The Rain Day

In our efforts to get ready for Memphis in May, which has the grand daddy of all post–race buffets, Liz and I were given marching orders to attend a time trial on Sunday morning. The idea was to “get the hurt in” one last time before out taper starts. Even though the idea of getting nipped again by the local 50-year old retired Olympic cyclist on the start list sounded appealing, I would have much rather have done the Team Time Trial scheduled on Saturday with Liz. I loved the idea of having “Pony Power” (Liz) at the end of her rope, not letting her escape through back door of the pain factory because getting dropped would not be an option. This would probably have wrecked her MIM, and I probably would have had way too much fun that I wouldn’t be able to stop the Accelerade from shooting out of my nose.

Woke up that Sunday morning to the sound of heavy rain drops spattering on my window. I had gone to bed knowing that “showers” were in the forecast, and I had imagined that I would be racing in a light gentle mist in the morning. Crawled out of bed when I heard Liz banging around the coffee pot, then I dragged myself downstairs along with a nasty hang-over type headache of some sort. Sure enough, it was pouring, hard. Opened the door and I felt a chilly 40mph breeze go up my boxers as it rushed into the house. Cold too. Popped up the forecast and a big yellow blob of rainfall stretched across the entire state of Illinois. No letting up for hours. Liz looks at me and asks what I thought. No fucking way.

So Liz and I sat around, worrying about what the coach is going to say if we skip out on this. How we are not strong enough. How we are not willed enough. How we are not tough enough. I finally tell Liz that I would only race in this weather if it was a cyclocross race where we would actually be PRAYING for this kind of rain and mud to ride circles around in. TT’s are a bit different. You can’t see shit without squinting constantly and your brakes end up worthless, which is not a good thing when traveling at Mach 1. I’ve done enough racing in the rain to know that you don’t really race in the rain. You just survive. Besides, being warm and having hot coffee at the local brew house right now sounds much more appealing.

I could see the little worry light in Liz’s head turn off because now she has an out. “Chris didn’t want to go” she will tell to Jen as her excuse. “It’s all Chris’s fault. I would have gone, but Chris chickened out and I wasn’t about to go into the big nasty storm by my little defenseless self” she will say. I could see this running through her head as I sat there talking about not going. She’s going to pin this on ME!

So I did the unexpected: “Grab your stuff. I’ll put the bikes in the car because we should probably leave in the next 15 minutes. Make sure you grab a length of rope and a dumbbell to use as an anchor in case you need to brake suddenly."

There was a little squeak from Liz: “I don’t want to go.”

"What? Get your stuff. I got my rain parka and rubber boots packed already. I talked to Noah, and he'll wait for us there with his boat."

Another squeak from Liz, this time a little louder: “I don’t want to go.”

"No serious. I changed my mind. We’re going. We’ve got to get packed now to make it to registration in time. You didn’t want the disc wheel on your bike because of the 40mph cross winds, right? "

This time the squeak was now a voice: “I don’t want to go. It’s raining. I’d rather get coffee.”

I now had plausible denial-ability. Now I can say it was me who wanted to go race in the cold rain and Liz did not. Hell if I was going to drive 90 miles in the rain to end up shivering and wet in the back of the van trying to unpeel soaked lycra covered in road grit alone. I need someone to pull off that sticky jersey off my back and Liz backed out. She told me THREE times she didnt want to go! This is what I’m going to tell the coach – that it wasn’t my fault.

Now that we had gotten our blame placing out of the way and had used each other as our excuses not to go, we sat very comfortably at Starbucks. We even had coupons for free cups. The coffee never tasted better.