Salty Caboose

Sunday mornings find me on group training rides, sweating, swearing and gritting my teeth through the last five miles, the last brutal 30 minutes that make me want to get off and walk. I’d consider it if it were not for my stupid clip in pedals that make me walk like a duck on ice skates.

The last few weeks have been tough rides, the total distance is growing and for whatever reason my group, the slow group, has been minus a coach. This means the slow group has to navigate and fix mechanical issues for themselves, and when the rest of the slow group doesn’t come, it is just me. Holding a sweaty piece of paper in my hand, squinting at street signs and doubling back more than once, adding more miles onto the ride with each mistake.

This Sunday found me as the sole “slow” rider (the slow group averages 12 to 16 mph, the fastest group is pushing 20 mph). It wouldn’t have been that big of a deal except our ride started 5 miles past my office, in the hilliest part of Chicagoland for hill training. Within 2 miles I’d been dropped off the back even though I pushed, as hard as I could. The hills started immediately and at mile 7 I started to feel like I couldn’t go any further. The heat was overwhelming, the humidity was coating me and the hill I was on wasn’t ending.

Suddenly I found myself at a stop sign, unsure of which way to go and the tears started to flow, salty tears mixing with salty sweat. I wiped my nose, rubbed my eyes (getting sunscreen in them) and got ready to go back to my car in defeat before someone from the group circled back, asking if I was ok. I shook my head and said I was going back, but she told me to at least push to the water station at the 12 mile mark. The next 5 miles were excruciating as we continued to climb. I lamented the week I’d had, the project I have launching this week and everything else negative swirling around in my head.

I was an exhausted basket case, but I made it to the water stop. As I slid across the coffee shop floor to buy water, two other group members approached, they wanted “in” to my slow group. Turns out I wasn’t the only one who was getting their butt kicked by the hills.

The rest of the miles ground out slowly, painfully. There were no more tears but there was a lot of yells of frustration, typically directed at the hill I was trying to climb without a shred of dignity or grace. I only walked up one hill (sliding in my stupid shoes, seriously WHO INVENTED THOSE THINGS) but I admit to shaking my fist in frustration more than once. One by one I made it to 40 hilly miles.

But I made it. Salty, in more ways than one, with tears and sweat. I made it to the end. Just like I have to do every Sunday after, the salty caboose bringing up the rear.