Heat Wave

Today is the first nice day in weeks. It's been a brutal summer and my riding over the past few weeks has, consequently, been done in intense heat and humidity. Yesterday's ride was a perfect example.

It was probably already in the mid 80's with very high humidity when I started my ride at 6:45. (I did 55 miles and 2600 feet at a pace of 16.5 mph. I burned about 2700 calories.). It must have hit the mid 90's by the time I was done. nevertheless, I had a pretty strong and comfortable ride.

Anticipating the heat, on Saturday night, I poured a bottle of powerade into an ice cube mold and froze two bottles of water. Before my ride, I poured the ice cubes into my Camelbak, mixed my Hammer Nutrition powder into one of the bottles of water (which had thawed a bit), and caged the other bottle of ice water. The Powerade stayed reasonably cold for 26 miles where I refiled at a Hess Express with new, cold Gatorade. I used the other bottle of water to spill over my head from time to time just to cool down a bit. I also refreshed my water at the Hess station.

With about six miles to go I had run out of water in my spare bottle (but had plenty of Powerade left to drink). In Brookville, I saw a powerful lawn sprinkler whose sprinkler heads came all the way out to the street. I stopped, refilled my bottle with the sprinkler water, poured it over my head, and refilled again. In less than a minute, I was on my way again, refreshed.

You have to do what you have to do to keep cool. The challenge in the Negev will be that there will be no iced Powerade and, much more seriously, virtually no shade. With all the heat and humidity this summer, most of my rides are done in shady areas so the sun is not beating down on me.

On my way home (in my car), I stopped at a Seven Eleven for the Breakfast of Champions...a Coke Slurpee and a Drake's Devil Dog. It doesn't get any better.