After a rough spring of lots of rain, snow and cold and finally some summer weather, I am finally becoming friends with the rain. After a fun run with the kids yesterday in the rain, I set out for my long ride today. I had to skip the mountain bike due to the rain yesterday, so I jumped on my road bike with hopes of a six hour ride.
With a hug and a kiss from Juniper, I jumped on my bike raring to go in the sun. With one interval down and 40 minutes of climbing under my belt, the rain started. Just like yesterday, it didn’t start drizzling, it started pouring. Four minutes into my first descent I was drenched through ducking my head as the cold drops pelted my face. Before heading out for my ride, I had watched the Tour de France as the teams raced through rain for five plus hours. I reminded myself of this as I contemplated continuing my descent straight to the house with just an hour and a half in the saddle.
As I sucked up another climb, I realized I was freezing in July but having fun. I ran into some friends at the top of the climb and as I listened to a few of the guys state they were headed home, I became even more motivated to make it at least four hours. I reminded myself that my races aren’t canceled due to weather so the longer I managed to ride in this weather, the better off I would be.
After three hours of rain, the clouds started to recede and I finished up a great ride with water still pouring out of my shoes. When the rain had started, I never thought I’d last for a five and a half hour ride, but I arrived home knowing a had put in a good effort. Let’s just hope I can motivate myself the same way in the next few races.
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