For the July 4th Holiday, I had a four hour bike ride.  The weather was forecasted to be hot, so I decided I would start my ride early.  Unfortunately,  I didn’t start early enough.

I left home about 7.30am and rode east to visit an old barn, that I had found a few weeks ago.  This barn has an old painting of the American flag on the side of it, and I decided that it would be the perfect photo, for my blog on America’s birthday. 

I got to the barn after about 40 minutes of riding and took a few minutes, to take the photo above.  As I got back on my bike, the temperature was already feeling hot, and I knew then, that today’s ride was going to be tough. It turned out to be really tough.

Riding in hot weather is really hard on the body.  I think part of it is, because you don’t realize how much you are sweating.  This in turn, means it is hard to make yourself drink enough water, which in turn leads to dehydration.  You need to drink a lot of fluids and today, I didn’t drink enough.  Dehydration will sap your strength like nothing else, and that is what happened to me today.

I was feeling good for the first three hours of my ride, but the last hour was in full sun, and by that time, the temperature had risen into the 90’s (“real feel” was close to 100’F).  That last hour riding was brutal and I couldn’t wait to get home.

It’s now early evening and I feel exhausted.  It’s not from over exertion on the ride; it’s from the heat.  I will be in bed early tonight, and hopefully a good night’s sleep, will prepare for my long run tomorrow.