trail wrote:
boobooaboo wrote:
Made the mistake of doing a hard and hilly ride in heat index of 111 last week in Dallas. Recovery was brutal, but I feel like I'm used to it now.One of the scariest moments of my life was a long ultra ride in ~120F heat in the remote Arizona desert. I was totally fine until I flatted. But then as I was changing the flat, with brutally hot asphalt reflecting heat back onto me, and a total loss of convective cooling while sitting still, things went downhill quick. Fortunately I had a buddy there, and we had a SAG car only a few miles away. But I was veering on the edge of unconsciousness, and if I've been alone, pretty sure I'd be dead.
It is crazy how quickly you can lose it when it is really bad. I tend to do well with heat because I cautiously ease myself in to it and for the past few years I've been living in various forms of it. Now its the high heat / high humidity stuff which is entirely new to me. Best described as "oppressive" by the weather people and I'd agree.
One occurrence as a youngster messed me up. There had been heat waves and I was playing in outdoor futbol tournaments where we'd do 3 matches a day. I was the central back and never came out of games. Toward the end of the second day I remember getting confused, walking off the pitch and thinking it was strange that I wasn't sweating. I don't remember why I was walking off the pitch at all though. I woke up some time later under a tent, in my underwear with ice all over me. Quite a confusing return to consciousness!
It took me a week to feel cognitively correct. I had a concussion later in life and the effects of these two events felt the same to me.