Yesterday I did exactly what I intended to do.  I got on my bike and rode 5 hours in the heat, without ever deviating from my original plan, which often happens.  I had planned to just ride, ride super easy, like easy enough my butt was going to ache from all the pressure since I wasn’t putting any on the pedals.

4 of us started.  Bill, me, Trudi and Catherine.  Bill said upfront he was under slept and wasn’t riding that far.  Trudi has been riding a ton more, but it was going to be too much for her, so after about 45 minutes, it was just Catherine and I.  It was nice because we haven’t done that much riding together recently.

So, we just rode.  It was hot.  Like 100 degree hot with the sun blazing.  And it was pretty windy, maybe 15 mph from the south.  It usually isn’t very windy when it is that hot.  Plus it was really muggy, as it had rained nearly 2 inches the day before. Really a perfect storm of heat riding.

We headed east to ride to Lawrence since we needed somewhere to stop to get liquids.  We took a little different way, so it was a tad hilly.  But it didn’t matter because we were crawling up the hills.

We got to Lawrence and went to a Kwikshop and filled our bottles with ice and got a 69 cent Gatorade special to split.  Pretty cost effective stop, 37.5 cents each, including tax.  But we ruined that by heading over to Starbucks and getting a double espresso each.  Mine hot and her’s iced.

We then headed back to Topeka north, which is a little longer, but flatter, along the river. Catherine sat on a bit on the way back, since the wind was a tad from the west.  But in general, we rode side-by-side.  Just on the edge of town, maybe about 10 miles out, Catherine said she was out of water, so we stopped again at a gas station.  Same thing, ice bottles and split another Gatorade, this time it was 79 cents, so 42.5 cents each.

I rode Catherine back to Topeka and by then, it was close to 6, it started to seem cooler.  Probably because the sun wasn’t so direct.  We ran into Trudi who hadn’t had enough and was riding again on the bike path or her MTB bike.  I stopped to talk to her and Catherine kept going, in a rush to pick up her mom for dinner.

I rode by my house, refilled my bottles once again and went out for another hour.  By then, my Garmin was reading only 95, but it felt a lot cooler than that.

This was the slowest ride I’ve done in a long time.  I didn’t even average 17 mph.  I think I probably drank 12-14 big bottles, with.  I ate some S caps, these electrolyte capsules when I stopped by my house, but other than that nothing.  I really never felt crampy, which is strange.

I ate two Ally’s Bars.  You might not of heard of these, I hadn’t either, but I got a couple from Trudi after Tour of California.  John Murphy, who rides for United Healthcare, gave Trudi a few for me to try.  Then  a couple weeks ago in Lutsen, Ian Stanford came by after the race and gave me another small bag of them.  It turns out the woman that won Lutsen is Ally and she makes the bars.

Her name is Ally Stacher and she was already on my radar.  The chick is good.  She started Lutsen about the most determined of just about anyone I’ve encountered in sport recently.  She was actually leading the 1000 person group up the first climb.  Brian jump away and that was the last I saw of her.  But she kept that pace going, smearing the women and riding 6:10 for the 99 miles.   That was just 35 minutes behind me and I was going alright.  I’m pretty sure she finished top 20 overall.  I think she is planning on doing Leadville, and if that is true, then if she acclimates properly, I can’t see anyone beating her.

Anyway, her bars are good too.  There is a super long list of ingredients, a couple dozen with nearly everyone of them being organic something.  I’ve only had maybe 4 of the bars so far, but each time I’ve had them riding, I’ve had a pretty good day.  I’ve been looking for something to eat in these longer 100 mile MTB races and so far, these seem perfect.  They are just moist enough that you can get them down without drinking.  They are about the consistency, and taste, of the middle of a Fig Newton.  They are good.  Anyway, I like them but I only have a couple more. There is a link above.  You should try them.

So, today is gonna be hotter than yesterday.  I am planning, sort of, repeating yesterday.  The reason I’m doing this is that I hate not being confident at races where it is hot.  And I’ve found, at this point of my life, that I need to acclimate to heat as much as I do to high altitude.  Maybe more.  And the only way I’ve found to do this is by riding super slow in the heat of the day, building blood plasma.

