Who invited the rain?

On Friday, the second last training day before we get a well deserved easy day to the coffee shop, the rain began to fall. Normally I wouldn't mind so much, but the schedule called for some big gear intervals on Mt. Lemmon, a 9000ft climb. When we left the house, the forecast didn't say it was going to rain, it just said it would be in the low 60's and overcast.

The ride to the base of Lemmon is just over an hour, mostly through town. I thought it might stay away, five minutes later and about 5k from the base it started to rain. Riding on the flat wasn't too bad, I thought we could handle it. But anyone who's climbed up a mountain before on a bike knows it's about 10-15 degrees cooler on the descent.

So up we went, in the 53x12 turning some low rpm's for a while, and it was time to turn around, we put all our gear on, and froze into little skinny icicles until we reached the bottom, and it was time to do it all over again. This went on 2 more times, and it really wasn't getting any better. The worst part was having to grind that massive gear up hill, really straining your tendons and muscles, then stop and have them "lock up" so to say on the way down.

Anyway, it was a hard day, we were wet, dirty, and frozen with really sore legs, and the next day? 6 hours for 195k at the shootout followed by a burrito dinner at LaSalsa. The coffee shop can't come soon enough.