Can I sleep now?

Thank heavens the tour is over.

I'm going to miss the tour.

~~~

In preparation for Livermore Hills, I did a few easy sprints on Friday afternoon. I have been working out fairly regularly in the 90+ temps of Morgan Hill. I thought I had acclimatized.

But those Friday sprints in 107 degree heat told me another story. I was overheated and ill from a mere few moments of high efforts. How in the word could I possibly race in it?

107 is too god damn hot to be exercising in. Exercising in that kind of heat is just plain irresponsible.

So when I came home I told Michael of my 107 experience and how I thought that racing in high heat was foolish. I had hoped he would caution me against racing in such silly conditions. Instead, his response was an unsympathetic, "yeah its going to be hot"

Uh...thanks for that.

In the morning I tried one last time to squirm out of it. But Michael threw out the ploy he knew would get me out of bed and to the races. "Bunny wants to race it".

Hmmph.

So as the boys sipped coffee while watching the tour and generally lounging about all lazy like under the temperate redwoods, Bunny and I loaded a cooler of water and ice into the Toaster and headed straight for the furnace of hell.

Somewhere in the drive Bunny revealed that she too admitted her concerns about the race to Jeff, and that he too was unsympathetic and encouraged her to race. But by now we were almost in Livermore in a car loaded with bikes and ice, so we resigned ourselves to our fate.

We registered, we changed, and we sat in the air conditioned car until race start. No need to warm up when you are about to jump into a furnace.

I lasted two laps before calling it quits. I didn't feel bad, or dizzy, or dehydrated. I just felt really really hot and a bit silly for thinking I would feel otherwise.

Bunny succumbed to the heat too. And within an hour of starting our race, we were where we were before the race: sitting in the car with the AC blasting wondering what the hell we were doing there.

As we were wondering this, my phone rang. The caller id said it was Michael. Why would he call when we were supposed to be out racing?

"honey", I told him. "Its too hot."
"I knowwww" he replied ever so sympathetically, "you two are crazy for racing in this kind of heat"

Excuse me?
We're what?


(Livermore reached 114 degrees on Saturday, breaking a record of 109 set way back in 1906.)