Okay, tonight's Tuesday Night Worlds was brutal...at least to me. I got to the church a bit after 4:30 this afternoon and saw Jason in the parking lot getting ready to ride, so I hitched along with him for the warmup before the Worlds ride began at 5:30. He could give me the scoop on how the Tour de Louisiane race went down while we rode. Well, I said it would be a "warmup" since I hadn't stretched yet but we hit the road and were already going 22 mph, getting up to 23-24 into a nice strong crosswind. Easy for Jason, a little tougher on an old guy like me. But I was determined to stay with him and converse like nothing was wrong. So we rode side-by-side for 12 miles on the out-and-back to the Crossroads and with the crosswind it felt like we were battling a headwind the entire ride! Sweat was literally pouring out of my helmet when we got back to the parking lot to meet up with everyone else. I could tilt my head forward and watch a steady stream of sweat pour to the concrete!
A storm was off to the east with thunder but it wasn't coming to us. However, the wind picked up as we started south on Ellerbe Road and our pack was being buffeted about the whole way. It was quite a strong breeze, not unlike your normal gale force wind. I rode strong, I thought, and closed a few gaps as well as taking my pulls. Bolt looked like it wasn't fazing him at all. Russ, the overall winner at the TDL last weekend, just sat in while riding his time trial bike, disc wheel and all. All this effort was going to cost me...I'm riding stronger than before but my endurance is still not up to snuff. Anyway, let's just say that after a ton of effort to get to Frierson I finally got dropped but kept up the effort the rest of the ride. I hope I can walk when I get out of bed in the morning! It was just a brutal ride but good for fitness...cranked out 42 miles in all.
Jonnene accompanied Bridget on her Ironman training today, putting in 2.5 hours on the bike, followed by a 20-minute "brick" run. She's a bit knackered tonight, too.
Most of today was painting a second coat on the entertainment shelving unit, a little more work on the dirt pile in the front yard, and the usual errands and jobs around the house. I'm waiting to finish up another helicopter paint scheme from Metro but who knows when that'll be. Their clients are always in a hurry but they take their sweet time in the process.
Wow, comedian George Carlin died yesterday. Another part of my wonderful college years has moved on to history. I remember listening to his comedy albums over and over in my college dorm, and remember when he hosted the very first Saturday Night Live in 1975 (which, if you didn't know, had a regular bit created by Jim Henson of the Muppets...I was always in stitches when it was on...I was laughing so hard during the accupuncture skit that I was crying...don't know why they stopped doing it after six shows). Anyway, Shreveport got mentioned in the news stories since that was the place George got his start as a radio DJ at KJOE when he was stationed at Barksdale AFB in the mid-50's. I admired him for the wordsmith he was (I wish I was remotely as well versed) and his observations of life in general (NOT his politics). His routine on "A Place for My Stuff" was one of my favorites and I have to admit that his "Seven Dirty Words You Can't Say on Television" was one of his best. Be aware, there's language on this links! See ya later, Mr. Carlin.......
Went to Waco, Texas last Saturday for a meeting of the South Central Collegiate Cycling Conference (SCCCC) to talk over race schedules, conference rules, and whatnot for competitive college bicycle racing. There were guys from UTexas, Texas A&M, Texas State, Midwestern State, and Baylor there. Took a couple of hours but some things got done. It's the first long drive by myself I've taken in a long while, a little over 8 hours roundtrip behind the wheel and I enjoyed it. Jonnene was doing a long bike ride to Jefferson, Texas with a group of cyclists that morning and she said it was nice but plenty hot.
We volunteered to be volunteers at the Sunrise Triathlon #3 on Sunday but spent much of the rest of the day around the house. I did some painting on a piece of furniture and she worked on some things for the bike club regarding training and diet for century rides. Yeah, basically we were pretty useless much of the day!
LaS'port did well for itself at the Tour de Louisiane over the weekend. Russ won the overall in the Cat. 1-2-3's while Bolt took second. LaS'port only had four guys in the race but did a fabulous job of dominating the stage race against a couple of larger teams including an 8-man squad from Herring Gas. Russ ended up winning the overall by the largest margin in at least the last ten years of the tour and his solo win by two minutes in the 80-mile road race helped a lot in that regard.
I'm looking to do the stage race in Lafayette near the end of July and I'm being optimistice because my riding has been going very well lately. It's not there yet but I'm getting more confident that I'll be ready to race by then. The first Saturday of August I'm going with some other guys to Katy, Texas near Houston to do the Texas State Time Trial Championships as a prelude to the Louisiana-Mississippi TT's in September. We'll see if the Guru is as fast as I think it can be with me on it.
