Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Spring fashion

Wednesday, 11 April

If one LFG can get sidetracked onto muumuus after whinging and moaning about 30 mph tailwinds on the way to work and company-issued clothing, then I'm gonna jump onto the fashion bandwagon and whine about the weather.

It was 37 degrees when I left home this morning. That meant fuzzy warm socks up to my shins, shorts and tights, base layer, long-sleeved jersey, fleecy vest, and team windstopper jacket, plus gloves, booties, and hat. Standard stuff for the morning commute since...well, since before the start of our epic weather...when was that? It's been so long I can't remember.

Nine hours later, it was 64 degrees when I headed out the door from work for a few hill repeats. Clearly no tights needed ("cover your knees to 70 degrees" doesn't apply when you're going uphill with a backpack). Team jacket is a sauna when the temp is above 50. Long-sleeve jersey does NOT match shorts. Riding in the base layer alone would be like riding in my underwear. And then there are those socks that just look positively fredly with shorts, but the booties would be even worse. So I stick with the shorts (wrong team), the base layer, and the vest, which happens to be black. I try to roll the socks down so they're less conspicuous. A WOW guy and a MM guy acknowledged me on the trail, so I must've passed muster. And an HB guy didn't even see me, which is par for the course. Maybe the hot pink Axleys distracted everyone from the odd clothing combo.

Quite apart from my fashion avoidance, I managed quite the feat of self-restraint over the last 6 weeks. I gave up chocolate for Lent, not so much because I'm a devoutly religious person but because I was eating too much chocolate and it doesn't help me go uphill faster (although another LFG seems to thrive on it). To my personal surprise, I survived the whole 6 weeks of Lent with nary a piece of chocolate. Okay, there were some chocolate SPECKS in the mint ice cream from The Sweet Life and some other stray tastes, but I did not eat a single PIECE of chocolate by itself. And on Easter I was not about to finally break that fast with some sickly milk chocolate bunny; no, I held out for 74% dark chocolate from Dagoba (no, I don't think it comes from the Dagoba system in Star Wars). It made the Boat Street crit seem fun!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't I get royalties or something for the unauthorized use of LFG™? I suppose I'll let it slide since I'm being called an LFG™ :-)

Oh, and Nutella is the Un-Chocolate™

Argentius said...

How can I be so out of the loop?

WTF is LFG?

I am drinking hot chocolate right now. I never do that, mostly because I am not a huge fan of chocolate anything, but the lady had some and it seemed like a decent idea.

Plus I have fruit loops, and it seemed like a good combination.

Not hot chocolate ON the fruit loops, mind you.

Jamie Stangeland said...

Whinging?!? When did you become British?

UltraMick said...

Andrew: My pack this morning is full of "real" socks, team vest, etc. so that I'm "prepared" for a sunny ride home.

.n.: If Nutella was UN-chocolate, what would be the point?

A: Local Fa(s)t Guy. In both cases here, the S is not optional. How can you be "out of the loop" when dining on fruit loops?

JS: Whinging is perfectly good Irish, too.