MS 150 - Foiled by Mother Nature

Hi friends,

Amazed that I'm awake before 6am, right? Well, I'm not - today was supposed to be Day 1 of the Kansas City MS 150.

Unfortunately, this is what confronted us:

That small, orange dot is our starting point, and we ride due west for 70ish miles. This map is a screen shot from the forecast (from weather.com), just two hours after we were scheduled to start. We're pretty good riders, but haven't quite made it up to averaging 35 miles/hour (not unless we're going downhill, anyway...)

I'm not concerned that any of my friends or family will be upset that we chose not to ride. (My friends and family are awesome, after all.) The issue is that I might have trouble accepting that we didn't ride. 

So, here is my justification list:

1. While training, I rode 497miles (plus some - didn't get my computer until after some rides). That is 347 additional miles to what the MS 150 would have been today. They were all ridden with the MS in mind, so they've got to count for something, right?
2. I still raised all of the money needed to participate, plus some. People with MS will still benefit from my efforts.
3. We rode 100 miles in one weekend (August 27-28)
4. It is truly dangerous to ride in the rain. Our road bike tires measure in at just over 1" wide. The roads in Kansas haven't been rained on in a long time, which would make them extra slick from the added oil from cars that hasn't been washed off.
5. My parents did offer to come pick us up if we got caught in the rain, but they live almost an hour away from the part of the course that is closest to them. From the moment we call them, we'd be in the rain for another hour.
6. The MS offers SAG service (people driving cars/trucks/suvs that roam the course making sure you are OK) and they could have also taken us to the finish line. However, we're betting that most of the people that decided to ride would have the same thought. We could still be stuck in the rain for an hour or more.
7. For the first few hours of the race, it was going to be below 60 degrees with a southwest wind. On a bike, that is cold.  And finally...
8. We were prepared to ride in anything, and agreed that the only reason we wouldn't ride would be rain. Thus, it was inevitable that it was going to rain.

I will eventually come to terms with the fact that we made the right, safe choice. And the ride is the smallest part of the event, in a way. The MS 150 is about people who are living every day with multiple sclerosis. To learn more, visit the National MS Society website.

And of course, now that I'm relieved of any obligation to ride that bike, guess what I'm anxious to do again?

:)