TRAINING RIDE WEEKEND #2: I HATE RAIN, BUT LOVE THE BEACH

This weekend offered one less training ride than last weekend due to the horrible and unpleasant rain , but the one we did have the AWESOME, if not a little doomed. Autumn was moving this weekend, so she had to sit the ride out (or assemble a very large Ikea dresser, same diff), but Ivy and the Bike Whisperer were there, along with my new friends Ana and Bridgid (both TRLs) so I was pretty comfortable and not feeling too nauseous at the thought of meeting new people. It was another pretty small group, so there was a lot of one on one time with the TRLs, which was super helpful for cycling challenged people such as myself. Despite Ivy having to return early due to her bike being midget sized and Ana having a dramatic and very loud tire blow out, it was a lovely day by the beach. The ride was beautiful and we even stopped twice at a super cool biking hot spot to see and be seen and I didn’t feel like a total fraud (only kind of).
I continue to vacillate between being sure I am never going to get better at this and feeling OK about it...but this weekend was more the latter than the former, so that's improvement. Being a beginner has been really challenging for me, as generally it is a rule of mine that if I am a beginner at something...I don’t begin it. SO accepting that I am not a super star from minute one is top priority. Don't know how long that's going to take. Hopefully my skills will continue to catch up to my enthusiasm for this event and I will some day be at least a good cyclist, if not ever a super star...which I am trying to be OK with (even though it goes against everything I have ever believed in my life....ever).
Anyway, after the ride we shopped. Back to something I am good at! YES! I made out like a bandit with several SHEBEEST (yes, this is the name of a real clothing company, I mean…) jerseys. Also, Ivy and I purchased matching best-sweater-shirt-jersey-things ever. We are obviously way cool.
-Caitlin