Guess where Jonnene and I will be this November before we cross the Big Water late in that month? In a local movie theater, seeing "AUSTRALIA" starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. Check out the trailer at the movie's website:
http://www.australiamovie.com/
Finally, I had a terrific ride today! Covered about 66 miles and got rained on to boot. But I couldn't complain because I had a good day out there on the road. We were going hard, going fast, and there were times I was wondering if I could keep up. Then there were times when it was easy to keep up and close a gap if I had to.
Found out I will be going to Waco, Texas next Saturday for a meeting of the South Central Collegiate Cycling Conference, the competitive organization for cycling in this part of the country which is part of the National Collegiate Cycling Association. It looks like I'm going to be director for the new cycling team being formed at Centenary College, so I need to get familiar with all that's going on in this type of racing. There's lots to learn and several people I need to get to know. Hopefully my part in all this with Centenary will be in motion in a couple more weeks. It'll be a part-time paying gig with my main concern to keep a recreational and competitive cycling program active for those associated with the college (students and faculty).
Saw the new Indiana Jones movie tonight. Really enjoyed it! It wrapped up a few loose ends and Indy finally gets the girl! Set in the late 1950's, Indiana Jones is now a much older archeology professor but we find out about a bit of his life since we last saw him in the 1930's. He didn't spend ALL that time in front of a blackboard! Check it out if you get the chance.
We had a small group on the 5:50 ride this morning, five of us, and I'd gotten used to seeing 8-9 riders the last few times I've been out. Although it didn't seem like it, we covered the distance about 5 minutes faster than we usually do. I had plenty of spare time to do my hill repeats near the house as I returned. I got in a set of 8 repeats, both standing and sitting, and I try to do that after every morning ride to help improve my climbing skills or lack of.
I'm taking out the Guru for its first real test ride this afternoon. I've put on my own aerobar setup, the fast wheels, made a few tweaks in the position and we'll see how it rides on the original seat. I'll probably end up putting my Blackwell seat on it but I'll give the other one a chance first. It's hot outside but I shouldn't be out there more than a couple of hours.
We're keeping a friend's chocolate Lab, Chip, for the week and it's always interesting to have three larger dogs in the house at the same time. Chip got out the back door yesterday afternoon while I was working on a drawer in the laundry room and I chased him about 4 houses down and around the street! But I caught him and dragged him back home via his collar. We'll keep an even CLOSER eye on him from now on! Taz tolerates Chip and is only scared of him if Chip tries to play "hunting dog" on him. Farley and Sophie have known Chip a long time so they get along pretty well.
We had another really hard thunderstorm last Monday night and, for the second time in three weeks, we found our patio underwater again. But it wasn't as bad as the last storm and nearly all the water's drained off. Makes it harder to deal with the wet dirt in the front yard but I'm knocking that off bit by bit.
Just a thought....Over the weekend a man in Japan went on a killing rampage where he rammed his car into a group of people on a pedestrian mall in Tokyo's Akihabara district. He then jumped out with a knife, slashing everyone near him, and killing seven while injuring ten. He only stopped when police threatened to shoot him. He was heard saying that he "was tired of life."
What? If he's so tired of life then why doesn't he just "off" himself? Instead it somehow makes sense (to him) to kill other people who probably aren't as tired of life as he is, and probably had plans for the coming week involving work, other activities, and family. They're made to pay for him being depressed. He gets to live....and I kinda doubt that he'll consider that to be much punishment.
It reminds me of those two idiots, Dillon and Kleibold (sp?), who killed all those kids at Columbine High School (CO) in 1999. When you see all their videos and read their online blogs, they mostly complain about being bullied about at school and getting no respect from the "in crowd" - the athlete studs and stylish types - and how they're going to get their revenge by killing them all.
And what do they do? They head straight to the school library, where we know all the "in crowd" hangs out...athletes are in there all the time, right?....yeah, right....and they go after the same kids who are like them. The geeks, bookworms, and kids out of the mainstream. All of whom are defenseless and innocent, who did NOTHING bad to these two killers all their lives. Dillon and Kleibold were cowards, not the brave avengers they liked to think they were, and went after those who could not hit back at them, not the ones they were truly angry with.
I have absolutely no sympathy for those who think the answer to their problems is to attack the innocent. Hey, put the gun to your own head and solve the problem that way instead of putting it to the head of someone else who doesn't even know who you are or what your problem is. They have enough problems of their own and their's just might actually be worse than yours. But they've found a way to deal with it and it doesn't involve denying someone else of their life.
