My weekend training schedule called for a long ride, 180 kilometres, which I planned to do yesterday. I started stalking The Weather Network mid-week so that I could make sure that I had dry roads for it. Rain was expected all day but, on Friday, that changed to heat: low 30’s with a humidex reaching 40C. On Saturday, I made the decision to start before dawn so that I could escape the heat of the day.

My ride had three different loops. The first was out to Burlington and back. That gave me time to cover about 50km., go home, refill my fluids, eat a banana and pick up my friend, Joanne, for the next section. We planned to ride to Port Credit and back, possibly longer if she had time to ride further. That would leave me with about 70km to finish on my own.

When I woke up at 4:00, I took the dogs outside and it was already warm (and dry). I started to head out on my bike at 5:00 and was surprised to find the roads were wet, really wet. I quickly checked the forecast and no rain was expected. Even though I had ridden on wet roads before but had never done so on an aero-bike, I decided to leave anyway. I figured that it would be good practice in case I ever had to race in the rain and, with heat on the way, I thought roads would be dry within the hour.

I spent the first hour riding through puddles and sprinkles of rain, slowly as I wasn’t sure how well I was going to be able to handle the wet roads. I had ridden 55 kilometres by the time I got to Joanne’s, and we headed east to Port Credit on now dry roads. It wasn’t long before the air was muggy and skies were overcast. That, we agreed, was a good thing because we knew that it would heat up quickly once the sun started to burn through the clouds. At the same time, though, it had me worried that we would see more rain.

On our ride back to her place, Joanne commented, “This rain is actually a bit refreshing.” I didn’t like it. I had been watching the skies for the past hour; they were getting darker and I was getting nervous. When we turned north, only about 5 minutes after she said that, the rain got heavier and we were suddenly being pelted. We had big puddles to ride through and lots of rain in our faces. At that point, I was leading. “Safety first” I thought. “There is a storm coming. Find shelter now.” We continued north and turned west again. “Wait!” Joanne yelled. “You’re going the wrong way!” But I pulled into the parking lot of the hockey arena and headed straight to the main doors. Joanne followed. “How did you know this was here?” My mind is a map.

We literally got our bikes inside when we heard the first crack of thunder. “That was good timing.” Dave had already texted me and was willing to pick us up. “No, let’s wait. This might blow through quickly.” But there was more thunder and heavier rain. I stopped my Garmin: 99.95 km., just shy of a hundred. [sigh] When we realized that the roads were going to be wet for a while and beyond our comfort level for cycling, we called it a day and called our husbands to pick us up. Safety first.

After I got home and had a warm shower (Waiting in a hockey arena with wet clothes is cold!) and a snack, Dave set my bike up on my trainer so that I could ride another 3 hours (“I only need to ride 80km”) so that I could finish what I started. At one point, though, I decided that since I had the time and the safety of being at home, it might be a good idea to ride a little further, something a lot of endurance athletes do. That, I knew, would also help me get over the hump of not finishing my planned ride. Depending on how I felt, my goal became another 100km.

With the help of Nuun, Skratch, gels and great music, I did it! I covered 200 km om roads and on Zwift in 7 hours and 12 minutes, the furthest and longest that I have ever ridden. A part of me feels like I cheated because I broke it up into two rides, but another part thinks it may have made it harder because I was starting with tired legs. Either way, it is still 200km and I am definitely proud of that.