Mother Nature was aced out by me today. After eating I changed clothes and hopped on the bike before the rain moved in to town from the west. I soft pedaled for a half mile or so and once I turned up Sefton I began to lift the pace to a good level and kept it fairly high along the hilly subdivision roads toward Suson and down to Meramec Bottom.

I gave a little below TT effort along the Bottoms until the turnaround at Hwy 21. The effort hurt some but I needed that kind of work. On the way back I chilled out until the hills and gave a few good pushes up the hills. Since Saturdays TT now features a nasty climb I needed some uphill efforts.

On the way back the dark clouds came rolling in and thunder began to rumble but I made it back dry.

In the last week I have encountered quite a few mini-swarms of gnatty type bugs around town. I guess its a normal result of spring rains but they seem more prevalent this year.

News Item of the Day: Lance got his butt handed to him in the Tour of Georgia's TT today. Based on today's ride his fitness right now is way behind where it was at this time last year. His performance at Flanders was reasonably encouraging and yesterdays 3rd place was nice but this effort today is disturbing. Maybe it was just a bad day with the rain but you can't win a TdF with TT's like this one. Tomorrow's mountainous stage is pretty tough so we will see how he recovers.