A Wet and Wild Ride

Tuesday evening started off as a typical cycling class.  The weather had called for a chance of thunderstorms all day, but the day turned out to be beautiful.  I pulled into the parking lot excited for another challenging session.

Before class started, I got to talking with a few of the other ladies in the group.  It turns out that 2 of them are also doing the Rock Hall triathlon! YAY! I'm so excited that there will be friendly faces along the way!  Also, I am meeting up with a bunch of Mid MD Triathlon Club members before the race. That will be cool to meet new people from my area.

John decided that we were going to do more of a road ride for the class.  The plan was to go into Patapsco State park, go up Lawyer's Hill (gulp), keep going to Montgomery Rd, turn right onto some other road, make some more turns, then eventually come in the back of the park and ride along the river. Can you tell I wasn't paying much attention to the route?  After the Lawyer's Hill comment, I kind of tuned out.  I figured I'd be at the back of the pack anyway so I would just follow everyone else.

I contemplated whether or not to bring my phone.  In the end, I always think of when Heather fell and needed help and didn't have her phone...so I decided to err on the side of safety and bring the phone. 

The beginning of the ride was uneventful.  We easily crossed Rt 1 at the light and began the ride into the Park.  At Lawyer's Hill, I decided just to put my head down and do the best that I could.  I was riding with Amy, Heidi and Debbie at that point...all of them are stronger climbers than I am so I figured that they would leave me in their dust.  Surprisingly, halfway up Lawyer's Hill where it flattens out a bit, I realized that I was only a little bit behind them.  Confidence booster!!!  I was definitely struggling but it was clear to me that I had improved since the first time we did hill repeats there.

We re-grouped at the traffic light right before Montgomery Rd.  Montgomery Rd is a very busy road.  We were only going to be on it for less than a half mile, but it can be treacherous with the speeds that the traffic goes and the fact that there is such a large group of us.  So John made sure that we stayed all the way to the right and quickly made our turn off Montgomery Rd.

The middle of the ride consisted of a few more challenging climbs.  At one point I was behind 2 riders who are definitely slower than me.  For awhile I rode behind them patiently, but when we got to the hard part of the hill, I simply couldn't stay behind them any longer. I checked behind me...no traffic...and made my pass.  Shockingly, with that burst of power, the rest of the climb seemed almost easy.  I just maintained that level of energy for the rest of the hill and I got up it pretty easily!

The farther we got into our ride, the more frequent we could hear the thunder in the distance.  On a re-group at the top of a hill, John said that the rest of the ride is downhill and we need to go quickly since it appears that the storm is catching up to us.  So we took off.  It was pretty steep downhills and my speed got up over 30 MPH.  That's where I get nervous on the steep downhills.  I just tried to focus on staying steady and remembering that I was in control.

We had one final re-group just before entering the back side of the Park. The infamous Ilchester hill was to our backs...that hill looks like a mountain.  I'm not looking forward to the day we tackle that one! (And I know it's coming soon because John is evil like that)

As we entered the park, the rain started.  It was light for about 20 seconds, and then the sky opened up and it was a monsoon.  It was raining so hard that I couldn't see.  Visibility was awful in general but my glasses kept fogging up and they were just covered with water.  Phaedra was right in front of me, wearing a white Spin90 jersey.  I kept my eyes on her jersey and prayed that there wasn't anything on the ground in the bike path.

This part of the ride looked like it could have been a beautiful ride.  The bike path went along the Patapsco River.  I could hear the river rushing by on my right hand side but I couldn't see it because of the downpour.  It was also raining so hard that all I heard was water...the rain, the river...water was everywhere.

I thought of the last minute decision to bring my phone.  Of course I didn't put it in a Ziploc like a smart cyclist would have.  I mentallly added "Get a New Cell Phone" to my list of things to do the next day.  With my phone in the saddle bag, I figured it was just sitting in a puddle of water.

We were about 4 miles from our cars when the rain started.  I made sure to be close to the front of the pack so that I wasn't hampered by slower riders.  We made a good team actually.  It was very dangerous because of the lack of visibility.  So yelling to each other became vital.  We yelled things like "branch on the left", "runner on the right", "braking" because no one could see anything. John was leading the charge and I was comforted by the fact that we had several instructors strewn through the line of riders in case anyone had a problem.

John stopped us at a point where we could shelter under a bridge.  He wanted to get the group gathered together and make sure that we had everyone.  A park ranger drove by in a pickup and warned us that we shouldn't stay under the bridge long because it tends to get flash flooding and with this much rain, it would happen sooner rather than later.  GREAT!  We waited for a few minutes until everyone was there, then we took off again.

I took off my glasses before starting again.  They were useless anyway so I figured that I would tough it out without them.  The rain had slowed some by this time.  It was still raining hard, but it was not an all out downpour.  Visibility was much better and the need to yell at each other was diminished.  But the mood was still pretty frantic to get back to the cars.  As we exited the park and crossed back over Rt 1, the rain came to a stop. 

So when we got back to the parking lot, we were completely soaked but the rain had stopped.  Some people were smart (lucky) enough to have towels and/or changes of clothes in their car.  I was neither smart nor lucky and had only some McDonald's napkins in my glove compartment.  Priority #1 was to assess the phone situation.  I pulled it out of my saddle bag and it only had a few drops of water on it.  I couldn't believe it!  It worked fine...and is still working!  YAY!

I loaded up my bike and skipped the normal post-class chat session.  I was cold, tired and just wanted to get in the shower. As I was driving home, I saw a gorgeous sunset...I had to laugh after the craziness of the ride in the rain.  Well at least I can say that I've faced my fear of riding on wet roads! You can't get much wetter than that!!!