It's the Rainys

So now we're sorta in the middle of a predicted 4-day rain session, and it's gotten cold again. Wheeeee. The good thing is that all the yellow pine pollen has been washed off my truck...it seemed like the accumulation was getting think enough to measure for thickness and quickly turning the top panels of the old '98 Dakota from its Forest Green to a strange mustard yellow. The picture above shows the old trusty Dodge a couple of years ago when I drove to Los Angeles to pick up Jonnene and then drove her back to Louisiana. Imagine it with lots of yellow dust covering it...now stop imagining that because it's all gone now. But now we've got 80-90% chance of rain thru Friday night and that means muddy trails when I do my trail run on Saturday morning. Justin at Sportspectrum told me he had just measured the course Wednesday morning and it worked out to exactly 5.91 miles. He used one of those rolling wheel distance measuring devices (did I use enough words to describe that?) and ran the whole trail with it. That's more accurate than even GPS can provide in this day and age. Well, that should be lots of fun and means I'll spend part of the weekend cleaning my trail shoes after the fact.

Tuesday evening was the first Tuesday Night Worlds training ride of 2009 and it was wild as the first one usually is. We had a big turnout of Sunrise tri-geeks and LaS'port road racers ready to start the training year right with a very fast ride. When I got there I didn't have enough time to warm up, so Mack and I headed out early expecting the pack to catch us later down the road...and they did. We were going south into a 16-20 mph headwind and as we got absorbed by the pack of 30+ riders I saw the speed ramp up to 27-28 mph. I was able to hang on for a mile before getting spit out the back...my legs were killing me without that warmup! But I kept pushing, eventually caught Chris (or "T-bone" as we call him) and then David, both of whom had taken the past year off from racing and were trying to get back into shape. David dropped off, then Chris and I caught Billy, an RAF officer on exchange with the local USAF air base. Then Chris fell off the back, leaving Billy and I team-time-trialing it to the crossroads. We could see two large groups heading for Frierson to the right from the crossroads and we made the turn, thinking we had no chance to catch back on. Then, we saw Mike riding back towards us and joining us. He's gained a little weight over the years (haven't we all?) but is an incredibly strong rider when he wants to be. The three of us starting chasing and my legs were feeling better, getting into the groove of the effort. Mike made the strong pulls and halfway to Frierson he made the final push to catch the group ahead...I thought I wouldn't make it and also considered throwing up at the time...and we did it. For the next mile we just sat in the back getting our breath back but still cruising at 26 mph into the wind.

We get to Frierson and make the right turn still motoring. Several of the riders in the group fell off at that point and eventually we were down to just seven of us, including Mike, Billy, and myself...the original chasers. Up ahead we saw three dots in the distance, other riders dropped from the lead group (and they were long gone!). So we chased those three for the better part of six miles, pace-lining and taking big pulls. One time I took a long strong pull up a long incline and then pulled over to let the next rider through....nobody came thru. After a sec I took a look back and saw Dave behind me...nobody comes thru...I finally yell out "Somebody help me here!" Dave yells back "I'm waiting for everyone to catch up!" Sure enough, the two of us had gapped the group and then I was more than willing to slow down for them! Back together, we continued the push and were getting closer to the three ahead. Turning south onto Linwood we were probably 500 meters from them and within a mile we had closed that to 200 meters. At that point, Mike made a jump to bridge to them. I waited a second and decided to go with him, the two of us going about 34 mph and I knew the group had to be somewhere behind us but a bit further back since they didn't react as quickly. We caught them, three triathletes on their tri bikes, and all three are strong riders. It was a good chase and a good catch. So we're all together going into two significant hills on Linwood. I am third placed over the first hill but on the bigger second hill my legs finally gave out and I had to let the group go. I limped the remaining five miles to the parking lot like a sick puppy but still had a 21.4 mph average for the day. Just another Worlds ride.

The kits for the Centenary cycling club came in yesterday and they look great! I had to fit a couple of kids to some borrowed bikes I had gotten my hands on last night and they got to see the jerseys. There are also tri-suits and they look pretty darn good, too. Hopefully, we'll have our first real club ride this Sunday and I can try to get these kids ready for the conference races in April. It won't be pretty since none of them have ever raced before but it'll give them a taste of the action and to figure out what to expect for next year.