Over these past few weeks I've been able to ride in the heat thanks to some hard lessons that I've learned in the past about avoiding dehydration, getting enough salt, taking breaks to cool down. But on two different days I rode more miles than I wanted, more than I knew I should have, because I was with people who wanted to do longer rides and are not as affected by the heat as I am. I've paid the price after each ride with heat rash followed by several days of hives -- an autoimmune flare-up. From now on I will really have to stick to my own plan and do shorter rides in this type of weather, regardless of what others want to do. Hopefully there will be situations where I can just take a short cut and then wait for others to catch up so I don't end up having to ride alone.

Anyway now that I've learned the lesson, the current heat wave is almost over. It will still be hot but should not be as bad.

The weird thing is that even with all the planning and strategizing and getting up early to deal with riding in the hot sun, I still have this feeling in the back of my mind that the cold weather will be back any day now, with tights and booties and extra layers and unrelenting cold feet. It's not true, we'll have a couple more months before it starts to get cold again, but I can't shake the feeling that summer will be gone in a heartbeat and winter cold is imminent. Maybe I need to get out of the air conditioning more...