Electrolyte Season

It's 9 pm on Monday night. The thermometer out on the porch reads 92F and the air is thick and humid. I guess they were right about that specific heat of water thing. The last few days have been a bit uncomfortable around here. Welcome to summer in New Orleans!

There weren't any conveniently located race this weekend, which is to say there was nothing within a three-hour drive. Mid-summer us usually kind of slow down south, but once we get into September there's often a little flurry of activity again, kind of like a second little mini-season. So anyway, that all meant translated into two Giro Rides for me.

With no chance of relief from the subtropical sun for the Saturday Giro, it was time to dig into the electrolyte drink mix jar. Most of the time I go with plain water, but we were now in the middle of electrolyte season. I pulled the regular water bottle out of the seat tube cage and put it aside. Instead, I grabbed one of the big bottles, dumped in a heaping scoop of Hammer electrolyte mix, and filled it to the brim with water. I would have done the same with the other bottle, but the frame triangle is so tight on the Orbea that it's kind of hard to get the big bottles in and out. So for the downtube location I went with a regular bottle with regular water.

By the time I got to Starbucks to meet the group I was already dripping sweat. I got my usual iced coffee and tried to cool down as more riders filtered in and the sun started to come up. There was already a breeze blowing as the big group finally headed out for the usual warmup spin out to Chef Highway. It got pretty fast pretty quickly. A small group rolled off the front and a minute later the pack started to chase. I was feeling pretty good, but I knew some of that was just because we had a tailwind. I always wonder if the guys at the front understand that if there's a tailwind on the way out it means there will be a headwind on the way back.

On this particular day, a number of the riders doing the damage were on TT bikes, so frankly, I didn't feel like I needed to be spending much time out in the wind myself. The lead group eased up at the end of Hayne, so things mostly came back together, but by then we'd already lost a lot of people. We wouldn't see them again until the turnaround, because once we got to Chef highway the pace went back up for the duration. Actually, it was a good workout. As expected, things slowed down a couple of notches on the way back. Yeah, I drank every drop. A bunch of us stopped at Matt's house just off Robert E. Lee to rehydrate before riding home.

Later in the day we walked down to the monthly crafts fair at Palmer Park. I was so hot that I didn't want to stop walking, so I kind of zipped through looking at the usual stuff on offer and headed home for the comfort of the a/c.

Sunday morning was kind of a repeat of Saturday, except with fewer riders and a slightly slower pace. Fast on the way out, slower on the way back. Everyone seemed pretty wilted by the time we got back, myself included. Typical mid-summer Giro Ride!

When I wasn't riding, I think I spent most of my time last weekend hiding in the air-conditioning.