"Don't worry...if it rains, I'll pick you up on the tractor"

Thursday, April 28, 2011

My neighbor was cutting his grass…with a tractor (actually…we bought the tractor together for lawn cutting, but I’m using manpower now) as I came out into the garage to prepare for my ride. The skies were looking ominous and it had been raining off and on throughout the day, but I thought I’d confer with him on the weather. “Pat…if I ride, will I stay dry?” He sat on the tractor, looked up to the gray clouds blocking that thing we used to refer to as ‘the sun’ and said, “…not gonna’ rain…look at the sky.” I looked up again to see what he was seeing, but must have been missing something. “It’s kinda’ gray and ugly…you’ll come and pick me up if I get nailed half way through?” He said if it rained, he drive the tractor to wherever I was.

So…I had that going for me. It was cool as I started, but if the rain held off it would be no problem. I rode south on Lander and headed for the ‘Iron Lung’. I hadn’t ridden that way since the weekend before my birthday when I’d had so much cramping. I was anxious to see if I was getting any stronger and that’s the course to answer the question. I reached the foot of the hill in twenty minutes and began the climb. I measure progress by the gears I need to use to get up the hill and whether I can stay in the saddle the entire way or not. I stayed seated and used a harder gear, pushing the thighs hard to make the climb. I reached the top without incident and three minutes ahead of the pace John and I had set two weeks ago. Things were looking up…and then it began.

The first drops are easy to mistake for sweat…I’ve got a lot of that going on…but it became apparent rather quickly that not even I sweat so much. I was just short of half way when the rains really started pelting me…but what are you going to do? I rode on, wondering if I should call Pat and ask him to ride the tractor out to get me.

When I finally arrived back in my driveway, I’d been riding in a bone-chilling downpour for forty minutes. In a way…it felt kind of good. I thought about Lance and all the other maniacs that are now training to ride in the Tour de France and the kind of inclement weather they put up with every day. ‘What doesn’t break you makes you stronger’ came to mind and I buy into that, as well…particularly when I’m out in the middle of no freakin’ where and have no other options…excluding a tractor ride, that is. I wiped down the bike and as I finished, I looked over to Pat’s place. He was in the picture window, holding a Great Lakes Brew beer and mouthing “you should have called,” with a smile on his evil face.

Bike duration: 90 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 130 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 1250.