Riding in the Wind makes you stronger

Well, it has been an interesting couple of days with training... I have never really ridden in the rain. I am a scared cyclist at the best of times and the thought of riding in the rain is quite daunting, however I recently stated to my husband that if it was sprinkling or if the roads were wet I would ride, as long as where I was riding was pretty safe - big words coming from me! So, we have been having a bit of weather here in Brisbane lately, what with a Cyclone hovering up near Fraser Island and all. So, yesterday, my husband and I headed out to do our normal cycle loop; http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/Shell-Yatala-to-Coomera-return. Oddly enough Dad didn't turn up; we rang him and he said that it looked pretty wet and that he knew I wouldn't ride in the rain so he slept in - fair enough. Unlike us he has been working pretty hard at training so could probably cope with a break. We hadn't been doing much training so considered that we needed to ride. It was pretty overcast but it wasn't actually raining when we headed out so away we went. We got about halfway down the loop when it started to sprinkle; OK, this was time to actually mean what I say about riding in the rain. However, it started to get quite heavy, so I suggested we turn around and ride away from the rain, we mustn't have been riding faster than the clouds though as it poured with rain the whole way home! Craig (my husband and trusted training partner) warned me about riding on the white lines and not putting too much power into the back wheel as it could slip (this has happened to him, but very unlikely to happen to me as I am not exactly a powerhouse on the bike). Needless to say I was a little terrified and completely drenched by the time we got back to the car so I decided to call it quits and we would do a wind trainer session at home. However, this didn't happen - we lingered over coffee and then did no further training for the day! All in all a 45 minute ride... Hmmm - must do better...

The day started in a huge panic as i woke Craig up and said that it's 4:46 - we're late!!! I quickly rang Dad who was meeting us for our ride, luckily he hadn't left home yet. So we started our ride at 6:15 instead of 5:15! The wind had already picked up and it looked like it was going to be a hard ride - we were not disappointed. Luckily for me, I am the weakest in our group, so I got to sit 3 back on Dad or Craig's wheel as they broke the wind. It was still ghastly though. I kept thinking of the cycle leg of "Hell of the West Triathlon" and how I could encounter wind like this out there - hopefully not though! It was good experience riding in this weather as we don't get a lot of opportunity to feel the bike be pushed from the side like that and having to lean into the wind. It was a very slow ride, we had two punctures and it took 3 hours to do a 2hr 20min ride! We did have some relief on the ride back as we got a good amount of tail wind. It's amazing how you notice the slightest head wind and you just think that you're riding pretty well when you have a tail wind! Craig or Dad were kind enough to stay with me so I never rode alone, Craig rode away and did a few efforts to pick up his ride, but Dad pretty much stayed with me. It's great to have training partners that you can ride with that are that much better than you. They keep an eye on me and ease up when I'm dropping off. Not so good for them though, I am conscious of that and have offered to ride on my own if they wanted to ride away and they could always come back to me. A while ago I wouldn't have been comfortable with that, but particularly on our Coomera loop I would be OK with this - goes to show that I am actually getting better on the bike!

Tomorrow, the three of us are going to do a trail run at Daisy Hill State Forest - I'm looking forward to that!