Just Me, Phyxius, And The Wind

I had a long bike ride today and I was finally able to get outside on the open road bike trail! It felt great to be off the trainer and on the trail, but the wind was a bit ridiculous. It didn’t look bad in the forecast or seem bad when I left the house, but the actual wind at the beach was a whole different thing.

Storytime: the first time I rode in any real wind, my ride started out with the wind. I felt like I was flying and a glance at Cruel Mistress (my name for my Garmin) confirmed it – I was going significantly faster than what I was normally capable of, with significantly less effort. I thought to myself “this must be that tailwind I’ve heard about!” It was all well and good until I turned the bike around and pedaled into the headwind. I spontaneously yelled “MOTHER F*CKER!” as it felt like someone strong was trying to push me backwards.

Today’s wind was, happily, not even close to that, but it also wasn’t just a headwind/tailwind situation – it was more that the wind was gusting from every direction. My goals for this workout were heart rate and cadence – it was obvious pretty fast that heart rate wasn’t going to be a problem, so I set my goal of maintaining the cadence no matter what the wind threw at me. I decided that I was going to hit my cadence even if I had to pedal the easiest gear on the bike. It didn’t come to that but things got pretty sketchy in the last 10 minutes, I made the last turnaround into some pretty serious wind and I got “stuck” between two gears, by which I mean the easier of the two gears felt too easy, but the harder gear felt too difficult. This has happened before and it’s pretty frustrating. Since I only had 10 minutes left I decided “screw it” and went with the harder gear.

Did I mention that it was fricking freezing outside? (Not actual freezing, but Southern California freezing, which means it was around fifty degrees.) I was fooled because it was over 70 this afternoon and I forgot 1. how much it cools off at night, 2. how much colder the wind makes it seem and, 3. that the sprinklers come on late at night. The sprinklers were the least fun – I passed them roughly once every 30 minutes and though they are, in theory, pointed away from the bike trail the wind always seemed to have them blowing right at me.

Also, I stopped without falling so yay. It’s been forever since I fell trying to stop, and I’m now wondering if there will ever come a time when I don’t get nervous every time I try to stop, or feel like it’s an achievement when I stop without falling.