Today was the coldest morning in the Atlanta Metro area since last Spring. The temperature was 28 degrees farenheit, with a light wind, humidity of 82%, and a RealFeel (whatever that is) of 12 degrees. It wasn’t just cool, it was cold.
So of course I rode a bicycle to work.
Hey – my TrainingPeaks workout today called for two rides, AM and a PM brick, so I did the AM ride. I pulled out my thermal hood, my Craft Storm Tights, Italian brushed riding jacket, and slipped some fleece gloves over my long fingered Ironmans. The toewarmers have been on my SIDI T-2′s for a month now, and I just used the wool hiking socks instead of the usual collection of “Cars-r-Coffin” and devil mask socks I usually wear.
Yeah, the cold gets your attention. No doubt about it. But it’s not uncomfortable after a few minutes, and if you don’t try to do a hammerhead speed, you get in great Base period ride without a lot of traffic. The car-wussie Soccer Moms and NASCAR Dads delay their drive until it warms up. And the only on other people out training are the serious runners.
After I lock my bike up in the parking garage I get a startled look from the Security desk on the way in. Mostly because I have my riding gear on. The guards in the old building told them how I ride all through the season, and even in the rain. So my notoriety and infamy has followed me to the new office. Most of them think I’m crazy, anyway, for riding a bicycle in Atlanta traffic.
If they only knew me back when. I have combined bike commuting with training ever since my days as a fledgling roadie in the 1970′s. What can I say? I like riding a bicycle. It just makes sense to me. The more you ride, the better you get at it.
Want a good bike split? Then ride a lot. Yeah, the intervals have their place, but if you do Ironmans, you need to put in the time on the saddle. That’s the secret. It’s been said that cycling is a blue-collar sport. And that is 100% correctamundo.
So I ride – no matter what. Pouring rain? Sure. I did an Ironman distance race in 2007 – that started in a pouring rainstorm. Pitch dark, couldn’t see the first buoy. It happens. If you ride in the rain, you let a little air out of your tires, and take it in stride.
Cold days can happen, too. Aurora Sprint triathlon, 1993. Colorado in September can sometimes get snow. It was just after Labor Day, and a freak early snowstorm hit the Front Range. I went out for a Noon training run from my office in Cherry Hills, and the first snowflakes started to fall. By the time I finished my hour run, it was really starting to accumulate. There was a picture the next month in “Inside Triathlon” of Mark Allen outside of the Boulder Recreation Center in his bathing suit in the snow. This was the week of the race, and the temperature dropped, and stayed down, after the front blew through.
Packet pickup was the next day – Saturday – and I drove out to the “Res” in Aurora to get my race packet. The sky was cloudy – unusual for Colorado – and the wind was blowing at about 20-30 miles per hour. There were a couple of windsurfers, and one came into the rec center when I was getting my packet. He was shivering uncontrollably, in a full wetsuit.
I was in trouble, because all I had was a sleeveless suit.
I called around, found a dive shop that had a neoprene cap, and I purchased it. I also bought a pair of neoprene socks (which I still have), and put a winter fleece riding jacket in my transition bag. I figured the ride wouldn’t be much better than the swim was going to be.
The day of the race dawned clear, with no wind. A big improvement. And the sky was back to the usual “sky’s are not cloudy all day” mode. But the temperature was, well, a bitch. The thermometer at my house in Englewood read south of 40 before dawn. We drove out to the reservoir, took my equipment to the transition area, and set up. There were a hundred or so people despite the cold, but most of us had winter coats and down jackets on. The water temp was warmer that the air, but somewhere in the mid 50′s. Not just cold, but ding-dang dangerous cold. The rescue divers had full neoprene dry suits on with gloves, socks, and hoods, and there were two hot tubs set up on the beach for hypothermia victims. Us tri-geeks had wetsuits that would let in water. I put on a pair of arm warmers I brought, and pissed in my suit before I went in.
The cold hit me like a slap in the face. It stung. Only a few brave-crazy soles did a warmup swim. I lasted about 20 seconds, and went back to the beach and the refuge of a wool blanket. Many of the spectators stayed in their cars with the engines and heaters running.
Nowadays, the race would probably have been turned into a duathlon, but the promoter called us down to the beach, and we went off as a mass start. Which was bad. Everyone had to make a tight turn to the off of the beach, and it was a massive clusterfuck. I had my Ironman watch kicked off, and it was so cold that your face stung. (In one of life’s small, true, miracles, one of the divers found my watch and returned it.)
The first transition went like we were all moving through molasses. Mercifully, the promoter shortened the swim from 500 yards to 200, but we still all came out hypothermic. Most of us were staggering like drunks, and it took me forever to get the fleece jacket on for the bike portion. Some racers went right for the hot tubs, their day was over. T2 went better, as the warm Front Range sun was out, and I did the run without the fleece. I gutted out an age group win with a fast run, finished in the top 15, and got a tiny little ribbon for my efforts. My wife and I went to Le Peeps for a big breakfast, and I had a major fact about triathlon and life reinforced to me on that cold, crazy, morning long ago.
You can never prepare enough for what may come, but the way to win is to just keep going.
So when the cold wind blows, the temperature dips below freezing, be nice to the crazy old bum you see on the bicycle at 5:30AM in the morning.
It’s probably me.
