I'm riding into a stiff wind, light flurries pinging my face. I wonder if the sweatshirt and nylon shell are really enough clothing for the errands ahead. How did I stand this last winter? Maybe the Colorado warmth has ruined me for good.
I've never needed external reinforcement to get out in the cold, no biking group or running date. Even after the competing stopped, the tendons twinged and the jowls began to fill in, health club membership was not for me. I'd head outside rather hit the machines or the indoor track.
But this sucks.
I think about this post as my hands grow numb, even in leather gloves:
Now's the time when winter cyclists have to start answering questions from disbelievers. Yesterday this fellow was in the shop asking about our Saturday morning group ride. He said something about how he'd have to join us before our riding season ended. When I told him that we do the ride year-round, he said, "oh, yeah, I suppose, until it snows..." No, year-round, in any weather condition. I think he thought I was pulling his leg.
Of course, when it's below zero with a headwind, we've been known to put our heads down and get to Melo-Glaze as fast as humanly possible. That adds up to about 15 minutes of actual cold weather exposure and 100+ minutes of consuming sugary pastry and shitty coffee in the plush confines of the bakery. It's pure misery, but at least we don't have to deal with the riff-raff.
It's only 25 degrees, and as much as I love Melo-Glaze, I'm not sure it would be worth it to go down another 30.
I am not trying to prove a point. No one cares. It would be safer not to be on the streets at dusk. What hubris to think the half gallon of fuel I've saved matters one whit!
Then sometime, imperceptibly, everything changes. I couldn't even tell you when the internal whining stopped and the old engine kicked in, but it always does. Now, I'm warm, strong, happy, in control.
I got past the nasty.
The phenomenon will be familiar to anyone who has started out a race hard and entertained quitting, jumped in the ocean convinced they will be the one human being who doesn't float, found themselves lost in the wild and realized mother nature is indifferent to whether they ever get home.
Then they get past the nasty.
Getting past the nasty is not always good. It opened the door to 10 years of smoking. It allows us all to commit acts we formerly regarded as repugnant.
But when the air turns cold and the afternoons dark, it reminds me that a lot of the good part of life involves getting past the nasty.
Have a temporarily nasty Thanksgiving.
