This morning I read a post from a person who did the Race Across the West last year but had to drop out after about 300 miles due to the fact that she stopped sweating. Sweating is what allows us to keep from overheating and helps us avoid heat stroke. Her report was that she had ridden several hundred miles in triple-digit heat and that this did her in. She was very, very wise to make the right call to stop, disappointing though it was.
I know the heat of the low desert and the thin air of the high deserts of the first 1200 miles of RAAM.
I'm still training every day dressed in multiple layers of clothing and without a fan. I noted today, when I was doing intervals that brought my HR into the 150's, that the heat had a cumulative effect of reducing my power output.
People say that we can adjust to heat in a few weeks. Maybe. But that seems like it is just one more stressor to the body when ... the body has enough stressors.
So, I'm going to continue to overdress and not use a fan.
