On heat and addiction

Kona is going to be hot. Yeah, big surprise, right? And what, oh what, have we been lacking in the bay area this year? Mostly, summer. Yes, we've had a few toasty days, but on the whole it hasn't been *that* warm.

So, what does one do to try and prep the body to exercise for prolonged periods in the heat? Wear long sleeves a lot when exercising. Exercise in the middle of the day, when possible (stupid work getting in the way of my life anyway). Try to "live" in the heat as much as possible. So far this has included: riding in the car with the windows up (as Jeff asks me not to give *him* heat stroke in the process), wearing a sweatshirt under my riding gear on the motorcycle, turning my floor heater on at work.

This weekend we had one hot day, one cooler day. I swapped my workouts around to do my long ride on the hot day. Brilliant. I had a route all planned out down in South San Jose/Morgan Hill. I planned to head out in the middle of the day to catch the most heat. I'm a genius! And then Jeff gets a call from a co-worker who lives down there. It was 112 on his thermometer. Um, yeah. I want heat training, I don't want to kill myself in the process. So, I quickly try to come up with a route closer to home, where it's merely in the 90s, with rolling hills ~ as required by my workout schedule, that has loops so I can refuel, and a porta-potty close by. Sheesh, this is complicated stuff. I finally figure something out, the most boring ride in the world, by the way, and head out. The first hour I want to wilt, but make it through. The next loop I stock up on food/liquids and plan for a 2 hour loop. It ends up a bit short, but I've got close to 3 hours in the bank.

Now comes the hardest part about doing so many loops. It would be just *too* easy to get in the car and call it a day. I want to get closer to 4 hours. It *is* cooling off a little. Ah, crap. I head back out, promising myself I only have to ride "to that stop sign". I get close to the stop sign and have a running dialog in my head...."you could go a little further" "yeah, but I don't want to lie to myself, cuz then I won't believe myself next time" "okay, go ahead, turn around at the stop sign". Yeah, I was out in the heat maybe a *little* too long, and cooked my brain a bit. Back to the car. Load up the bike. Change into running shoes and off for a very short 15 min jog/brisk walk. Wiped. Out. I did see some deer and some wild turkeys, which was cool. And I'm 99.9% sure they weren't a figment of my over-baked imagination...

Where does addiction come in? you ask. Well, I've been having 'weekend' headaches. And I finally realized that one of the missing components on my weekend has been FRS. I usually drink one each weekday and skip it on the weekends. So I think I'm addicted to the tiny amount of caffeine in the FRS. And when I skip it, I'm rewarded with a headache for my efforts. The question now becomes....do I continue the addiction to save myself a big headache, or tough out the headaches to kick the habit. Hmph. Lance sure didn't mention *this* in his ringing endorsement of FRS. Maybe he was too busy counting all that money that kicks back to his "foundation". Mmmm hmmm.