time to rethink

Yesterday was a chilly day following a big storm. I didn't think that I would get a chance to ride, but afternoon classes were cancelled unexpectedly which left a nice window open for riding. 

In the middle of the second lecture of the morning, the professor briefly paused. It would have otherwise been unremarkable - maybe she was checking to see that she covered everything she intended to cover - if the problem had not continued. After the third pause, which lasted nearly 30 or 40 seconds, she told the class, without looking up from her computer, that she needed to leave. She quickly exited the lecture hall. My classmates sat for a while before reacting. After a couple of minutes, someone went to check on her and reported that she was quite ill and would not be returning for the rest of the day. That was all most people needed for a cue to exit the building. 

I checked the weather before leaving for my ride. There were predictions of 20-30 mile/hour winds, so I added an extra top layer to cut the chill. I figured (hoped) that a 50% spread in the wind speed range was just the meteorologist covering bases. As I left, the skies were mostly cloudy and the wind came in short but strong gusts. My legs felt strong even after a fairly intense ride the day before. As I settled into my pace, I noticed that I was going much too fast, which probably meant that the wind was directly behind me. I checked the sun to mark the wind direction. The smells were fantastic and vibrant in the crisp air. Cotton was still visible in the fields. The trees are now bare, revealing the otherwise hidden objects behind them. I arrived at the return point and faced the wind for the first time in the ride. Not pretty.

I had plenty of time, especially on the painfully slow return, to think. I wondered how long it would have taken other people in the class to go check on our professor, myself included. For all we knew she was having a stroke and was losing more brain function with each second we waited. The irony of stroking out in front of a class of medical students in a university hospital did not escape my imagination. It turns out that she has the flu, and was probably under the influence of some pretty intense medication just to be there. It didn't take me very long to quit worrying about her well being and to start dwelling on the time I was stealing to ride. Although class was cancelled, I still had material to learn. This would cost me. I grabbed the drops and pushed into the wind. 

(photo from magnum photos)