There was a very short and very steep hill about 1.5 miles into my ride today. I have had to walk up that hill in the past, but today I finally was able to ride up the hill. I both sat and stood up to climb up the hill. (I am working on learning to stand up for some of the steeper hills -- it seems to help increase my average speed.)

But today, OMG, during that climb I got the worst pain in my head. It felt like my brain exploded!. It was so awful I wanted to get off the bike and cry, but decided to continue on anyway hoping it might go away. (As usual my books as usual were overdue and I wanted to go the library.) I continued on and 6 minutes later it was as if I never had any head pain at all and the rest of my ride was very enjoyable.

My ride was 19 miles long. On the way home around 12 miles and 16 miles there are two steep hills that are almost identical to the one I got the head pain from, yet I didn't have any problem when I rode up those hills.

I drank 12 oz of an energy drink (Rockstar) right before I left. At 6 miles I drank 12 oz of Gatorade. At 13 miles I drank 20 oz of an electrolyte drink. I didn't have anything to eat, but did fine.

So what caused that awful head pain? The energy drink? If it was, could the energy used climbing that hill drained the energy drink out of my system?

How can I prevent head pain from that from ever happening again?

I have a headache right now, but I get ones like this one quite frequently so it's not unusual. I have gone to many doctors regarding this but no one has ever found anything wrong. I just take some Ibuprofen and it goes away.

Kathy