I know it's been awhile since the last post, but things have been quite busy. Last Saturday Carlo hosted a team barbecue over at his house, and it was pretty gnarly. We got the tunes crankin' and the burgers cookin', and from then on it became a pretty fun team bonding event. I ended up eating quite a few burgers as well as most of a batch of brownies. But fear not! I assure you, they were good brownies. Good brownies that happen to be good for you, too. Apparently, the teammate who baked them used whole wheat flour, so the meal wasn't that unhealthy overall. After the food coma subsided we played pool and shot the breeze until nightfall.
Teammate, super focused on the task at hand (talking to his girlfriend).
Of course there's the obligatory road bike in the room.
If Tulane offered it, this guy would have a Ph.D. in Billiard Studies.
One of the many good burgers. Note the carrots and cherry tomatoes in the background.
Healthy(-ish) brownies!
In addition to honing our barbecuing skills, the team has begun doing more serious training rides (our schedule even allows for two-a-days for those absurdly dedicated cyclists on our squad). Yesterday I tagged along for a sprint workout along the levee when it started to rain. Hard. I also happened to get a flat tire about 6 or 7 miles (estimated) away from home. On top of that, I had a CO2 inflator with me, but no tire lever or tube (Murphy's Law), so I was SOL for a good 5 minutes until another rider stopped to help. Keep in mind that it was really wet at this point, and changing a flat in that weather wasn't a good time. In fact, it was a bad time. And to further add pressure to the stress nerves, I had to quickly shower and put on some dry clothes in order to catch a downtown shuttle for a meeting.
At the aforementioned meeting, a teammate and I volunteered to escort the lead car for the Mardi Gras Marathon. (Actually, he spoke up and volunteered me on my behalf. Go figure.) The elite runners will most likely be 800 meters behind us at all times, but we'll have to stop and mark the infamous New Orleans pot holes with cones and then sprint back to the car. Ad nauseum. The race coordinator personally told my teammate and I that we should probably quit now if we weren't prepared for the hammerfest (hammering on the pedals, not getting hammered). The word quit must have not been in my vocabulary last night because we signed up for the job. (I did notice a sudden increase in heart rate when the former U.S. Olympic track coach gave us the rundown of what we were to expect.) Regardless of the situation, I don't want to be passed by some runner doing 12 miles per hour (5 minute miles). That would be bad publicity. So I guess we'll have to eat some carbs at Saturday's Tulane Cycling fundraiser. Come join us and support the team!
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