The Rain Train

i'm not a big water guy. i don't drink a lot of it, and aside from being a useful ingredient in whatever i do happen to be drinking at a given time, i just don't care for the taste. i mean..it's water. does it even have a taste other than nasty? and aside from taking the occassional shower, i don't take too kindly to it falling on me, either.
i grew up 5 blocks from the beach, and in spite of this fact, i also don't swim that well. it's never been a huge priority. call me a rebel, a land lover..whatever. for the record, though, i prefer rebel. it has a ring.

after choosing to forego the big season opening crit, this was supposed to be the final big training weekend for a few of my friends and i, but for the second time in three years, the winter edition of our twice-annual 100-mile trek through the mountains and backwoods of san diego was shut down by rain and/or snow.
with lots of rain and flooding in the forecast for the mountains this weekend, we agreed to pull the plug and try again in a few weeks. it's a little bit ot a bummer, because it's always nice to log some serious and difficult miles to raise that confidence bar a bit higher just before the season starts for real. but while we, as cyclists, more or less get off on the misery we put ourselves through on a daily basis to reach some unnattainable, even mythical level of fitness, freezing rain seldomly plays a part in the glamorous portrait we tend to paint of this sport in our heads. snow pics would have been nice for the hardcore section of the resume, though. totally.

anyway, with as much rain as we've had in the past few days, i've been lucky enough to still get a decent number of miles in without getting too wet -- or cold, for that matter. and with the first official race of the season just a week away, i'm feeling like the pros far outweigh the cons of getting out there and getting a little wet. and really, once you're soaked to the core it doesn't matter much anymore. as long as it's not freezing.

today(sunday), though, was a total wash-out. not only did it piss buckets, but the wind was ridiculous. anyone who got out and rode in this crap, or worse - got caught in it - is a better person than i.
instead, i did the supplemental upper body workout. gotta say it's working, too. i'm looking pretty hot these days. yep...