Hot, Hot, Hot....
Recovery from the heat with my BFF
All I can remember about Saturday's ride is that it was HOT! HOT! HOT!!! When we finished it was just after noon and it was a blazing 95 degrees outside. The temperature climbed on us over 15/20 degrees. It was ended up being a blistering 102 on Saturday. Thank goodness unlike Friday night, and the prior Saturday I didn't have to endure a power outage. Yes, my power was off again on Friday night. Which was ok, I guess, but it really did screw up my nutritional intake. Can't exactly cook when you have no power.
Who is ready to go on a bike ride? I was ready to go on Saturday morning. Knowing it was going to be hot out there. I honestly, didn't think the heat would impact me that much. Honestly, I couldn't have been more wrong. I remember saying to my Mom the day before, ya the heat really bothers David, but I don't seem to mind to much. Wow, I am can be an idiot. First, as a person who sweats a lot, the heat is always going to impact me. Second, I don't even like sitting outside when it is hot, so why would I think I would be fine on a bike?
So, we set out on Saturday morning knowing the elements were not in our favor. It was 75 or so at 9 a.m. and the temperature was climbing. 3 hours or so later it would be 95, so temperatures were rising. There was something about the heat on our little push around the corner that make me know that it was going to impact our ride from the onset, because I turned to David no even a mile into our ride and said you now why Manning seemed so much harder last year? He said the heat, I said ya, I bet it was the heat, but let's not get ahead of ourselves just yet, we will get to Manning.
The Tour de Beav as we shall call this ride because David planned the route and he is also know as the Beaver. We started out like we always do and loop around my house and neighborhood, but instead of going straight to Manning we decided to ride out to Altamont Pass to the Livermore dump. It is always nice to ride out to the dump. You get a little climbing in, but not to much. It gives you a nice 10 miles out and back and you haven't really left the area just yet. It also allows you to use my house as a water stop and for a bio break.
Riding out Altamont Pass is always the same. No Wind. There never seems to be any wind on the way to the dump. However, as soon as you turn around and start to head west back to Livermore, the wind kicks in. Saturday's wind wasn't nearly as bad as some of the head winds I have ridden into out there. I mean it is where I called the Wind God a C word and challenged it to a fight. However, the Wind God took it easy on us, in my opinion on Saturday. However, you could definitely notice you were riding into a wind.
When we turned off on Dyer, again the wind goes away. We ride up a couple little rollers and all is good with the world. We stop and check out the aqueduct and I tell a really bad story about birds when I drove out here the other day. We talk about because of the heat how nice it would be to go jump into the water. I think it would have been epic if we could have road right into it. That would have been awesome.
I am pounding water at this point. In the first hour and 15 minutes of the ride before we get back to my house, I am through two 24 ounce water bottles and my cocktail of tailwind and LMNT. That is pretty fast for me to crank through my water bottles. I am doing it one b/c it is really hot out and two because I know our water stop isn't to far away. I lost a shitload of fluid on Saturday during the ride. According to my Nix app I as losing 43.5 ounces of water per hour. That is twice as much as what I put in normally per hour. Again, it was hot.
The funny thing is when we came off Dyer, we got hit in the face again by the wind. I am really curious as to why the wind out there really only hits us when we come back west into Livermore. I am not complaining. It wasn't a terrible wind, I did try to draft off David for a little bit to get out of the wind. I decided in the Tour they would probably put me in front as a wind blocker, but it would be the slowest tour ever. LOL.
We get home, we let the DOG out! Whoot Whoot Whoot... We reload on our water. I eat my Uncrustable. Do the bio break. Fight with Kona about coming back into the house. She wouldn't. Daddy didn't raise no dummy, she knew as soon as she came in we were going to leave again and she was right. She had done the same games before we left earlier. She hadn't normally played these games but today she was like don't leave me guys but we had to. Although, I would have gladly stayed in the AC and David kept saying that it was a great ride for today, but we have bigger goals to take down so back out we went. We had to see Kona's sad little face in the window as we road off. Don't feel bad for here she will be rewarded later with bacon and cheese.
