Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Wet Again?!?

I biked to work this morning under cloudy skies. The tailwind made it an easy commute in about 58 minutes. The lunch time was quite pleasant, sunny as well as hot and humid. On the way home however, it was quite a different story. Reading the Environment Canada made me think twice about biking home. Their warning was:

Severe thunderstorm watch for
Ottawa North - Kanata - Orléans continued

Conditions are favourable for severe thunderstorms to develop this afternoon with damaging winds..Large hail and brief torrential downpours.

This is an alert to the potential development of severe thunderstorms with large hail and damaging winds.

Monitor weather conditions..Listen for updated statements. If threatening weather approaches take immediate safety precautions.


I'm not quite sure what kind of safety precautions they refer to. Uncertain of whether it was safe or not, I called Alex, since he works close to home. My abridged conversation:

[Me] - Is it raining already in Kanata?
[Alex] - No. You can make it.
[Me] - Is it windy?
[Alex] - No. You can make it.
[Me] - Are there dark clouds on the horizons?
[Alex] - Yes, but if you hurry you can make it.

So, trusting him more than I really should have, I suited up quickly and rushed home. 15 minutes later, I rode into the storm!
The Ploc Ploc Ploc of the raindrops of my helmet (huge and kinda cold but not really hale) reminded me of camping. I got through the worst of the storm in about 15 minutes. After that, the rain was more normal, no longer acupuncture grade. I still managed to get home in about 1h06m so I'm kinda happy. The worst part about biking in the rain today was when I got splashed with water that had been sitting on the ground for a while, all hot and dirty. Yuck! I got home and cleaned up my bike, I'm spending a lot of time cleaning and lubing the bike this year!

I will know next time that Alex's window actually faces east (I should've known that already!) and that he didn't really calculate that it would take me an hour to get home, lol.

In the good news department, the leg is doing super good. Stretching is back to normal and everything feels great. Thanks for all your positive thoughts, I'm sure they helped the speedy recovery!

In the mix this morning was Tristan's Audiodrome and in the rain, I was saved by Delerium's super saccharine Odyssey Remix.

4 comments:

  1. You were braver than I tonight... only a few of us showed up for the group ride, we tried to wait out the storm, but Mother Nature won :( I went swimming instead. Glad you made it home safely, and that you're feeling better! Yay!

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  2. You'd think we train in the same city! I think its looks this everywhere this week (or the past couple!) I am looking at a storm brewing outside right now!
    Keep up the good work!

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  3. We had a nasty storm blow through last night too. I was JUST about to head out the door to run when it startd (fortunately I had not left 10 miniutes earlier!).

    Glad you made it home okay, although dirty & wet!

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  4. Rain I don't mind too much but thunder and lightening scare me (a lot of folks get hit by lightening in my area). Glad you made it home safe and also glad to hear the leg is better!

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