Ride Between the Rain Drops

“We ride in the rain because after the swim, we are already wet, so riding wet is no big deal… The only type of weather we don’t ride in is when there’s lightning, because we would all be sitting on large pieces of metal, and that would be a bad idea.” – Coach Regan

Sunday morning, July 3^rd, was wet and rainy.  I am willing to bet that you didn’t drag yourself out of bed nice and early in order to spend two and a half hours riding 20 miles and running another 3 miles.  You didn’t do that because you are sane.

However, Skippy’s Team 2 and Team in Training were out and about on the SUNY Purchase campus, all of us soaking wet.  We trained because, well, we always train, unless there is lightning (see the quote above, err… well, close paraphrase above – I don’t videotape Regan’s pre-workout speeches on my phone to post to YouTube, though I am thinking that I should start because she is awesome).

There are a lot of downsides to training in the rain; most of them fall under the header of “Because You Get Soaked To The Bone”.  However, other most of the other downsides fall under the very popular header, “Because It Is A LOT More Dangerous Than Bicycling On Dry Pavement”.  Many of you know that light to medium rain can create extremely dangerous driving conditions.  These dangerous conditions are caused by all the slick oils that are on the pavement-surface or are just under the surface, which rise to the top of the pavement in the rain, or become part of a super-slippery suspension, that coats the top of the pavement.  When there is a lot of rain, that oil gets washed away, eventually.  Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough rain for that to happen.  We just got to ride on the slick, slippery stuff, which made the 11 hill repeats/ascents that much harder.

But, as Regan informed us, there is one VERY significant upside of riding in the rain.  That is, if you fall off your bicycle, because the ground is so slick, your skin won’t grip the pavement/ground as well.  So, rather than completely ripping up your skin, as a result of the friction between your skin and the ground, the reduced friction will allow you to slide along the ground… Your skin will still get ripped up, just not as badly.

Hurray Rain!

Thankfully, no one was hurt… well, no one fell; I think we all hurt a bit after the workout.

So, if you are ever awake on a Sunday morning, feeling bad about the fact that rain has ruined your morning plans, come join Team Skippy 2 and TNT at SUNY Purchase and get soaked with us!