainstorm, and subsequently ridden there in a light drizzle, I decided I'd take a chance on the LaPlace time trial course having escaped the scattered rain.  I needed to get out there and freshen up the road markings for the turnarounds, and this looked like a good opportunity for that.  So I picked up a couple of cans of road-marking paint, threw the bike into the car, and headed for I-10.  Of course by then it was right in the middle of rush hour, so it probably took me half an hour just to get to the interstate.  LaPlace isn't very far away, though, so I arrived at the TT start location a bit before 6 am.  This stretch of road (Hwy. 51) runs adjacent to and parallel to the elevated I-55, and although you'd think that the only people using it would be looking for a nice place to go fishing, at this time of day there were a few who were apparently trying to beat the I-55 traffic to Pontchatoula. Since I was by myself and the sky was overcast, I decided I'd better stick to the wide but bumpy shoulder.  It was not comfortable, however, and every now and then when there weren't any cars coming, I'd get back up onto the nice smooth asphalt that makes this route such a good time trial course.  On the way out I stopped at the start line and then at the 5k, 10k and 20k turnarounds to re-mark them, finally getting back to the car just before it started getting dark.  I can't say it was the most enjoyable ride I've done lately, but at least it's one more thing I can check off of the list for Sunday.

This morning I was actually a little surprised to find three other riders waiting for me on the levee.  Sometimes I end up riding solo on Fridays.  Today we had a nice little paceline in which each rider was taking pulls of two or three miles at steady speeds in the narrow range of 21-22 mph.  I stopped at Zotz afterward for a cup of dark roast.  I guess I'll be riding the Giro tomorrow morning, although it's looking like I might have to bail out a little early.  Then on Sunday I'll be working registration and results for the NOBC 2-Person Time Trial, and doing in a TT with Dennis in-between, assuming we aren't terribly short-handed.

The Thursday after Wednesday Night Worlds

It's thus far been a good week for training -- good weather, no big complications or time constraints, etc.  Of course, good weather and adequate training time come with a price. I'm a little tired.  Yesterday, being Wednesday, included both the usual morning training ride and the 6 pm Wednesday Night Worlds (WNW).  WNW is a generic term used across the country for local training races.  These are typically, shall we say, unsupervised.  It's up to the riders themselves to enforce some measure of order and safety using whatever means necessary.  Yesterday that meant Tim riding up alongside a strong, enthusiastic, but somewhat unpredictable clip-on aero-bar equipped rider and politely asking him to drop back because he was scaring the bejesus out of the riders behind him.  If this happens to you, don't take it personally.  We're out there suffering in anaerobic conditions, sharing the road with often unaware drivers rushing to get home from work, and the added complication of occasional erratic bike handling near the front of the group is best reserved for more sedate outings.  There were also a few riders on TT bikes, which frankly makes me a little nervous when things bunch up and I see them reaching for the brakes with 80% of their weight hovering over the front wheel.  There's a reason they seem to keep falling on their heads.  But I digress.....

So I arrived at the training race just a minute late, rounding the curve on Lakeshore Drive in time to see the group rolling out over the levee at UNO heading east.  No problem, though.  I just continued on and made a U-turn a couple of miles later when I saw them heading back my way.  I knew they'd be going fast, but I'm afraid I underestimated the speed differential this time.  Suddenly I heard wheels coming up on me really fast and had to jump with everything I had, going from 15 mph to 30 in about fifteen pedal strokes, merging into the middle of the group before the effort had really caught up with me.  I think the group had already temporarily split, but I was more focused on sucking in enough O₂ to catch up with the sudden ATP backlog before the next attack.

On the next lap a gap opened up and the group split with a few riders, maybe six or so?, forming a break.  The rest of the group was in complete disarray for the rest of the lap as the gap expanded to what must have been about a minute.  I, however, was in no mood to turn the training race into a social ride just because of such a small gap.  I was also in no mood to bridge up to the break at 30 mph, alone, even it that had been possible.  So I spent much of the next lap trying to keep the pace up and get our group more organized, which eventually paid off as a number of us finally got a reasonable paceline going.  The gap to the lead group seemed to be holding steady, and then somewhere on the third of four laps it started coming down.  That was probably because they were slowing down because we'd been holding a fairly steady pace that Strava showed as about a 25.5 mph average.  So with a bit under one lap to go it came back together, except that one or two ended up off the front, and stayed there. We had a nice but typically long sprint to the top of the levee, only about half of which I contested.

This morning I was feeling pretty dragged-out for the Thursday long levee ride, but fortunately the pace was mostly within reason.  If the weather holds out I'll probably try to make it out to the LaPlace time trial course this evening so I can ride the course with a paint can in my pocket and re-mark the course for 10, 20 and 40km time trials.  We're having our annual 2-person Time Trial on Sunday.