This will be the last day though, because I’m heading out to Colorado to  acclimate to altitude. And most likely, I won’t be running into much heat there.  I am going to be in Steamboat Springs, at the Tour de Steamboat and was then thinking about maybe driving to Bend Oregon to do the Cascade Stage race.  That is iffy though.  It is 1000 miles from Steamboat to Bend and I only have two days in between.  Plus, Bend has a 16 mile TT and I try to avoid those.  But, a stage race would do me good.

Okay, enough of this.  I can’t write down everything I’m thinking right now.  I do have some stuff to do before I leave tomorrow. The heat index is supposed to be 115 today.  I’m not really diggin’ doing yesterday all over again now that I really think about it.

 

 

 

Okay, I’ve heard, and read, so much stuff about the amount of salt, and such, that endurance athletes need to function properly.  It’s pretty much accepted that we need to eat as much salt as we can stomach, especially in extraordinary heat.

I’ve never been much into eating salt.  I thought it wasn’t very good for you and I never developed a taste for it.  Plus I never had much of a taste for salty foods.  I don’t eat many chips, fries or other processed foods that are really salty.

I’ve tried to use more salt the last couple years since I’ve been having cramping issue, virtually my whole life, and I have more interest in controlling it now.

Yesterday I took a  S!Cap, one, before I rode.  It was close to 100 degrees out and super muggy. I was riding pretty easy again.  S!Caps have sodium, potassium, chloride, bicarbonate, phosphate.

About 20 minutes after I started riding, I could taste salt on my lips.  Like a lot of it.  I rode an hour and a half and then came back to my house to meet up with a bunch more guys.  I drank two large bottles on the first ride, then refilled my bottles and took one more S!Cap.

One the 2nd ride, it was really weird.  It was nearly 100 degrees still, but we were riding into real dark clouds.  It was nearly the first time in my life I was actually riding into a storm.  There were 7 of us and pretty much everyone was in agreement that we wanted to get wet.  And we did.  It soon started raining.

Then it really rained.  It was so strange riding in a downpour, not getting any cooling effect. That changed after about 5 miles.  The wind switched up and the rain got a lot cooler.  It was nearly cold, the rain, but the water spraying off the road was super warm, nearly hot.

We rode like this for about 30 minutes.  Pretty soon it stopped and then it started hearing up again.  Talk about muggy.

This is when I noticed, again, the taste of my sweat.  My lips definitely tasted of salt.  Then, even though I was wearing a bandana, the sweat in my eyes was burning them like crazy.  I had to spray my eyes out with my bottle.

My question is, why do you sweat more salt when you ingest more salt?  My sweat never tastes like salt unless I take a salt supplement.  When I do take a salt supplement, soon after, I start sweating and it always tastes like salt.

Here’s another example.  I’m not usually one of those guys that get crusty shorts, salt shorts, during long hot races.  But lots of guys do.  It seems more common in early season.

Back when the Tour of Texas was going on, we had been racing already for a few days by the time we got to San Antonio.  Normally, a lot of the riders would go down to the Riverwalk in San Antonio and eat Mexican food.  Of course, many riders would have a margarita.  Plus eat a ton of salty chips, waiting for their meals.

The day after this, the salt shorts were crazy.  Nearly everyone would have those white streaks on their black shorts.

This wasn’t the case the previous days, so I have to assume that everyone had ingested way more salt than normal and was sweating it out.  If this is the case, then why do we need to take salt supplements if we sweat it out as soon as we exercise.

So here are two examples of ingesting more salt to instantly just sweat it out.  If you sweat it right out, then why take it to start with?  Or maybe sweat is always supposed to taste salty and I’ve just never had the proper amount for an endurance athlete?  I have a hard time believing that.

One other question is, or observation, is that the salt gets into your system super quickly.   I can taste the salt on my lips really quickly after taking a supplement.  It is amazing that a small pill can be swallowed, goes to your stomach and then somehow get to your cooling system quick enough to taste the salt on my lips.   Pretty amazing.

Okay, I’ve tried to read up on this and haven’t really found any answers.  Any information that any of you have on this would be appreciated.   I’m not much into the salt taste and stinging in my eyes.