Blistering Heat 1, Me 0

The weather kicked my butt yesterday. I had my first bike ride in a year and I chose what seemed to be the hottest day so far. I was not trying to be macho in the least bit, but I was thinking how bad could it be.
Well, let's prepare for the ride by being out of shape, sleeping about 4 hours of light wake up off and on type sleep the night before and only eating banana for breakfast. Yep, that would about do it. I did drink a ton of water on the ride because of the way I sweat I can easily dehydrate and we don't want that again. I did that in High School during our "Hell Weeks" of 2 a day football practices. It was August and we had just finished some drills. The coach sent us to get water to the North and I decided to walk South. After the coach called my name a few times, I turned towards him, spoke Swahili and collapsed. They rushed out to me and had to carry me over to the water. My legs had curled up underneath me and my arms had turned to jelly. After a while I was fine, but I now make sure I get more than enough water in my system
I was really ok on Saturday's ride until we started doing the inclines about 2 hours into the ride. My bike riding muscles having been neglected for more than a year were telling me in no uncertain terms they were not happy. Plus you add in the sweating like I'm selling sweat for millions and you get tired. You could feel the heat coming up from the sidewalk as you rode along.
I had to stop a few times on the last leg of our ride. My buddies were very accommodating understanding my wishes not to push it too hard under these conditions. Overall, I had a very good time. It was nice to ride along the river from Eagan to downtown St.Paul and circle back along Sheppard road to HWY 55 and back to Eagan. If you are going to ride, please go and get yourself a Twin Cities Bike map. This helped us choose our route back and gave us ideas for another ride. Even better is that they are free and free is good.
I feel pretty lucky today, no cramping, not sore except for the "taint". The "taint" is a little chaffed, which is what I expect every biking season until I build up a "callous". The pros use Udder cream. I may pick a little up.
I figure I will try to get out a little ride tonight when the temp goes down. I built up so much heat yesterday in my core that my forehead was hot to the touch as late as 12:00am.