So, we head out towards Manning. Manning is a different beast when it is hot out. It's not the challenge of the climb as much as it is the challenge against the heat. There is no shade on Manning at all. It is a slow gradual climb but when it is hot, and it was hot, have I said that? I am convinced it is the heat more than the climb itself that challenged me. It was a grind. A grind we got through. We talked about doing the offshoot onto Highland but I was tired and my ass was starting to hurt and I figured in this heat the devil you know is better than the devil you don't. So we stayed on Manning and finished it. Frak! Just thinking about it makes me think about it being hot, hot, hot. As we got to the top of Manning we were at that 2:10 minute mark. We were supposed to do a 2:10 minute ride. So when we hit 2:10 I told David to turn round and go get his car, I was done. I was teasing. However, had he turned and gone and got the car, I wold have gotten in it. He idd ask me at the top of the hill if I really wanted him to go get the car and I said hell no and miss coming down Collier Canyon? I told him the entire point of coming up Manning was so we could go down Collier Canyon and we road on.
When you turn off Manning you turn onto Carneal. There was wind and it was delightful. It felt really good at the top of Carneal, it felt really good, I will say because by the time we got down out of the hills, the wind was blowing again but it was a heated wind, not very pleasant to have a heater blowing on you in 95 degree heat.
Coming down out of Carneal on Collier Canyon Road is always fun. I think I said this last week. It is fast and it fun. Downhills are just awesome like that. It was the normal fun coming out of the hills until the heater kicked on and started blowing the hot air in my face. Still, I will take coming down CCR over going up Manning on a hot day any day, it makes the ride up Manning worth it.
We stopped the bottom of CCR. David had his Uncrustable. I danced around a little bit because my ass was hurting. Not from the surgery but from the bike seat. My stamina was not the only thing I lost over the last three weeks, it seemed I also lost my booty being ok with the bike seat.
The rest of the ride became a slug fest. We were about 10 miles from home, it was hot and getting hotter. I killed my camelpak and got back into my water bottles. Which by the way, LMNT and water is basically salt water. When I refilled my bottles at the house before I did one that was water only and one that was LMNT and water only. I realized now that I have to cut the LMNT with the Tailwind or you are basically drinking salt water. Drinking salt water when it is hot outside is not fun. It is bad. Very, very bad.
Once again going up Portola to First street I hit my wall. Because of the heat I think all joy was sucked out of world. I took a shot of honey via a stinger. I accidentally dropped the stinger on the road. I was so tired and hot, I just left it there. Writing that and admitting it, I feel like a terrible person. I littered. Damn me.
Turning onto First Street I hit a big rock. Probably karma for littering. I yelled out God Damn it. Really loud and David told me to stop hitting things. If I didn't realize I was in the bit me zone before this I knew it shortly there after when I told him very loudly to FUCK OFF! Ya, the heat and the a hurt ass does stuff to ya man. It's not good.
We muscled through Patterson Pass. I did my best to stay behind David and out of the darker shaded area because of last week hitting that metal and the Arizona can, and well everything else in between. I luckily didn't hit any cast of metal this week. No more big rocks or anything like that.
We came down Greenville pretty good. I killed my last water bottle almost at the end of Greenville. I drank 48 ounces in the first 1 hour and twelve minutes and I drank 81 ounces over the next hours. Not sure if that was enough or not. I know I was a spent and had nothing left, but I road pretty good. Then we came home the back way and some how we survived the heat.
37,19 miles, 1,115 ft climbing, and 3 hours and 8 minutes of riding and I was tired and hot, hot, hot!
I'd love to say I was so tired, I just dropped on the floor at home and couldn't get up. The truth is I laid down on the floor while David was packing his car to play with Kona. She promptly moved away from me. I must have either stunk really bad, or was just generating too much heat for her to be a part of.
I know they aren't the most flattering photos but I could have fallen asleep there . However, I was dirty and needed a cold shower. So, I got up before David took off and we said out goodbyes. It was a good ride but a hot one. Right now it says next Saturday is going to be in the low 80s, keeping my fingers crossed.
While I can't vouch for that b/c luckily I have never had anything appointment to me by the courts I am certain that it is true. Even the worst day on the bike is still the best mental break, stress relievers, there is out there. It is therapy all in of itself. So even when I am bitching about how hard it is know that I am still loving every minute of it.
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