Complainers need not apply

One nice thing about running is that it requires no mechanical equipment. Sure, a watch or heart rate monitor might fail during a run, or even during a race, but this hardly impacts the quality of the run. The weather is a minor concern -- I’ve run in -36 degrees Celsius and +36 degrees Celsius. Neither is particularly fun, but both are do-able. For the most part, a runner doesn’t need to worry about anything except his or her body. And even if an injury or blister does necessitate cutting the run short or stopping altogether, it’s usually pretty straightforward to walk home (or even catch a ride if possible).

Cycling is not so straightforward. Part of what makes cycling so much fun is the ability to go fast -- sometimes very fast -- but this requires mechanical equipment. It also requires a litany of specialized and expensive attire and accessories: padded shorts, cleated shoes, gloves, a helmet, eyewear, etc. If it’s rainy or windy, cycling is miserable at best and dangerous at worst. If it’s snowy or icy, it’s downright suicidal. And because cycling involves going fast, it also means moving very quickly away from one’s starting point. It is not so straightforward to walk or hitch a ride home if the rider or the bike should malfunction.

The relative hassles of cycling were reinforced for my husband and me this morning. We got up today at 5:30 am, excited (sort of) to cycle together for the first time in over a week. We planned on a full 18 miles, hence the early wake-up call. It was cold, drizzly, windy, and foggy when we left the house at 6 am. This was less than ideal, but I tried to focus on the positive and use the opportunity to work on my drafting skills again! About three miles in, however, Zdenek got a flat. While he encouraged me to keep riding, it was sad to leave him and even sadder when I passed him on my first loop. It was a sight for sore eyes -- my poor husband at 6:15 am, about 1.5 miles from home, walking home in miserable weather wearing tight shorts and bike cleats. (His morning went from bad to worse when I returned home an hour later [after an awesome ride, but today I won’t gloat] and sat down to have breakfast with him. One tug of a placemat here, one movement of a laptop there, and suddenly Zdenek’s morning Tim’s was all over his pants and shirt.)

The nice thing about Zdenek is that he rarely complains (he has other nice qualities, too, but this is a particularly special one). I, on the other hand, have been told I can be a chronic complainer (whiner, some might say), and I'm not sure I would have handled a flat this morning with as much grace as he showed. It’s probably a good thing that I started as a runner and then moved on to cycling, because I may never have found my inner athlete if it had been the other way around.