Toasted in Tuscaloosa

The Tour de Tuscaloosa up in Alabama has developed a reputation as a pretty tough early-season race. I'd only ridden it once before, in 2009.  The challenging criterium and road courses, however, were still firmly etched in my brain as I made the long drive with a number of rider from the Tulane team.  I wasn't expecting much of myself, results-wise, which was probably my first mistake.

The 35+ Masters criterium had only 33 riders, but there was a lot of horsepower on the starting line nonetheless.  A few of the names were ones I'd not normally expect to find in the masters race, which is probably more an indication of the depth of the Cat. 1/2 field than anything else.  The Tuscaloosa criterium course is a fairly long one that features a fast downhill down to the river and then a two-stage climb back up to the rest of the course. The race started out fast and a break went off the front right away.  I'd come to the race with few expectations and was looking at it more as a hard training ride than a race.  I probably shouldn't have done that.  So we were about halfway through the race when, as I was hanging out near the back of the field, that an attack on the climb opened a gap a couple of riders ahead of me.  I hesitated.  The rider ahead of me hesitated.  By the time we were back on level ground there was a 20-second gap and our race was basically over.  Luckily I was able to get together with the rider who had been ahead of me and we worked pretty smoothly together for the rest of the race, eventually catching a few riders on the final lap.  The best I can say is that I didn't get lapped and rolled across the line with an unimpressive 25th place.  In the Cat. 4 race I was glad to see Ben riding very aggressively and strongly at the front, even getting off in a 2-rider break for a few laps.  Unfortunately he got stuck back in the pack in the last laps and only managed a 12th place finish.

So Sunday morning I headed over to the road race course with Miko who was doing the Cat. 5 race. My own race didn't start until noon, so I had a lot of time to hang around and watch the Cat. 1/2/3s come through a couple of times.  The road course is one of those that really wears on you - lots of rolling hills along with a few strategically placed steep and/or long ones.  I was feeling marginally more competitive but was still lacking enough confidence to be much of a factor.  The first two laps of the 10-mile circuit seemed really fast with lots of attacks and counter-attacks.  I think we averaged 25 mph on one of those laps.  The end of each lap featured a fairly long and steep climb, and by the second time around I was seriously wondering what I'd gotten myself into.  I guess it was around the start of the third lap (we were doing five) when a break of about six got off the front.  I tacked onto the end of it at the last minute and stayed there for a couple of miles to see what would happen.  A few of the guys were definitely motivated to make a go of it, and when I looked back I could see that we had a huge gap on the rest of the rapidly disintegrating field, so I started taking pulls along with most of the others.  I'd say that most of the people in this break were about 75% committed to it, so although the pace would occasionally slacken, it was staying fast enough to be worthwhile.  After five or six miles the pace slowed down a bit and a number of riders who had been chasing finally bridged up to us. The field size was now up to maybe 12-14 riders and I was quite relieved that the next time up the finish line hill didn't feature any attacks.  This group rolled along for the next lap fairly smoothly and I was even able to ride tempo up the finish line hill in order to keep things a little under control.  Somewhere after the start of the last lap, I guess on the longish climb, the group split while I was looking at the scenery at the back.  I didn't even know that a break had gotten off the front until the gap was up to maybe 20 seconds.  I was frankly rather shocked because there hadn't been any significant response from the pack, but by that time there wasn't much I could do about it.  Apparently there were some team tactics afoot at the front, but at any rate the break of six or seven pulled away really quickly, splitting the group almost evenly in half. I was pretty satisfied anyway since the closest thing I'd had to a goal for the race was to finish with the pack.  When the predictable attack came on the finish climb, about 400 meters from the finish, I saw Donald kind of blow up and pretty much followed suit, letting the front five or six riders battle it out for the win and just riding smoothly to the finish in 13th place, which I was surprised to discover was still "in the money."  Somehow that $20 seemed surprisingly satisfying, though.  Meanwhile, Ben kind of saved the day with an impressive 2nd place finish in the Cat. 4 race coming out of a 2-rider break and time-trialing the last lap ahead of the pack.

