It is now officially a heat wave. Since may 1, Houston has had 30 days with temperatures above 90 degrees. All this summer heat and it isn't even officially summer yet.
Yesterday, I attempted an earlier (for me) start and was actually on the road by 7:45. The good news is that I had an excellent ride. The bad news is that apparently 7:45 instead of 8:30 just doesn't make that much difference in the heat index. This makes sense since it is barely cooling off to the mid to high '70's at night but still..... The benefit is that at that hour in the morning, I was really awake enough to notice how hot I was until I stopped at the midway point, at which point I felt like I was about to burst into flames as I lost any benefit of air movement and the air temperature and my own body temperature caught up to me. I always try to stop for 10 minutes at the midway or thereabouts but yesterday's stop was pure necessity as I had gone through both bottles of water. I spent 15 minutes in the air conditioning inside a gas station/ store, sucking down a gatorade and staring blankly at all the maps and muscle building and stud magazines in the rack. Talk about steroid city.. The one I found particularly amusing was the one of the blond muscle bound stud, flexed to within an inch of his life, wearing what looked like his girlfriends training bra, which was making serious attempts to inch up and strangle him instead of trying to cover up his nipples. It was an eyerolling moment.
Cooled down at least momentarily I finished my ride with the usual ride home against the head winds in a high gear and managed to maintain a respectable base speed.
I am signed up to do a charity century in July and am beginning to think I should force myself to ride later in the day and build up some heat tolerance. I have been experimenting with various layers and have come to the conclusion that although it is initially warmer to wear a wicking layer under the jersey, once I get going and soak it through with sweat, it is definitely cooler and a lot less clammy that just the wet clingy jersey against the skin. It also seems to help the core temperature stay more even.
I have arm coolers which several of the ladies on the cross country ride wore and swore by. I haven't tried them yet, but I do remember that as it got hotter last summer, I started riding in a long sleeved jersey, which although not necessarily cooler, at least kept the temperature of the skin on my arms below and char and crisp level, so I will give them a try soon.
Riding in the heat is sort of like riding in the wind. There comes a moment when you can let go and accept that you are going to be hot, sweaty and leave puddles wherever you go and that you might as well resing yourself to that fact. Once you can let go and go with the flow, riding in the heat, like riding constantly in/against the wind becomes doable and you find a balance between exertion and momentum (wind) or exertion and temperature (heat) that you can handle and still get through a training ride sanely. I'm not quite there yet in regards to the heat, but there were more moments when I was enjoying the ride than there were while I was bitching out the heat, so that equilibrium is definitely coming. All I have to do is keep riding.
Yesterday, I attempted an earlier (for me) start and was actually on the road by 7:45. The good news is that I had an excellent ride. The bad news is that apparently 7:45 instead of 8:30 just doesn't make that much difference in the heat index. This makes sense since it is barely cooling off to the mid to high '70's at night but still..... The benefit is that at that hour in the morning, I was really awake enough to notice how hot I was until I stopped at the midway point, at which point I felt like I was about to burst into flames as I lost any benefit of air movement and the air temperature and my own body temperature caught up to me. I always try to stop for 10 minutes at the midway or thereabouts but yesterday's stop was pure necessity as I had gone through both bottles of water. I spent 15 minutes in the air conditioning inside a gas station/ store, sucking down a gatorade and staring blankly at all the maps and muscle building and stud magazines in the rack. Talk about steroid city.. The one I found particularly amusing was the one of the blond muscle bound stud, flexed to within an inch of his life, wearing what looked like his girlfriends training bra, which was making serious attempts to inch up and strangle him instead of trying to cover up his nipples. It was an eyerolling moment.
Cooled down at least momentarily I finished my ride with the usual ride home against the head winds in a high gear and managed to maintain a respectable base speed.
I am signed up to do a charity century in July and am beginning to think I should force myself to ride later in the day and build up some heat tolerance. I have been experimenting with various layers and have come to the conclusion that although it is initially warmer to wear a wicking layer under the jersey, once I get going and soak it through with sweat, it is definitely cooler and a lot less clammy that just the wet clingy jersey against the skin. It also seems to help the core temperature stay more even.
I have arm coolers which several of the ladies on the cross country ride wore and swore by. I haven't tried them yet, but I do remember that as it got hotter last summer, I started riding in a long sleeved jersey, which although not necessarily cooler, at least kept the temperature of the skin on my arms below and char and crisp level, so I will give them a try soon.
Riding in the heat is sort of like riding in the wind. There comes a moment when you can let go and accept that you are going to be hot, sweaty and leave puddles wherever you go and that you might as well resing yourself to that fact. Once you can let go and go with the flow, riding in the heat, like riding constantly in/against the wind becomes doable and you find a balance between exertion and momentum (wind) or exertion and temperature (heat) that you can handle and still get through a training ride sanely. I'm not quite there yet in regards to the heat, but there were more moments when I was enjoying the ride than there were while I was bitching out the heat, so that equilibrium is definitely coming. All I have to do is keep riding.
today's stats
distance 37 miles
time 2:07
speed 17mph
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