Dave G. Heats it Up

Here's a report from the gravel metric king Dave Giegerich.

#7  5/27/11
#8  5/30/11 As you can see below #8 kicked my butt. I got sick the next day took almost 2 weeks to get rid of a sinus/throat/eyeball infection. Maybe I was coming down with it or the heat let in. Well I chalk it up to training and no pain no gain. :-)

YIKES!!!  Got Zzapped riding today. Was about 90 and humid. Usually I have tolerated much better then I did today. Perhaps, just maybe it's due to I am older, fatter, and uglier each passing year. At about mile 20 on a gravel road, riding my Trek XO2 Cycle Cross, my fluids were gone. 82 ounces. 10 more riding miles, I came to a small town park water fountain. I drank 24 oz, and filled my 24 oz water bottle full. I didn't know just how much I could trust this water, and needed to drink about a gallon before I would be back home. So I found a vending machine and paid to fill up the rest of my bottles.
My stomach was full of fluids but yet my mouth was dry, I wasn't processing fluids as fast as my body was evaporating them to stay cool.
Then signs of heat stress hit. With out the detail I found a bush to hide behind, I don't know why, I was somewhere in nowhere,  and I couldn't hold on anymore, and was glad I  packed some wet ones along for the trip. I would have two more stops at outdoor small town park out houses.
Feeling dizzy, no cell phone service, I started heading home. Sprinkling water on me and down my spine to help cool off. The wind picked up and the added evaporation had me feeling better. I had some concern about going down in this heat. I kept a close watch on my thoughts, was feeling a little whacky and my eyes played tricks on me.
 I thought about getting in the creek for more cool down, but felt good enough to just keep going and get home.
#9  6/11/11
#10 6/16/11
#11 6/18/11 Rode hard today, felt good but left nothing in my gas tank so taking a few days off from the metrics, and be back at em.

Thanks for the Chase
Dave