A Whole Week

Things have been pretty busy, cycling-wise, since last Friday.  Alas, I'm still hopelessly behind in a number of areas, not the least of which is training.  Last weekend the Tulane cycling team organized and promoted its first collegiate race, the Green Wave Cycling Classic, and just to make sure they jumped into the deep end, it was a stage race.  By all accounts it went off quite well.  Nobody went to the hospital and nobody went to jail.  For me it was a whole weekend off the bike, and just to twist the knife, I didn't ride on Friday either (I think it was raining in the morning). I was officiating along with Ricky Dunn who came in from Monroe.  As stage races go, this one was pretty easy on the officials.  The organizer (Landon vomSteeg, who also didn't get to race) had his support crew pretty well organized and everything went off pretty much on time.  The only problem was that half of the riders waited until about fifteen minutes before registration closed to register, so the road races had to be pushed back by half an hour.  Compounding the delay was the fact that collegiate riders seem to change category practically at random and the SCCCC insists on trying to give them "permanent" race numbers each season.  Of course a number of them forgot their numbers, or gave me the wrong number, or upgraded and had to get new numbers in a different sequence.  I never did get a list of assigned bib numbers and rider license numbers from the conference, just a big box of numbers delivered by one of the Texas teams about half an hour after registration opened.  Anyway, the road races up at Enon went pretty well, results were clean and straightforward, and we arrived at the evening Time Trial site with plenty of time to spare.  There were just a couple of minor errors in the RR results, so all was good.  The TT was interesting in that probably half of the riders had never been held for a TT start, and the guy holding them, Landon, had never held riders for a TT start.  Fortunately none of them fell, although there were a couple of close calls.  The only problem with the TT was that a few riders were late for their starts.  One of them would, in all likelihood, have turned in one of the best times.  I sat on the tailgate of the Volvo after the race and put in all of the times, so after driving back across the lake and having a bite to eat at home, the day's results were up on the website by 8:30 or so.  Sunday's criterium on Lakeshore Drive went well too.  The first problem, though, was that the parking lot that was supposed to serve as part of the course was basically covered in crawfish heads from somebody's party the night before.  We made a little course change that worked out fine.  By the time the racing started there was a pretty strong east wind blowing that helped break up the fields.  It made for some hard rides, but easy judging.  Anyway, I'd have to call the event a success.

So by Monday I was ready to get back on the bike, and went out for an early solo ride on the levee.  The rest of the week was going smoothly, unless you count a whole bunch of LAMBRA/USAC race permitting drama, until we had to cancel the Wednesday night worlds out on the lakefront because of rain.  Thursday morning it was still rainy and wet, but the radar looked like it might give me a little break so I went out to the levee in the dark on the rain bike to see how lucky I would get.  I wasn't optimistic enough to leave the rain jacket at home, though.  I made it out past River Ridge before the rain started again and I had to stop to put the jacket on.  By the time I was halfway back it was pouring rain and I could see lightning up ahead.  I have to say, though, that if you're going to be riding in the rain, full fenders and Goretex are the way to go!  I was pretty comfortable, although of course my feet started getting a little cold toward the end.  Friday morning was another wash-out with thunderstorms in the morning.  I left home late hoping the worst would pass because the dogs were scared. The little one basically shakes and pants whenever there's thunder.  A minute after I left home, in the car, the sky opened up again and for a while I wondered if Broadway might be too flooded for me to get to work.  No such luck, though.  It still wasn't over, though, and rained all day and night.  Around 2 am this morning was a huge storm with constant thunder and lightning that kept me up for pretty much the rest of the night.  The dogs were pacing around the bed and scared for hours on end.  Needless to say, I didn't get to ride this morning.

Thursday night I made a last-minute decision to go up to Tuscaloosa for the Tour de Tuscaloosa.  I haven't ridden that one in a few years and am not expecting much, but I figure it will be good training because both the road and criterium courses are pretty challenging.

Back to the Lakefront

Yesterday saw the first of the annual "Wednesday Night Worlds," which is the nearly universal term for the local training races that happen all over the country.  I'd ridden the regular Wednesday morning levee ride, and was still feeling a little dragged out from Rouge-Roubaix and an apparently insufficient amount of recovery time.  Of course that didn't stop me from rushing home at 5 pm and jumping on the bike to ride out to Lakeshore Drive for the 6 pm start. This informal catch-all training race actually constitutes a significant portion of my training program (I use the term "program" extremely loosely), since it basically substitutes for the interval workouts that I never seem to be able to make myself do.  The weather was warm, and there was a pretty good east wind blowing out on the lakefront.  There's always a pretty good wind blowing on the lakefront.  I was glad to see a good turnout of 26 riders for this first Wednesday in DST.  The race started out fast, and then just got faster.  Once we came around the old Armory (which isn't actually there any more, thanks to Katrina) and got the wind to our backs, Woody went to the front and put the hammer down for what seemed like three miles.  I was second or third wheel at that point and pretty much on the rivet the whole time just trying to stay on a wheel.  We do four laps of the 6-mile circuit and I was planning on staying in the draft until at least the half-way point.  Eventually the pace eased up a little bit, but of course there continued to be painful surges and attacks, as is the nature of such a race.  The fun thing about a training race is that there's nothing at stake and you are free to try some things that you might never be bold enough to attempt in a real race.

I was surprised that my legs didn't feel all that bad and that I was at least able to survive the attacks without incident.  The hardest part for me was the tailwind stretch where the speed was consistently ramping up into the low 30s and the draft offers relatively little comfort. I let myself drift back in the shrinking group as we got into lap number three.  At some point a break of two or three went off the front on the last lap and although there was a brief effort to chase, all hope was lost within three miles or so. When the pace really started to lag I went ahead and took some pulls in order to keep things moving, and then ended up on the front again about a mile from the finish, so my legs were really toast by the time the sprint started.  It was dark by the time I got back home. I was glad I had my little taillight with me, but wishing I'd brought the headlight too. Average speed for the race was about 25 mph with a maximum of 36.8, despite the fact that I had not contested the sprint.  Ouch.

