riding into the heat of july

[emily_in_nc]

I've been away for awhile because my laptop died. I am back now. :-) During the time I was off-line, I did several rides. One was a very hot, hilly ride in the rural Iowa countryside (near Elkhorn) where I think I bonked. We had a rest stop at the top of a hill (in full sunshine) near the end of the ride (which was only 30 miles total but difficult because of the hills). When I stopped, I felt faint and nauseous and had to sit down awhile. I couldn't eat anything but did get some water down.

After the ride, I felt really off for about an hour. I had to sit down in the shower, I felt so light-headed and nauseous. I have hardly ever had anything like this happen, so it was quite strange. I did manage to eat a good lunch and drink a lot of water, and an hour or two later, I felt perfectly normal. It was really unpleasant, though.

The last two rides have been more utilitarian. The first was to pick up my new laptop at Walmart, and the second was to take our clothes to a laundromat. We are staying in a lovely campground about 10 miles from town, and the way there is about half bike path, half road. Very beautiful area (southern Minnesota and northern Iowa). After getting through two nights of helacious thunderstorms with high winds (very scary!) we are now having cool, sunny, breezy, and low humidity days and downright chilly nights (to me, anyway, 50s!) You just can't ask for better in July!

Here are a couple of photos from recent rides.

This first one is of my DH on the ride I bonked on:
Attachment 18080

And he took this one right before I had to sit down because I felt faint and nauseous. The photo is kind of nice, though!


Here's part of the bike trail near our campground we've been riding on lately: