This picture may as well be me. What a frustrating, lousy weekend of riding since I ended up being trapped in the basement pain cave rather than being outside. The stupid weatherman, and the stupid radar totally lied on Saturday morning. I got up early to the sound of quiet. Wet roads, and dense fog, but no rain. By every assurance, the winds and rain of judgement day were about to be upon us so I stuck with the indoor plan I worked out with my coach Rich Strauss--run 30', crank the main sets on the bike for 2 hours, run 30'. So I ran in the fog, and got back home thinking I beat the rain. Keith and I have a summit, and he's not to keen on unstrapping the bikes from CT only to get dumped on, and have to come home because we get too cold. I agree, so down we go into the pain cave.
45' into the ride, no rain. 90' no rain. 2 flippin' hours NO RAIN!!!! 27' minutes into the second 30' run, buckets of rain. I could have gotten 4 hours in easily. Vexation. That said, I got in 7 miles of running today like cake. If I have to stay inside, the silver lining will be that by default I get in nice big milage running week. No injuries. All good.
By all reports, today was supposed to be dryer, and it looked likely we could get out by 8. At 3, it was still raining. I am not even going to describe how hideous it was riding in the basement again today. I can't pedal my Power Tap watts inside (much, much too hard), so do I go by the Computrainer watts? It's been so long, I can't remember what do in the winter! Anyway, what's done is done, and what isn't, isn't. I lasted 2.5 hours today. Enough! 7.5 hours of scheduled riding got whittled down to 4.5. Oh well.
You know, I used to ride in the rain. But after many years of--flatting in deluges, getting drenched by semis changing tires on the side of the road, being so cold and worried about my extremeties, spending too much time cleaning the filthy bike after--it has lost it's allure. Been there, done that, no fun. I think I've learned all I ever need to about riding in bad conditions. That said, seems I need a mental adjustment about riding indoors again.
After the chaos of the century last weekend, and the tedium of this weekend, I think the mental toughness part is in place. OK universe...enough already! Two more weeks of major training then it's time to taper down! Almost there. Pinch me, I'm so excited! Bring it on!