This morning was another damp, dark and foggy ride on the levee.  Woody, who was on his TT bike, and one or two others were soon driving the pace at the front.  Let me tell you, it can be a little frightening going 30 mph in the dark in a paceline on that narrow little strip of asphalt.  The flashing headlights shining on the butts of the riders in front of me made it all that more difficult to see anything  up the road, so basically you're six inches from the wheel in front of you, and that wheel is basically all you can see.  It requires a lot of faith, somewhat more than half of the group had.  Eventually a gap opened and three riders rolled away, which finally brought our pace down by a notch or so.  After they turned around at the little dip, the rest of us continued on to Ormond.  I was really starting to feel the effects of the past five days and by the time we were headed back I was just taking occasional short pulls.  I kept telling myself it was OK, however, because I won't get to ride at all this weekend.  I'll be officiating a collegiate race which will no doubt be a little on the chaotic side.  Collegiate racing has some twists to it that really make officiating and scoring more difficult than usual.  For example, depending on category there is a required number of points primes for criteriums, and they need to be scored four-deep.  For some of the races it will probably work out to something like a sprint every third lap, making it more like a points race than a criterium.  Should be interesting.....

Dark and Foggy



Almost finished as the fog clears.

I was up late last night getting the updated version (i.e. the version with finish times) of the Rouge-Roubaix results formatted and posted to the LAMBRA website.  It usually works out that way.  Ricky, the Chief Ref., plugs in all of the finish times in the evening a day or two after the race, which he then sends to me around 10:30 pm.  Looking them over, I noticed that the Master's race was a good ten minutes faster than last year, despite the wind and slack mid-race pace.  My own time was about four minutes slower than last year, but my overall Masters placing went from 3rd to 12th, so basically some of these old guys must be getting faster!  There's a nice video taken from within the Masters race, and at about 3:15 it shows the split on the dirt road that established the front group.  I'm the last rider to make it across.  It's amazing how fast that gap opened!  If I'd hesitated another two seconds I don't think I would have made it across.

Anyway, it rained Monday morning, which was just as well because my legs were pretty sore.  Then, on Tuesday, I did the long levee ride with still-sore legs, flatted halfway back (it was wet), and rode the rest of the way pretty easy.  This morning the legs were feeling significantly better, but still had that lingering stiffness that reminds you of the weekend.  Unfortunately it was so foggy outside, and unexpectedly dark because of the fog, that I overslept a bit and missed the group by at least five minutes.  Not a big deal, though, since it's not like I don't already get enough group rides.  So I settled into a comfortable 20 mph pace and rode up the river until I saw the group on its way back.  It was a small turnout today, with everyone taking really long, steady pulls.  The only problem was the combination of darkness and fog for the first ten miles or so.

This evening is the start of the informal Wednesday Night Worlds training races out at the lakefront.  I'm hoping I'll be able to make it out there for a little hammerfest before dinner.

Travel to the Gravel - Rouge-Roubaix #14

The weather forecasts all week had been all over the map, and mostly wrong.  On Tuesday the outlook was dismal - 100% chance of rain.  Each day the forecast looked just a little bit better and by Friday a 30% chance of rain was looking quite encouraging.  Even so, the prospect of riding dirt and gravel roads in the rain, not to mention the rest of the 104 mile race, probably kept a number of people on the sidelines this year.  So naturally I signed up for the 14th annual Rouge-Roubaix along with a bunch of other club members.  The night before the race I put on my "Six Gap" 12-27 cassette, looked at the old battle-scarred Michelin Pro Race tire on my race wheel and decided to swap it out for a new, but heavier, Vredestein that I had been planning to put on my training wheel. The only other consideration was the higher than normal chance of pinch-flats.  That would require some compromise.  Rather than risk a flat, I put about 125 psi in each tire - quite a bit more than I'd normally use.  I knew it would make for some discomfort on the rough stuff, but the availability of a fast wheel change is not guaranteed in this race, especially if you're off the back.

So at 4:45 am Brian, Mignon and I headed for St. Francisville, giving ourselves just enough time to make it there before packet pickup ended at 7:00.  The weather was looking encouraging, and even though we got a little sprinkle of rain around Baton Rouge, it seemed like the tropical deluge that had predicted earlier in the week was completely out of the question.  The turnout looked pretty close to normal; perhaps down about 10% because of the weather.  I was riding the combined Master 40+, 55+, Women's group.  Although I had initially thought I'd wear arm-warmers, but the time we were ready to line up it was warm enough for just shorts and jersey.

