Today was a completely different experience than yesterday. For one thing, I had more time. Our Sunday hill repeats don’t start until 10:30, so I had plenty of time to get ready. But more important, I wore the right gear. I decided I’d rather be too warm today than too cold, so instead of my new jacket, which is not waterproof, I wore my rain jacket. I also wore my new insulated tights. In addition to being warmer than my, um, leg warmers, they have “windstopper” material on the front. That really helped because I think I lost a lot of heat via evaporation yesterday. I even wore toe covers on my shoes! It all worked great and I only got a little chill on the descents.
Speaking of descents, that was the other thing that was different: climbing. I never really worked hard enough to generate much body heat yesterday. I mean, pacelines are all about CONSERVING energy 🙂 Today, I was working hard on the climbs and controlling my speed on the descents due to the wet conditions. So I built up a lot of heat going up and didn’t lose too much due to evaporation on the downhill side.
As for the ride, we met at the parking lot and the rain was coming down. We waited about half an hour and it stopped, so we headed up the road to the staging area at the base of the hill. On the way, it started raining again. People were not looking forward to another day like yesterday—especially on a wet, steep, possibly dirty road—and the ride was called off.
I felt good and warm, so I decided to do it by myself. I’m glad I did. After the first climb/descent, the clouds went away and I was able to do three more sets under bright, blue skies. I felt like I could’ve done at least one more set, but decided that since the original plan was to do four, I’d stick with that. I rode back to the parking lot and stopped along the way to check out the memorial to the two riders who were killed by the asleep-at-the-wheel deputy a while ago. It was a stark reminder that you can be doing everything right and something totally beyond your control can take you out. In this case, it was a sheriff’s patrol car, but it could easily be a disease like leukemia or lymphoma. That’s why we ride… in more ways than one.