Pedal Pusher: Today's Training

So most of this week was pretty laid back since the team wasn't attending any races. There was a serious team training ride on Wednesday afternoon that consisted of a painful set of intervals. Fortunately, a friend made Mexican food on Thursday and had people over:

It was a pretty fun night right from the start.

You can't have tacos without ground beef!

(Okay, yes you can, but they're not as good.)

It suddenly got very quiet once the food was ready

(they must have liked it).

You can see the sunburned face I was sporting.

I joined a teammate for a 6:30am ride on Friday before stopping at La Madeleine, a place that treated us very well considering that a couple of sweaty dudes walked into their establishment in noisy cleats and helmets. In fact, they were so nice that they upgraded me to a super-sized coffee once they found out Tulane Cycling has a better record than the football team. Pretty cool, right?

I figured today would be a good day to do an easy levee loop (50 miles). Okay, keep that in mind: easy pace, as in not hard. So I loaded up the iPod with 2 hours worth of Deadmau5 tracks and began riding at about 6:30am, thinking I'd probably get the loop done in about 3 hours and 10 minutes (read: very slowly). About 20 minutes into the ride I got picked up by three riders. The one riding off the front the entire time was Tim of Herring Gas Cycling Team. This guy is like a metronome. He had us slowly creeping up to 27 mph as we approached the end of the levee. Right behind him was the rider I was drafting most of the way, Charlie of NOLA Lending Racing Team. I can't remember whether it was him who signaled for me to get on his wheel or if it was one of the Herring Gas Cycling Team (or NOLA Lending Racing Team) sponsors, Craig, who ended up dropping off the paceline. We picked up another rider (Mark) while we were on the way back from the mills. The guy looks like he's built to fight aliens with his bare hands (go watch Battle: Los Angeles, which was partially filmed in Baton Rouge, and you'll understand the level of badassery needed to acquire this appearance). These guys were pretty fast. Luckily, Charlie flatted out so I could take a breather (I guess it wasn't so lucky for him). I took the opportunity to wolf down half an energy bar while we waited for him to change his rear tube. I also snapped a few pictures:

The sun got pretty bright today.

View of the river from the levee.

Mark and Tim shooting the breeze while Charlie changed his flat.

Charlie, not too excited to be spending his morning changing a tube.

After getting home from that 50-miler, I quickly showered so I could go grocery shopping with a friend. There were energy gel type things on sale for $5.00 a case, so I capitalized on that opportunity as soon as I saw it. Upon getting home, I threw my kit back on for a 2pm fun ride with a teammate. We pretty much saw the entire city of New Orleans, from City Park to the Lakefront, over to the University of New Orleans and then to the French Quarter. We even rode home through Uptown, which was scenic (and bumpy) after stopping by a coffee shop on Frenchman Street. It was 32.85 miles total for that ride, so 82.85 for the day when it's all said and done. A spring sufferfest, to say the least.