I Ain't Afraid of no STEENKING Raindrops.

So last night, I was super excited to try to hang on for dear life ride with a group of some of my CTC Peeps for the Monday Night Brick.  I even got the okay from Coach E to run, errr, walk after the ride as my first "brick."  And you know what happened?

The same fricken thing that happened last Monday at about 5:30pm.  BIG OL' STORMS.

I was so mad.

But I checked the radar and it seemed like the storms were on their way out, and the sky was brighter in the west, and the rain would stop by 6:30 so I wondered if anyone else was as desperate excited to ride as I was?

Turns out, one guy was.  Sid.  That was it.  Everyone else bailed.

Aw hellz no.  I did not just waste good quality Hoo Ha Ride Glide and get all dressed up and drive down to this park for nothing.  Come hell or high water (seriously on the latter), I was going to get this ride in no matter what.  End of story.

So we did.  And you know what?  At about 6:13pm or so, it stopped raining.  So YEAH.

The ride out to the falls has a slight false-flat style uphill and the wind was coming out of the south, so I was definitely working hard to keep up with Sid.  I didn't want to be a slowpoke.  As we reached the top of the falls I saw my average power was 163, which for me, is definitely working hard for a mid-week ride.  Sid was asking about training with power so I told him all about how I am so in love with my Joule that, why yes, maybe I will marry it.  Which really merits its own post, so I'll get on that soon, but for now, I told him that for me, an average of 163 was working hard but with the ride back having a slight downhill and a tailwind, to keep that up would mean I'd really have to bust my butt.

So bust it we did, folks.

We took turns pulling and following, but we were flying.  When I was pulling, I was holding about 21-22 mph and when Sid pulled we were more like 23-24.  Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

And when we arrived back with a big ol' negative split, I saw my average power had ONLY dropped 2 points to 161.  That, my friends, mean we did not phone it in, which I completely and totally would have done had I been riding alone.  My normalized power was 166, which is even better, since that takes out the peaks and valleys and is a more accurate measure of the power output over the ride.

And the sun was out.  Sun!  It was a beautiful evening.

So beautiful that I headed home, changed, and Matt and I fired up the firepit and had some evening post-kiddie-bedtime s'mores.  And I almost fell asleep in my chair.  Ahhhhhh.

So next time you're seeing a dark sky, I say, check that radar.  If it's almost done, then you need to get out there, and preferably with a friend.  I have a feeling these Monday night rides are going to really push me and therefore make me stronger.

Oh, and I even did my walk (with a teensy bit of running--don't kill me Coach E, I couldn't help myself) afterwards with no pain.  So that brick?  Means I am chasing down a triathlon season, guys.

And I'm rapidly gaining on it.