Well, we headed out to Natchez, Mississippi around 6:15 Saturday morning to get to the Louisiana/Mississippi Bicycle Racing Association (known as LAMBRA from here on) District Road Race Championships. It's held at Natchez State Park on a 5.2 mile loop into and out of the park with a nice series of steep hills and windy shady roads to go fast on after you've gone slow on those hills. The plan was for Jonnene and I to do the races and come back home that night. All went according to plan which is a good thing.
We registered when we got to the race site but it was already hot and humid...typical weather in the South....unloaded our bikes and got set up. Jonnene was doing the Masters Women 35+ race and it would be her first USCF event, and not a bad one to get your feet wet in. I had modified her Orbea for road racing by taking off the aerobars and other things that had been previously attached to the frame. While we got her ready we were informed by one of the race officials that she was the only entrant for the race! He told her that they would line her up with the Men's Category 5 race (5's being the entry level for beginning racers) but score her separately...she still had to do the distance to win the event. I think that worked out to 36.4 miles or 7 laps of the course. 
Jonnene (center) starts near the back with the Category 5 men.
Cruising past before the first climb to the top of the lake dam.
Like I said, I was lined up for the Masters race which was a combination of the 30+, 35+, and 45+ age groups...about 30 of us, I think. It was a small group compared to past years probably because of the gas prices making this a relatively expensive trip for some, and, since this was the third year to hold the race at the park, a lot of folks knew if they could or could not do well on this course. It is NOT my kind of course but it's a good place to get a good hill workout!
In these Masters races it doesn't matter what category you are, just the age. I'm a Cat. 3 but there are guys here who are 1's and 2's, and have raced against the pros before...a lot of stud hosses in this group. I already know I don't have much of a chance here so my goal is to complete the 9 laps (46.8 miles) and get some points for my team in the district team competition. The gun went off and so did we. We popped the first climb up to the top of the lake dam and I was finding myself in the front ten riders. I hadn't raced in about a year but it was feeling pretty comfortable in the group with the speed already over 26 mph across the dam. My teammate, Russ, shot off from the start taking three other riders with him and by the time we crossed the 400 meters of the dam, they were already a quarter mile ahead! Our first decent off the dam had us going at 30 mph and approaching that series of three consecutive hills that I really hated to climb but we popped over them pretty quick and I was happy to still be in the pack. But it looked like the faster guys in the front wanted to chase after the four escapees way off the front so the pace ramped up really hard. I was hanging on in the back as we leaned into tight curves in the road and screamed out of the park in a right turn that went downhill immediately into an uphill. We topped that and I started losing my hold on the group. I was going 35 mph, getting tired rapidly and couldn't hold on!
I latched onto two guys who had also dropped off the back...a teammate, Brian, and a guy from the New Orleans club...and the three of us managed to stay within 10-15 seconds of the pack but it was hard work. We finished the first lap 10 seconds down and covered the first 5.2 miles in 13 minutes! Brian took himself out of the race because he was feeling sick, so the NOBC rider and myself almost caught the pack at the top of the dam. However, I was so winded that I couldn't get my speed back up and had to let everyone go. At this point I was riding by myself for the rest of the race.
Most of the time I pushed as hard as I could, had good laps and bad laps while I was riding. About the middle of the fifth lap, Russ came up alongside me and he was by himself which meant two things; one, he was in the lead solo, and; two, he was lapping me! He said, "Hey, Alan" as he came by and I replied "Go get 'em, Russ!" In a couple of minutes he was out of sight again and about five minutes later, two more riders came by who were chasing him. One was Ryan Boudreaux of Herring Gas and the other was Danny Bennett who was in town from New Mexico riding for Cycle Science. At this point I was feeling decent and jumped on their tails for a while...in a road race I can't interfere with riders who are ahead of me so I just rode behind them for the next three miles. It was fun. We were going pretty fast and those two guys looked so relaxed, sitting up to drink at 30 mph, taking the turns so smoothly. I rode better just following them but I let them go once we got to the top of the dam to begin my seventh lap. The main pack would catch me toward the end of that lap and eventually I would finish, coming in 10th overall in the men's 45+ classification. A decent finish and I got points for my team so I was happy with that. Plus I got a kiss from Jonnene at the end!
I ended up getting that Guru TT bike, too. After some adjustments and switching out the aerobar/handlebar arrangement, it should be a pretty fast bike for me.
We packed up everything, including the new bike, and headed home. Got to see a really nice sunset, too.
Most of Sunday has been spent cleaning up most of our stuff from the bike races, washing clothes, and cleaning some of the house. We spent a couple of hours working on the flight schedule for our trip to Australia later this year and got the tickets...we weren't confident that the prices would be any better later. So I guess we're flying halfway around the world again! I have no problems with that concept!
2007: Here I am (in the red jersey) with my little chase group...it was HOT!
I'm doing my first race of '08 down in Natchez tomorrow at the LAMBRA District Road Championships, being held in the Natchez State Park....a tough 5.2 mile loop with short but steep hills, lots of shady spots, long stretches on a tall spillway by the lake, and good road surfaces. It kicks my butt every year and I have no doubts it'll do the same this time. I'd be happy if I manage to stay with the pack the first three laps out of the eight we have to do. There is a series of three hills that take it out of everyone each lap and I'm not really looking forward to it. But I gotta get my feet wet and I'm viewing it as a training race.
Jonnene's doing the race, too, in the Master Women's 35+ grouping. Attendance in that particular race is usually pretty sparce. She could be the only lady lining up or be one of only 3-5 other racers. With the cost of travel nowadays you can't really tell who'll show up. Last weekend was a great race in Alexandria but the attendance overall was not what it should have been. We had spent most of our money in Hot Springs the weekend before that so we were kinda tapped out for the following weekend.
While we're in Natchez I'll be picking up a time trial bike that Jonnene is helping me to purchase, a kind of birthday present. A guy in Brandon, Mississippi is selling his 2004 Guru Cron Alu TT bike (see photo above) and from what I can tell from the photos and description it is a good deal. I've had a local bike shop look over the info and he thinks it's a very good deal. Not all the components are high-end but they'll do the job. I've already converted my K2 bike back to its road racing version for this weekend and I'll test-ride the Guru Saturday. After we pick it up, I'll be making some changes...switching out the aerobar setup with my old one (I like it better), make some minor changes in positioning, and putting on the FAST wheels. I can sell the other bars and use the new wheels for training wheels. But now I'll have a true TT bike. BTW, Jonnene's looking for a new bike herself for triathlons and is drooling over the Orbeas on the market.
In the meantime, I'm slowly getting the front yard smoothed out and a small but growing dirt/clay pile is building behind the shed near the back yard. The verge is looking very good...just needs grass to start growing...and an area near a group of trees is looking good, too. The main ditch needs to be dealt with and that's a LOT of dirt I have to move. I need to keep much of the dirt as fill when the ditch starts to settle with the rains and time coming on. I'm also going to start back on the small jobs that need to be done around the house. With all the guests we've had, those jobs had to be put on the back burner.
We're starting to plan for our trip to Oz in November. It will not be cheap due to the rising fuel costs but we're going. Probably by ourselves, too...it might cost too much for anyone else to come along with us. All of Sunday will be dedicated to looking at flight combinations, places to go, available time...the whole shebang.
Proof of dogs and cats living together! We kept a neighbor's chocolate lab for a week while they were out of town. Our cat, Taz, didn't seem to have much of a problem with it.
Outside our house....flags that reflect the occupants inside.
At last Sunday's triathlon: Seth (right) talks to some of the guys before the race starts.
Jonnene volunteered at the triathlon and worked as a "body marker"...putting the race numbers on the participants arms and legs.
Jonnene (center) starts near the back with the Category 5 men.
Cruising past before the first climb to the top of the lake dam.
We packed up everything, including the new bike, and headed home. Got to see a really nice sunset, too.
2007: Here I am (in the red jersey) with my little chase group...it was HOT!
While we're in Natchez I'll be picking up a time trial bike that Jonnene is helping me to purchase, a kind of birthday present. A guy in Brandon, Mississippi is selling his 2004 Guru Cron Alu TT bike (see photo above) and from what I can tell from the photos and description it is a good deal. I've had a local bike shop look over the info and he thinks it's a very good deal. Not all the components are high-end but they'll do the job. I've already converted my K2 bike back to its road racing version for this weekend and I'll test-ride the Guru Saturday. After we pick it up, I'll be making some changes...switching out the aerobar setup with my old one (I like it better), make some minor changes in positioning, and putting on the FAST wheels. I can sell the other bars and use the new wheels for training wheels. But now I'll have a true TT bike. BTW, Jonnene's looking for a new bike herself for triathlons and is drooling over the Orbeas on the market.