Rained Out

Margaret and I dutifully donned our cycling gear in preparation for the Sunday Ride today. She wore her new leg warmers and I sported my new cycling tights.

Margaret had warned me about potential rain, and I glibly told her that I could deal with light drizzling if it was similar to the weather on Friday. When I arrived at her house to pick her up that day, the ground was wet and the sky was grey, but no other indications of rain. Not yet. I thought we were safe.

As we drove down the Burlingame, we noticed the sky darken. Little droplets started falling on my windshields at first, then a steadier stream of water started coming down. By the time we arrived at Summit Bicycles, it was undeniably raining.

I think Margaret would have been willing to brave the elements had I not been so chicken and talked her out of it. I couldn't deal. We hung at out Starbucks briefly before ducking into Summit Bicycles to tell Lorri that, "I [Lauren] don't do rain". I think most other Velo Girls had the same thought because only two other ladies showed up: Yvonne and Heather. I don't recall what Heather ended up doing but I don't think Yvonne rode that day because photos of her at the cyclocross race that day :-)

Undeterred, other possibilities for working out that day raced through our heads. Stonestown had an indoor cycling class at 8:30AM but we had missed that. 10:15AM Bodyworks at Presidio Y? Definite possibliity. Then it stuck me: INDOOR CYCLING AT PRESIDIO Y!!

The indoor cycling class started at 10:15AM. It filled up quickly, probably by other cyclists who were also rained out. The instructor had just finished teaching the previous cycling class. She would have taught this one on the bike as well if a participant hadn't gone up to her and asked whether there were any more bikes available.

Class was taught in the poorly ventilated gym with a basketball game on the other side of the partition. I couldn't hear the instructor due to the accoustics: she sounded like Charlie Brown's teacher most of the time. It was sweltering hot in my cycling tights. Margaret easily shed layers just by rolling down her leg warmers. Smart.

Class was okay. I felt we did too much climbing. Every song/interval seemed to consist of hills, hills and more hills. A tad too repetitive for my tastes. The only variation was the length of each climb and the imagined slope. She did one interesting exercise I hadn't see before: "20/20" (20 seconds intense sprinting, 20 seconds recovery). Another one was a 16-count repetitive move which consisted of 4-count hovering, 4-count in position 3, 4-count hovering, 4-count seated, repeat. I ended up bouncing around in my seat for the first half of the song because I originally thought we were only supposed to do 4-count hovering followed by 4-count seated, repeat. At one point, we reduced each 4-count move to 2 counts. Margaret & I think this may be contraindicated. It was hard enough to doing the moves to 4-counts in a controlled manner; the 2-count stuff was just too fast.

I'm very pleased that we fit in a cycling workout even though it was raining. This will be a great alternative if we ever encounter bad weather again. I hope the skies will be clear for our ride next Sunday.