You wanna ride bikes?

....um, yes?

I felt like a kid when I got a text this morning at 7:30 asking me, "You wanna go ride bikes? This is your 2 hour notice."  My reply, "My mom wont let me ride bikes with boys before noon."...because I'm 12 years old....and tired.

Two things were so wrong about this: 1) It was 7:30 AM on a Saturday morning after a very eventful girls' night and 2) It was 7:30 AM on a Saturday morning after a very eventful girls' night....oh, yeah, ok 3) It was raining.

Girls night out. Me and V. Not pictured is Jessica.

I don't do rain. I don't like to ride bikes and really don't like to ride them in the rain. I somehow finagled my 2 hour notice into a a 3.5 hour notice which allowed me and the girls to hit up iHop (or is it IHOP, somehow felt like it should be an apple hop).

After our completely unacceptable, unhealthy, ridiculously delicious breakfast my fellow PNW Transplant V headed home to face the day and Jessica, author of Deployment Divas, and I headed back to the house. She was headed to the gym...inside with no rain, where it was cool, dry, and safe. I, on the other hand, went through my collection of spandex and hot biking outfits to settle on a less than flattering pair of tri short and ridiculous bike shirt. Why do biking outfits have to be so, so corny?

I have to say, on the plus side, it was fun to put my bike in my new bike transporter.

Once I got there I felt like a complete noob. I haven't ridden in over a year. I din't know how to get my front wheel back on. My tires were flat. I couldn't work my pump. I didn't have a repair kit.  I threw my chain the first 8 seconds on the road. I guess that's good for a bull rider but not a bike rider. I couldn't unclip fast enough and barley caught myself. It was a disaster. I felt like a complete damsel in distress, which I can't stand feeling that way. Once I got it together we headed out. It wasn't raining at the time but it didn't take long for the sprinkles to begin. Then the sprinkles turned in to full-fledged rain. It was poking my eyes out. We decided to cut it short and do an out and back as opposed to the 30 mile loop. That was A-OK with me. My legs were already hurting, and my bottom (I hate biking). So we turned and headed back to the cars. My friend had been nice the whole way; I knew he was much faster than me but he stuck by me and didn't complain. We were going at least 4 mph slower than his pace.

The ride ended up not being too bad. I mean it wasn't great simply because riding my tri bike scares me and I just can't enjoy it. But it felt good and I was excited to have done it. Now I feel a little better and teeny bit ready for my sprint tri coming up in July. I might not die.