Dehydration Science Project in Palm Springs

My friend Joe and I did a 101 mile bicycle ride today called the Tour de Palm Springs. In the cycling world, these are referred to as “centuries”. Because I am planning on doing a few Ironman triathlon races this year it is important to do some cycling training.  And since I never have enough time to train like real athletes do, I devise foolish schemes to enhance my endurance and ability to suffer through such fun.

It was a fairly hot day, I’m guessing it had to be in the 80’s.  I have never been on a century and seen more flat tires.  Literally hundreds of people got flats.  A group of 10 of us got lost while my friend Joe was leading the pack.  My excuse was that I was dehydrated.  So our distance ended up being about 107 miles.

How did I enhance the suffer factor you might ask?  I did the entire race without any liquids.  During this kind of science project one learns to maximize finite resources, e.g., various fluid conservation tricks.  The mental determination to ride the last few miles while staring at my unloved water bottles – without taking a swig – took unusual levels of determination.  This is not a training tip, don’t ever try this.

Comments

[Andy M-S]

I got here via the story on NPR today (10 Mar) but noticed the suffering here. First, congrats on your first century. Second, what was your time :-) ? Third, skipping water can hurt. I'm not with the forced liquids school, but!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch--the anonymizing stuff is interesting. I'll be poking around to see if I can learn a few things. Are you a reader of the RISKS list, by any chance?

[Marcia Guthrie]

The next time that you ride through the San Luis Obispo area why don't you give your first of many ex-wives a call, maybe we'll have time for lunch.
Marcia