hotter.

Well, the threat of rain has subsided for the weekend and has been replaced with temps in the mid 90's. Crazy hot. Riding on the face of the sun hot. From weather.com: "THE COMBINATION OF THE INTENSE HEAT AND HUMIDITY SATURDAY AFTERNOON WILL RESULT IN HEAT INDEX VALUES OF AROUND 100 TO 105 DEGREES." Well, at least it's not 50 degrees and raining. Given my experience with heat sickness at Bradbury, I'm certainly wary of the heat, yet also smarter about it - as i've had good races in the heat - and bad. Learned some good lessons past 2 years. The only thing I wished I'd tried was a water-retention tool, such as Liquid Endurance from Hammer Products. Maybe next time i do a solo 24 and it's 95 degrees i'll give it a go, but for now, it's a mix of old-school and new-school solutions. In the past, I've avoided a lot of the endurance fuel and replacement products as they have whey in them... but i've found a couple things to try... nothing like testing-out a new fueling plan during a race, but at the same time, it's hard to test what will happen to you at hour 12 or 18 without actually riding for 12 or 18 hours. Would also like to find an electrolyte replacement product that doesn't have whey or processed sugars - and isn't a powder to be added to water. Just the minerals please.

This week I decided to keep to my normal rutine, am at work today - and will be packing-up most of the gear this afternoon. Jenn's been on fire, taking care of many details, creating shopping lists (and then grocery shopping for me/us at like 7am!). Since my brain function is slowly deteriorating as race time approaches, she's also just keeping me together. Talking to Andy, Darrel, Rob is solid too, as those guys know what's up and that I'm ready - and sometimes all you need to hear is that you're ready. I'm ready.