Wet Weekend Woes

I headed south Friday afternoon to Harrison, Arkansas for the 58-mile Tour de Hills road race. Actually, “Tour de Hills” is an understatement; everyone except the race organizers refers to the course as the “Jasper Disaster.” As you can see from the course profile, the climbs are such that you are guaranteed to learn something about yourself.

It rained on my drive down, which I now view as ominous foreshadowing of what was to come. However, as I pulled into Harrison, the storm clouds moved on, leaving blue skies, white puffy clouds and a double rainbow. Now, according to the Bible, the rainbow is sign, a reminder if you will, of God’s promise, “Never again will the water become a flood to destroy all life.” After this weekend, I pretty sure that something got lost in the translation of Genesis. Or, perhaps, there was an exception clause for bike racers. After all, God does not take kindly to those who worship other deities, and it is common knowledge bike racing is a false religion, offering hope of redemption through athletic glory. But, I am going off on tangent, which, if you know my Harrison-based host for the weekend, makes perfect sense.

Anyway, I woke up race-day morning to thunder and the sound of sideways-blowing rain hitting the windows. At that point, I was pretty sure that the race would be cancelled. But the storm blew through pretty quickly, and by the time we drove to the start, the sun was shining. As it got closer to start time, the clouds began to roll in and the wind picked up. The skies let loose with a downpour, thunder and lightning, just as the women rolled off the line. I was freezing from being soaked to the skin and the wind and decided to pick up the pace just to stay warm, which left me with just one other woman. It absolutely poured the first ten miles or so, and then started to let up. I was still cold and my legs felt awful—so bad that I didn’t want to go up the first climb with anyone else. So, I attacked and was on my own. I was pedaling with my head down, eyes almost shut trying to see the road when I heard air escaping my tire. Thankfully, the wheel truck had decided to follow me, so I got a pretty quick wheel change and was off again.

That’s when Mother Nature decided to stop messing around and busted out the monsoon, complete with hail. It’s a good thing I’d ridden the descent into Jasper several times before so I sort of remembered where the road was supposed to be, as it had vanished under all of the running water. Then, just as suddenly as it appeared, the storm was gone. It passed just as I was topping Mt. Sherman. As the sun came out, the skies turned blue, and the pavement started to dry, the misery of the first 25 miles started to seem like a fading bad dream. Thankfully, I had the luxury of creeping down the switchbacks into Ponca at my own pace, but sadly, my climb up the other side of the valley was just as pathetic. I am very fortunate I didn’t have to try to stay with anyone. It wouldn’t have happened. A few other people were suffering too. I passed a handful of guys doing the zig-zag up the climb. I finally got to the top and turned back east towards Harrison with 22 miles to go. I was elated that the weather forecast had at least gotten the wind direction right—I was gifted a huge tailwind out of the west.

I was so hell-bent on ending my misery as soon as possible that I got in my drops and pedaled as hard as I could. Strangely, I passed guys who had dropped me on the climbs. However, because I was so focused on finishing and on thoughts of dry clothes and shoes, I didn’t realize that another huge storm was rapidly overtaking me from behind. The suddenness with which the sky turned from blue to black, the crosswinds that tried to blow me off the road, and the icy rain brought me back to reality. The reality of the next 10 miles or so was hell. Even worse than the cold rain was the terror that I might be blown off the road or off my bike by a huge gust of wind. And, then, at the top of Mt. Gaither, the last descent into Harrison about 5 miles from the finish, the sun came out. Bizarre.

I have never been so miserable in a bike race. If I had known how bad it was going to be, I would’ve stayed in the van. Of course, once the suffering was done, the experience became “epic,” which is really just code for something I never want to go through again. Mother Nature or God or whoever had thrown some punches, but I was still standing...

.. until I got home and discovered that Someone intended to have the last laugh. Evidently, my basement had flooded over the weekend—to a depth of approximately two feet. I discovered water in the most unexpected places—in the dryer, in the crisper drawers of the refrigerator, in my bike box, in the filing cabinet. Of course, the pilot light on the hot water heater had been drowned out; too bad it can’t be relit with water in the gas line. Oh well. After this weekend, I am used to cold showers.

At this point, I would really like this joke to be over. It’s gone far enough.