July 7: Just got smashed by the humidity and heat today. So I did my outside ride today with my self-agreed upon parameter of staying in my prescribed zone only as long as my docs deem necessary. Today that would mean I’m only supposed to stay in my zone for like 40 min. So if I do a 2 hour ride, just 40 min is within 118-132bpm. The rest would be below.
With that in mind, I met Judy on the bike and hike and right off the bat I could see that today was going to be brutal with respect to temp and humidity. We rode at 10 AM and it was already like 80-something with this insane dewpoint. My HR responded great as we got going, and I’ve noticed that I am going faster at a higher perceived exertion at lower HR values. So that was great. But the further and further we went into the ride the more the heat and humidity really started to affect me. I kind of rode in my zone for a bit, but not nearly for the full 40 minutes. Then I began to back off a bit to the low side after a while since the heat was just getting hotter by the minute.
No those of you who do not know me are not aware that through my 30-some racing and training years I have never been able to deal with heat very well. Mix in a high dew point and I’m just melting. I’ve had to DNF races where I was literally crawling on all fours to the finish line in this kind of weather. I mean I just totally overheat and turn into a blob of protoplasm. So my history in HH (heat and humidity) is terrible. Mix in a headwind to get HHH and then I’m truly screwed. Well, today we had HHH and I felt it an hour into the ride. It was there that my head just began to get a bit off. Hell, I was wiping sweat out of my eye sockets right from the get go in this ride, so at the halfway point I knew that I was on the downside.
So I told Judy I was going to pull the plug on doing my “zone” riding, and just defer to riding well under my low end of the zone. And I could definitely feel it. My body just begins to shut down, where I have a tough time cooling myself off. We kind of rode at a moderate pace with my HR in the 100-110 area and I felt much better. My thought process on this was as such: I’ve have big issues with the HHH well before this surgery, so now, with my heart just getting back into higher beating and higher demands, the HHH could really knock me for a loop. So I felt I’d better back off and not tax my old ticker with an even higher stress load - even at my prescribed HR zone.
Man, I was just dripping on the way back. Even had Judy pulling for a bit, and I had NO problem drafting just to keep the HR down. Now as we got closer to home I noticed that I had to do less and less for my HR to go up, and by the end of the ride even a little bump in the road sent my HR up 5-8bpm. I ended up getting in like 1:50 hrs total, and probably did get the 40 min of zone in only because my HR was going up even while going easy on the way back home. Really glad I pulled the plug on this one, and I don’t think I’m going to temp fate until I’m months into this rehab process where everyone thinks my heart is stronger and more prepared to deal with hot and humid conditions.
Yup, when I got done I really felt the weather. I felt weak for sure. Drank about 32 oz of electrolyte and then made this big salad with some salmon in it. After that I drank another 32 oz of water. Wanted to work more post ride, but shoot, I was really spent so I lay down for an hour. And for the rest of the day I just felt one step off because of the weather. HR was normal, so I had no ill effects with respect to heart rate post ride. I just felt tired and slightly weaker than normal. Let’s hope for some cooler weather!