I did a 57-mile club ride yesterday in Fauquier County, VA, which is a rural area southwest of DC. Joe Dombrowski (Team Sky racer) is from this area. It was warm and humid, strong sun in the beginning, but then clouds rolled in and it got windy as a front approached. We started to see rain clouds nearby during the last hour or so, but it was an isolated shower that stayed north of us.

I had major contact lens problems about halfway through the ride, caused by the headwinds. My eyes got really dry, I put drops in them, then the right lens shifted way up high inside my eye. I had to ride that way for about half an hour until we reached a rest stop with a bathroom so I could wash my hands, remove the lens and put it back in my eye. At first I couldn't get the lens out, and for a few seconds I thought maybe it had fallen out and I'd lost it, but I put more drops in and that helped the lens shift down to where I could remove it, put more drops on it and put it back in my eye. After that it was fine.

I've had similar problems a few times this spring, and once one of the lenses popped out of my eye and I had to stop, take it off my face with my finger, get my half-finger gloves off, get the drops out of my top tube bag and remove the cap, put drops on the lens and get it back into my eye, all while standing on a rail trail trying to keep the wind from blowing the lens away.

I think the Patanol antihistamine eye drops that get me through pollen season are having a drying effect on my eyes, especially when I'm in a area with certain trees that I'm allergic to. The problem only seems to happen in certain places, and it's happened twice in the same part of southern Maryland. Since we're a week into June and tree pollen levels are lower, I'm going to stop using the Patanol and hopefully that will help the dry eye problem. When it's not pollen season, I usually put Blink drops in my eyes when I first wake up if it's very early in the morning (which usually only happens if I'm heading out for a long bike ride) because my eyes tend to be dry on those days. Anyway I hope the problem goes away now.