Frozen toes

So yesterday afternoon I decided to go for a ride after work; some club members were going out for a ride and I just had enough time to catch up with them, so that worked out well. As it was I was craving a good ride, it had been over 2 weeks since my previous ride, see it got really nice and warm and then that went all to frozen shit. So since it seemed like a warm day, at least in relative terms, I decided to head out.

Now I should point out that I've been on a very strict training plan, I won't go out riding unless it's at least 10 C. I don't want to risk getting used to riding in temperatures colder than I will ever see in SoCal; after all what would be the point of that. But after two weeks without a real ride does things to ones resolve, so I broke down and went out, even though it was only 5 C and was clearly going to get colder as the ride was going to last until sundown.

The ride itself was fine, a nice route and favourable winds and good people to chat with. Though in retrospect the ride may have been a bit too easy; looking at the data from my heart rate monitor after the ride I realize that I really didn't work that hard at all. This may have been part of the source of my later problems, well that and a lack of planning for the colder temperatures.

See by the time I got home my feet were frozen, literally! I could barely move my toes, they were rather white, very hard and could be used to cool a hot drink if needed. So I decided to hop in the shower, expecting some discomfort from the warming process, I didn't anticipate what I got. Below I've chronicled what transpired over the first 10 minutes of the shower:

Stage 1: Fuck my toes are cold, I can barely feel anything with them.
Stage 2: Ahhhh! The warm water feels kind of nice, I can actually feel sensations returning to my toes.
Stage 3: Huh? I'm feeling a lot more things with my toes, but none of them really make sense. The water the pools in the bottom of the tub usually feels colder than the water coming out of the shower, not hotter.
Stage 4: WTF? Are my toes swelling up? And is this water or the oil in a deep fryer does it? Why are my toes so red?
Stage 5: Ok, a second ago it felt like my toes would fall off; now I can feel a strong rhythmical pulsing in them, and it doesn't correlate to my heart rate, what's going on here?
Stage 6: I swear I'll make a sacrifice to any god or demon that can take this pain away! Seriously this isn't funny any more, why the fuck did I go out riding in this cold fucking weather? There is no way this pain can possibly be worth it.

So finally after about 40 minutes in the shower the numbness/pain/pulsations/discolourations had subsided and I felt I should probably get out before I turned into a six foot tall prune. But I have decided that I will maintain my original pledge to not venture out on the bike unless it's at least 10 C. And yes, I do have shoe covers and other warm weather gear, but it's such a pain to figure out what to wear that it's just easier to limit myself to the type of weather I can expect to enjoy in SoCal. So fuck winter riding, I'm officially through with it, particularly if it takes place in April or May.