The masters race started out fast with a moderate tailwind, and over the first fifteen miles or so I wondered who was up there driving the pace like that. I was trying to stay reasonably close to the front, but was definitely not interested in doing any more work than necessary so early in the game.  As we approached the first section of gravel road, around 25 miles into the race, I moved up closer to the front, coming around the right-hand turn off of the asphalt at about fifth wheel.  That was perfect.  The gravel was big and pretty lose at first but surprisingly the pace remained fairly steady with the speed somewhere in the low to mid-20s. After the first mile on the gravel the pace started to ratchet up a bit and I noticed the rider in front of me starting to let a little gap open.  When the gap got to about four bike lengths I knew it was time to go around, which is easier said than done on a gravel road.  I think two of us made it across that gap as the pace continued to ramp up.  Soon I could hear only one bike behind me.  Ahead was a string of about a dozen riders.  The last mile or two of this section has some hills that hurt a bit, but at that point there was no way I was going to let this group get away from me.  When we emerged back onto the asphalt I thought we would quickly organize into a nice paceline, but it wasn't happening.  I looked around and counted only about a dozen.  Behind us I could not see anybody close.  It soon became clear that about half of the group was not interested in working.  The really strong riders didn't really care if we stayed away or got caught since they were going to shatter whatever group they were with when we hit the second gravel segment at 67 miles anyway. So for the most part there were four or five in our group who were trying to keep the pace high enough to keep from getting caught by the next group. None of this was really the best-case scenario for me.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  The ideal thing for me is to be in a big group at the front and to have a couple of teams working the front trying to wear each other down.  Anyway, I did a lot more work than usual over the next 30 or 40 miles and by the time we were nearing the second gravel section I had pretty much decided I was going to get dropped on the initial 1 km climb.  I uncharacteristically let myself drift toward the back of the group, already running a little low on motivation. 


Alone at the end of the second gravel segment.

As we started the climb the front few riders exploded up the slope in search of the $100 bill waiting at the top.  I took it quite a bit easier, coming over the top about dead last, I think.  I knew that most o the group would shatter and was hoping I'd be able to get together with a couple of riders once we were back on pavement.  The one thing I wasn't counting on was a deep sand pit at the bottom of one of the downhills.  I have no idea how people were actually riding through that thing, but when I hit it my bike just basically came to a stop and I had to hike out of the deep stuff back to terra firma.  By then I could no longer see the rest of the group, so I just tried to keep up a reasonable pace.

Back on asphalt again, I passed the Pond Store made the next turn, and looked up the road.  I could see a group with a follow car about 45 seconds, maybe a minute, ahead.  If that group took a little break and slowed down, there was still a chance I might get back in the race, so I put my head down and started time-trialing.  Every now and then I'd check my progress.  For a long time I seemed to be holding the gap, but just could not seem to bring it down. After a few miles of that it seemed that suddenly the group just took off and disappeared.  I learned later that Donad Davis and I think one or two others had been off the front since the gravel section and I guess the group was not ready to throw in the towel.  Anyway, I finally had to back it down to something I could sustain since there were still nearly 30 miles left to go.  After a while I could see a lone rider up ahead.  I eventually caught him and we worked together for a couple of miles until he said he had to back off and sat up.  We were just a mile or so from the last gravel section and I was alone again.

The last gravel section has a really steep short climb right at the beginning.  By then I was running very low on motivation, so I rode most of the way up until my front wheel started to get hard to control, and then just walked up the rest of the way. There are a couple more good climbs on this section and it's actually kind fun.  The last 15 or 20 miles of this race always feel like the worst.  To make matters worse, there was now a pretty strong headwind.  I guess my speed was down to around 19 mph along here and I was already starting to feel some twinges in my right calf and left hamstring.  I guess I was around ten miles from the end when I looked back and saw a little group of three riders.  This was a good thing.  I eased up and waited for them to catch.  They were all in the 40+ race and I think had been in my original group.  I figured there were only a couple of 55+ riders ahead, and that we were probably the tail end of what was left of that original group of 12-14 riders.  I merged into the paceline with Scott Gurganus and the other two riders.  One of the guys was obviously suffering and would eventually drop off on one of the last little climbs.  With a couple of miles to go, Scott surged hard on a hill and we all came apart. As we approached the last turn, just after the 1 km to go sign, I noticed that I was suddenly gaining on the rider in front of me.  I probably could have made a big effort and passed him about 200 meters from the line, but when he looked back and saw me closing in he put his head down and accelerated and I just couldn't come around him like that.  I must be getting soft in my old age.  Anyway, I ended up 3rd in the 55+ race and 12th in the combined masters race, which I was pretty satisfied with, considering.  A bunch of photos are on the Rouge-Roubaix Facebook page.  To find out what the Cat. 1/2 race was from someone who was at the front of it the whole time, check out Brian Toone's blog.

