Day 6 - All Business

Nothing was really on the agenda today except to hit the Longchamps ride at 5:30 P.M. The racing season is still on after all and I need to keep training. We did catch up on blogging and other mundane details. I wanted to go this ride fresh and not after riding around town for several hours. Dale went to this Meditereannean joint and got us lunch to go while I wrote the Day 5 blog. Pretty good and cheap by Paris standards. It reminds me of Pita Inn for it's value and amount of food.

We set out for Longchamps at 5 and it took us about 30 minutes to get there. I jumped into the fastest group as soon as they went by. I wasn't really warmed up as well as I would have liked since you can't really ride for very long in Paris without stopping. I was ok and went to the front several times. It really is a constant grind. I am not used to it since out group rides are always stopped by traffic lights. I tried to hydrate but I started cramping after 75 minutes. I pushed on and started doing some good efforts until I noticed that there were only 4 of us left out 50-60 guys. I guess those other guys finally had enough. My new group stopped riding hard shortly after that. I pulled out and found Dale. He was riding in the other groups which really worked out well. One can go to the ride with guys of varying abilities without losing anybody. The ride total for me was 95 minutes. That was enough. I think I would become even more fit if I did this kind of training on a more regular basis. I filmed most of the ride with the video camera. I will look at that when I get home.

After resting a bit, we started back to our neighborhood. On the way back, we passed by the Eiffel Tower (as well a number of other notable buildings). Who can say that about their weekly ride? We picked a random restaurant called Cafe Clovis. I had the French Sausage and Dale had the Reserved Duck. Both delicious. I took off early so I could make it to the Haagen-Dazs. Dale stayed for dessert but in the end he decided against it. We both showed up at the hotel at the same time.

We need to hit a few things tomorrow and wrap up this gratifying vacation. Until tomorrow.

Bonsoir.