lots of people melted
hopefully no one suffereed serious medical issues because of it...
racing in the heat is never easy. esp on the MTB when speeds are slower than on the road and you're often in the trees with less of a breeze or out on a trail/rock section with little direct shade but enough vegitation to keep the air still and hot. Freddie has remarked a few times how nice it is to ride the road when it gets really hot. At least there's some air moving.
Waterlogged... classic signs of everything everyone did wrong to prep for the heat.
So many things to deal with in the heat. Drinking water is actually the least important.
One small bottle of V8 juice would probably do everyone a hell of a lot more good than two or three liters of water or drink mix. V8/Tomato are one of the few beverages that are isotonic. Won't dehydrate you further when you drink it.
Even the hyper-hydration mix from Skractch is hypotonic. But that said until you hit the ultimate extreme your body can tolerate the difference. But those extremes mean different things for different people.
Your individual level of heat stress tolerance. I think core body temp is a much more important thing to focus on than hydration and drinking. The TTs are short but 20 min at max HRM in 100+F and sun isn't easy, but cooling down with ice before and most importantly after does more for recovery and reducing heat stress than drinking water. Hydrating with icey slurry can be helpful if you don't get a brain freeze.
Everyone is different. I deal with heat stress differently than most due to high surface area, that said my BMI is still no where near skinny, mostly due to leg mass, and I've found it is very difficult to cool the legs down, but it is still more important to cool the head and core body down than the legs. But once the legs are hot, the high muscle density and increased blood flow will continue to heat up the core unless you're actively shedding heat.
Hydration is imortant, salt tablets help make fluids coming in more isotonic, and many people swear by them, it makes it palatable to have a near isotonic solution in your stomach/intestines. Plenty of people can't even drink V8/tomato juice when they aren't at a cramping heatstroke level of fatigue/stress.
No I didn't do the barn burner, but I got up at 5am and was on the bike at 5:30. It wasn't that warm yet, but I carried two 22oz bottles of coffee, and uncharacteristically I stuffed a short waterbottle of water in an empty jersey pocket. When Bettridge got his flat I gave him a couple good handfuls of water out of that bottle to wash the stans off his hands. And I still had water left in it when I got home.
I still think most people drink too much, and the fear of dehydration is far less of a performance detrimint than coaches and "nutritionists" make it out to be. Core temp? that is scary, I know I do much better when I can lose the excess heat easily than when it just builds up.
Other factors that are critical to pay attention to when it is that hot out? clothing choices. Dark fabrics should be avoided. And fabrics that stay wet longer (dry more slowly) can provide a cooling benefit vs the better wickking stuff, but slower evaporation also means less cooling and more of a chance for the fabric to just get hot and make it worse.
One other factor people don't think so much about: sunscreen. And how coating up the body with it can impact the skin's ability to cool. Yes, skin cancer sucks, sun burns suck, but people have different reactions and successes with different products. Best to experiement and find one that allows full sweat potential and cooling.
The couple days leading up to an event are important, but not as critical if you are well adapted. Get a job working in the back of a building, one without any windows or doors in the back half and one w/o any AC. Spending 6-8 hours with sweat pouring in rivers off your back and down your asscrack is a good way to maximise sweat and get used to it. Or working on a roof, or putting up sheetrock in an old building w/o AC, that's always fun.
I know what works for me and, drinking a ton immediately after never works well. Or drinking a ton of hypotonic solution in the middle because i'm sweating a ton and am worried about dehydrating or I feel a headache coming on usually doesn't work/makes it worse. And scientifically makes sense.
Under non-stress conditions urine color can be helpful but after intense heat exercise there's a lot of bad shit being pumped into the blood stream that the kidneys have to filter out, and well... that can help mis-interpret unrine color as an indicator of hydration.
And that's the big problem. Hyponatremia has nearly identical symptoms as dehydration, except they are worse, far worse the further you go down the list:
Kind of like people eating a low fat diet following "advice" to avoid eggs and butter and saturated fats and eat sugary sweet fat free yogurt and be healthy. Skim milk for the win.
Heat adapt, watch what fluids you take in and how many, a bottle of ice water might actually do you a shit ton more good being dumped over your head than poured down your throat.
be safe, don't be dumb, have fun... stay cool
heddwch
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