Morning Routine

There won't be a ride for me this morning.  It's been raining off and on and I have an early meeting, so options are pretty limited. It's just as well. I don't want any hint of sore legs for Sunday's ride. So I walk the dogs, make some coffee, and sit out on the front porch to survey my little corner of the world. 

To the right, one neighbor has the garden hose out, washing off the oak flowers that have covered his car as he smokes a cigarette.  A few minutes later he hops into the car and heads off to work across the river where he's a nurse.  Across the street, the guy who moved into the lower apartment steps out, backpack, running shoes in hand, and drives off.  He's a doctor, a Resident, I'd imagine. As he's leaving a car pulls up next to the house.  There are a couple of school-age kids in it, and mom idles the car as they sit there.  I've seen them before and know they are waiting for the school bus to arrive.  Over to the left another neighbor emerges.  He's wearing scrubs and has his Timbuktu bag over his shoulder.  He hoses the oak flowers off the car and leaves shortly before his partner comes out to walk one of their two dogs.  A guy on a bike, probably a student, comes down the street and turns onto South Claiborne where traffic is starting to back up at the stoplight.  I hear the commotion next door as the neighbor loads her kids into the minivan and heads off to Lusher school. The neighbor to the left, the partner of the one who left wearing his scrubs, comes out with the boy they adopted a couple of years ago and they drive off to school and work as an RTA minivan drops off an older neighbor at her house.  Just now, a few houses down, a mom and her daughter walk to their car.  The daughter is wearing her school uniform - one of the local catholic schools.  I finally glance at my watch. The rain has stopped for the moment and I'm hopeful I'll be able to ride over to Tulane since parking will be impossible.  I'm meeting some folks from Baton Rouge (and the Netherlands) for a brief visit with a few faculty and the president about coastal and water research.  Another morning on Neron Place.....

Change

There was a big group this morning for the last long Thursday morning ride before the change to DST on Sunday plunges the 6:15 am start time back in to darkness.  It was warm and humid with a relentless east southeast wind, and I commented to someone at the start, "Best be sure to save something for the way back."  Although there was certainly adequate horsepower in the group to make for one of those really fast rides, I think some riders were holding back a bit today.  No doubt that's because of next Sunday's annual Rouge-Roubaix race through the untamed thoroughfares of the Felicianas.  The considerable threat of rain for that race has a lot of people talking; some about equipment choices; others about bailing out altogether.  Well, I'll be there one way or the other.  On the plus side, it won't be particularly cold.  On the minus side, 100+ miles on wet roads that include long unpaved stretches have me thinking about using my slightly heavier training tires rather than the Michelin Pro tires that I'd otherwise use. Frankly, the bigger consideration for me is to avoid cutting up my good tires, not whether or not I actually puncture.  At any rate, I don't think I've ever done this race when there was significant rain, and from all indications thus far, there will certainly be significant rain before the race, and probably during it as well.  It will require some compromises and probably a bit of an attitude adjustment.

Anyway, today's ride was pretty good.  The pace was fast enough without ever getting really out of hand (not that Howard didn't try), and even included some brief entertainment at the turnaround where there was some sort of "discussion" between Mike W. and Jeff, the details of which I never did quite get.  The ride out there had benefited from a fair amount of tailwind, which of course meant that the ride back suffered from an equal and opposite wind.  I had feared that most of the ride back would be in a strong crosswind, but fortunately the direction was such that there was usually some draft still to be had, even at the back where I spent a good amount of time.

Here at work I've been watching the demolition of part of the old Uptown Square shopping center, the other part of which houses my office.  Tulane doesn't own that part of the old shopping center, and it is being demolished in order to make room for an expansion of Lambeth House. It's a little sad to see it go.  Back in the mid to late 70s and even into the mid-80s Uptown Square was an interesting and unique little shopping center that housed a lot of locally owned shops.  I have a lot of fond memories of Christmas shopping there and really liked being able to avoid having to battle the holiday traffic in order to go out to the big shopping mall in Metairie.  I remember doing all of our Christmas shopping by bicycle for a few years.  Unfortunately things there started to fall apart and one by one the shops moved to other nearby locations in Carrollton and along Magazine Street and Tchoupitoulas.  Well, things change and this is one of them.

Now if that weather forecast for Sunday would just continue to change, that would be really nice!

On the Levee

I was back to the levee routine again this week, unless you count yesterday when I got out late after dropping The Wife off at the airport.  I suppose it was good for me to do a solo ride anyway, even through a stiff wind made the ride home more work than play, and the timing required a somewhat shorter ride than usual for a Tuesday morning.  It was like that again this morning -- the wind, I mean.  I arrived atop the levee on time and our small group of four headed out with a light tailwind.  It was warm enough for just shorts and a jersey, although I chose a long-sleeved jersey to help buffer those occasional blasts of river-cooled air one gets on the bike path.  The wind direction made our trip upriver feel easy, and although nobody was pushing the pace today I knew it would be harder coming back.

