With snow on the ground and wind chill in the teens, today’s Kringle Kross in Hales Corners went on without me. Actually, it went on without a lot of series regulars. Some of them were turned off by the weather, no doubt, while others raced in Iowa at Jingle Cross, a 3-day event that attracts many of the top domestic pros. Whatever the case, in several of the categories at Kringle Kross one could reach the podium simply by finishing the race. I didn’t feel the slightest bit of regret this morning as I sat in my home office watching a Superprestige series cyclocross race from Belgium. And later today as photos of bikes caked in snow and mud began to appear in my friends’ Facebook posts, I was even more certain that I had made the right choice for myself. I know a few people who love such conditions and I hope they had fun, but I am not one of them.
There is some hope for warmer weather by next Sunday when the WCA season continues in Madison. To stay ready I will use my indoor trainer, because I cannot work with this:
Those air temperatures are bad enough; calculate the chilling effect of such high winds and this week is really going to suck. But I need to keep enough motivation to push through those trainer workouts. Next Sunday
might be OK. I don’t believe it, but I have to believe it. I haven’t ridden outside since last Sunday, Nov. 9. If I have ridden my last outdoor miles of 2014, then this will be my earliest end to a riding season since Nov. 2, 2008.
I am keeping my fingers crossed … if only because the shared warmth will delay the onset of frostbite.
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