'Tis the Season

'Tis the season for shoe-covers. Broke out the old neoprene ones this morning since I knew there would be a small turnout and the pace would be moderate. Likewise, I dusted off the heavy riding jacket. No point being uncomfortable. After all, it's December! The one thing about riding in the Winter is that what you'll remember tomorrow morning isn't how warm you were when you got home, it's how cold you were when you stepped out the door. It's a personal game of psychology. If you freeze your butt off one morning, it makes it really hard to get out of bed the next. For a short ride, it's just better to overdress a bit.

There were four of us on the morning ride today and it was fairly cold by my standards. I guess around 36F and windy. I was toasty warm in my old cold weather stuff, although if the pace had been hard I'm sure I would have been soaked with sweat. Naturally, The Donald showed up in shorts and a long-sleeve jersey, asking the rest of us "Whatcha gonna do when it gets really cold?" Anyway, we just did a routine 27 mi. ride. Toward the end I was thinking that we really should have done a few miles a bit faster to get in a little high heart rate action, but then this cold won't last too much longer and as Miss Scarlet said, ". . . tomorrow is another day."

On the way back I got caught by a train (twice in two days??) and hovered around riding little circles at the crossing gate as a line of cars a mile long waited in escalating frustration while the train, only 10 cars from clearing the crossing, ground to a halt and sat motionless for what seemed like ten minutes. I contemplated doing a little off-road and crossing behind the last car, but it eventually started up again. I sprinted across before the gate lifted to avoid the crush of frustrated drivers and made it all the way to the light at Carrollton without being passed.

The commute in to work seemed colder than the training ride since I was wearing regular clothes and an uninsulated jacket and was sitting up slogging into the wind the whole way. On the cold mornings like this I usually wear a knit cap, my old Ray Ban sunglasses, leather gloves and a long jacket. Since I hate having to haul in another pair of shoes, I just ride in my Bass Loafers with an extra pair of coolmax socks hidden beneath the generic black ones. After I get to work, I can then look like a normal person in a matter of seconds!

Looks can be deceiving, can't they?