After the turnaround we crossed paths with a trio of Tulane riders, and then much later we saw another two up ahead.  They were going pretty hard and I figured they might be doing interval sets.  As we got a little closer Jay started pushing the pace to catch them, and when they finally eased up we caught and they latched onto the group.  A couple of minutes later they took off again and as they went past Jay stood up and accelerated. It wasn't long before they backed off again, however, and everything came back together.

So people are starting to worry about next Sunday's Rouge-Roubaix, mainly because the weather forecast is presently calling for a lot of rain, and not just on race day, but also on the day before.  That should make the dirt and gravel road sections a bit more interesting.  It's still a little early to make any decisions, but if it looks like we'll be in the rain for 100+ miles I may be going with the heavier training tires to reduce the probability of puncturing a little bit.  At least it doesn't look like it will be cold.  I can handle cold and I can handle wet, but wet and cold together can be a big problem. Some Baton Rouge guys just put a Saturday evening criterium series on the calendar.  No details yet, but that might offer something different.

Training Camp Weekend

The head cold was threatening to become a sinus infection as I packed up the car Friday evening.  At least the task at hand was distracting me from the dull ache in the right side of my head.  I met Mark, Mignon and Chuck at 6:00, and after a quick stop at Starbucks we hit the road for the drive up to Natchez State Park for the annual NOBC training camp.  I suppose it's really about half training camp and half "retreat." 

Whatever, I was looking forward to a couple of days of cycling immersion in the country.  In addition to my bike and pretty much every item of cycling clothing I owned, I had some cookies, bananas, granola bars, coffee, wine, and various other random items packed into a couple of grocery store bags.  The closer we got, the worse the weather became.  This was actually a good thing, because as long as the approaching cold front moved through overnight, I knew Saturday morning would be OK.  We drove though a few sections with horizontal rain, arriving at the cabins around 10 pm or so just before it started raining again.  I had a glass of wine and promptly fell asleep on the couch, that would be doubling as my bed, in the middle of a conversation with Pat and Mark.  It rained most of the night, but in the early hours of Saturday the temperature started dropping and the rain stopped.

We had 16 or 17 riders for Saturday's ride. Considering the fact that I'd been sick most of the week and taking into account the cloudy sky and chilly north wind, I dressed extra warmly.  I guess it was in the mid-40s when we started around 9 am.  The plan was to keep everything together for the first 15 miles or so, and then split in to two groups. After we split, the pace picked up and although I was keeping my pulls rather short, I was feeling surprisingly good.  The Natchez Trace is a very deceiving road.  The whole thing is so evenly graded that you never really feel the transition from flat to uphill or vice-versa, and although the gradients aren't very steep, they tend to be really long - much longer than one would normally encounter in that area.  Anyway, we hit the store at the turnaround for a little while and then headed back, waving to the other group that was trailing us by five or ten minutes. 

With a little tailwind for the return trip the pace kept clicking up a notch every five miles or so, and around halfway back our group split on one of those long climbs.  I guess we were down to five or so, mostly taking long pulls and keeping the pressure on. By the time we were five or six miles from the road back to the state park we were down to just Robert, Chuck and me.  My quads were starting to hurt on the climbs. 

I heard my phone ring as I was struggling to hold Chuck's wheel up one of them, and didn't answer it.  On the next climb Chuck and Robert started attacking each other and a big gap opened in front of me.  As I was contemplating whether to chase or just back off for the remaining few miles, the phone rang again.  Bad sign.  I sat up and pulled it out, and saw it was Mark calling.  He told me that they were going to need extraction because Isaac had broken his carbon steerer and crashed.  Fortunately he didn't seem to be hurt badly. 

I caught up with the others when they eased up at the turn and we hurried back the last three or four miles to the cabins so I could change shoes and jump into the car, passing the 2nd group as I left the park.  I must have driven twenty miles before I finally spotted the group walking along the shoulder.  Mignon, Isaac's mother, was carrying his broken bike.  So we threw the bike inside and I drove back with Isaac and Mignon.  The fork's steerer looked like it had broken about halfway between the stem and the crown.  Very odd. Anyway, we were lucky nobody had been seriously hurt.

That evening the Monahan's cooked up a big dinner while coach Bob gave us a presentation on coaching and training principles (lots of charts and graphs of power, heart rate, mileage, etc.).  Afterward we watched Chasing Legends once again.

