Idiocy in Valley Forge

One day I get this brilliant idea to meet out Joey in Valley Forge one morning for coffee. Never mind it's 24 miles from my house, but he rides near there everyday from his house (22 miles) to get to work so no big deal right? 24 miles and 26 degrees outside? No problem. We meet, have coffee, chat for a few minutes and then part ways. A little aggressive of a ride for me, but I'm not one to back down from a challenge so we go ahead and make plans.

I start the ride at 4:30am (yes, you read that correctly) and it goes smoothly. It's a bit creepy on some parts of the Schuylkill River Trail that early in the morning, but the quiet time was awesome. To help me out, I make a list of "checkpoints" I had to get to in certain amounts of time so I could tell I was going at the right pace. I didn't want to get towards the end and realize I was 30 minutes behind. Well, I get to the Memorial Arch at VF at 6:30am, on time! Joey shows up a few minutes later and we sit and have some coffee, which is the whole point of meeting at this ungodly hour. We chit chat for a few minutes and we both start to notice it getting really cold outside, like really cold. Shit, we better get going so we warm up again.

I pack up my mug, blanket and coffee and start back for home. My hands are frozen inside my gloves. Taking them off cooled the sweaty insides and now it was like having ice strapped to my hands. I'm super freakin cold and shivering pretty bad, but confident I'll warm back up as I continue to pedal. My clothing that had protected me so well on the way out was now wet from sweat and was causing a significant drop in my core body temperature. I got to Norristown Transportation Center and I was shivering hard at this point so I decided to not be a hero and abandon my ride in favor of a train ride home. I've had hypothermia once before and I knew I was well on my way to getting it so a ride home was out of the question.

I sat in the station and reveled in the glorious warmth. Mind you I'm wearing head to toe black so I look like a cat burgler with a really hot bike and the looks from teh commuters are priceless. Train is here! I head out into the vicious cold, still shaking, and go to board the train. Whoa, can't board the train to get home because it's a peak train and bikes can't go on them during peak times. Ackkkkk, next non-peak train it in an hour at 9:19am. I'm sooooo gonna be late for work. So I wait in the station, blanket on me, looking like the poshest homeless person this side of Norristown. Train comes and I finally get home, shower and get to work. I'm exhausted and so terribly sore from the riding and the hypothermia and feriously hungry. I feel like total dog shit.

As I sit at my desk I think to myself, how could we be so stupid? You would think two long time athletes would know better than to stop and let themselves get cold in these brutal temps, but no, we are just idiots and probably should run any ideas through a 3rd party. I think most people said it best when they told me, "You guys are IDIOTS."