So Sunday morning we had a slightly smaller group on hand for a shorter 20 mile ride down into Natchez for a coffee stop.  Isaac borrowed Bob's mountain bike for the ride, which was great since otherwise I'm not sure what he'd have done while we were out riding.  There was a pretty good headwind building up by the time we headed out, and the group split pretty quickly leaving six of us to put in a few miles of good training up front.  Brooks was taking some really long hard pulls, Robert was pushing the speed up the hills, and I was trying to take short enough pulls to keep from getting dropped.  The weather was spectacular and I was finally feeling like I was getting over the head cold.  After a long stop at the Natchez Coffee Company, we made a loop down the bluff to the river while I told stories about the old Natchez Classic stage race, most of which were true.  Then we headed back onto the trace for a tailwind enhanced ride back to the park.  Naturally the same group went off the front right away and we had a good fast ride all the way back. My legs were feeling pretty sore by the time we arrived at the cabins.  It was a really fun weekend and I was impressed how fit some of the riders are so early in the season.

Slow Recovery

This head cold has really been hanging on.  Here it is, Thursday, and my upper respiratory tract still feels kind of raw, I can't take a deep breath without opening my mouth, my eyes burn, etc., etc.  I'm sitting here debating whether to pop another couple of tabs of pseudoephedrine and Advil, which I haven't done since late last night. I guess I'm still recovering, however slowly, from this thing but it's incredible frustrating right now.  This is precisely the week when I should be adding some significant intensity to my otherwise routine training. Instead, I'll have a really low-mileage, low-intensity week.

It was warm this morning, as in shorts and jersey warm, and there was a pretty big group up on the levee for the early ride.  It's been nice being able to start the Tuesday and Thursday rides with enough light to see, but unfortunately that will all change March 11 when we move to daylight savings time.  For those of us who ride mostly in the mornings, all that saved daylight doesn't really do us much good.  It'll be dark again for those early rides.  I hate that.  Anyway, not wanting to push my luck and risk interrupting this slow recovery from whatever virus I've been fighting this week, I decided I'd just do the shorter ride out to the parish line and back today.  Riding near the end of the paceline I was kept busy dealing with the surges and slowdowns that always happen back there, all the while trying to keep a little distance between myself and the somewhat unpredictable mishmash of wheels ahead of me.  Of course, at one point the pace shot up suddenly and, of course, that was because Howard had surged up at the front.  That set up a little counter-surge that opened another gap once that one had been closed.  I just tried to keep it steady so the paceline wouldn't shatter completely since the pace hadn't gotten completely out of hand.

I was glad to find some company on the way back, first picking up David and later Mignon, which made for a nice little paceline at a respectable speed as we rode back downriver into a little headwind.  The annual NOBC training camp is this weekend, so I'm hoping I am more or less fully recovered by then because the weather is supposed to be turning a bit colder. Hopefully I can find some time today and tonight to get the Team Time Trial event permit, which is already late, all taken care of. I also need to put the Mercury logo on the LAMBRA site since they are giving us some sponsorship, in the form of expensive wheels, for our soon-to-be-announced LAMBRA Championship Series in which the upper category riders will be able to accumulate points at the road, time trial and criterium championships.

Sore

After a fairly normal, but quite windy, Giro Ride on Saturday I awoke early Sunday morning to find my legs feeling a bit sore.  It's hard to figure out sometimes why that happens.  After a particularly hard race or training ride I expect a little residual soreness the next day, at least ever since I started getting AARP solicitations in the mail.  Sometimes, though, there's just no obvious reason.  I thought that perhaps those sprints up the overpasses might have done a little damage, but at any rate it wasn't enough of a concern to keep me from the Sunday northshore ride.  I was planning on something a little different for this particular northshore ride since a few of the Tulane team riders were coming and we were going to tack on a lap of the road course they planned to use for the upcoming Green Wave Classic collegiate stage race.

The first clue that something might be amiss was that I was feeling a lot colder than I should have, considering the temperature.  It was in the low 50s with little prospect for much of an increase, but I left the full tights and extra arm covering on anyway.  From the start my legs were loading up on every hill, so I was riding very conservatively.  The plan was to stay with the regular training ride group for the first 40 miles or so, and then take a slightly shorter route back to Enon where the race would start.  Once there we could check out the parking situation at the school, talk with the shop owner where we may locate the finish line, and then head back north to do a lap of the course before riding the last twenty or so miles to the cars. I was expecting the total to be around 80 miles, which turned out to be pretty close to the 79.2 that Strava logged and the 80.something that my computer showed.

The group ride was pretty good, although I was sitting in a lot and just taking short pulls, still wondering why the hell my legs, and for that matter the rest of me, were feeling so lousy.  A little sunshine would have helped, but for the most part it was overcast all day.  By the time we got back to the cars everything was hurting.  My neck felt sore, my legs ached, and I had a dull headache.  I picked up an Americano before hitting the causeway for home, hoping that might put things back in order, but basically I was dragging arse the rest of the day and making animal noises every time I got up from the sofa.  Well, by evening I was starting to get a little sore throat and the pieces of the puzzle were coming together.  Yeah, I'm at home today with a little head cold that I'm just hoping won't turn into something worse.....