gthomson

Not sure if this is an age thing or if there are any medical preconditions that I should consider so I'm throwing it out there. i have always been able to exercise in the heat, stay out in the heat (within moderation) and not really have any issues but recently I've been out a few times both riding and just recently a hike in very warm conditions. During the rides I don't feel the heat until after I get home, probably because of the natural fan when riding but during my hike I felt lightheaded and slightly nauseous. Conditions during my hike were high 80's in temp. but feeling more like mid to high 90's with humidity.

i obviously drink water during the ride but perhaps not enough and after a long warm ride, I drink a sports drink to get back the electrolytes. Should I be consuming more or something else?

Carbonfiberboy 

How long was the hike?

gthomson

About 9 KMs or 5.5 miles. It was HOT yesterday and wished I was riding my bike ha ha

Iride01 

I've felt for a long time that dry hot temps will sneak up on you and leave less time to realize you are about to get heat exhaustion than will very humid air. But I see you say it was feeling hotter with more humidity. That does sap your energy quicker I think, but it also should have given you clues to stay well hydrated and warn you sooner that you might be closer to heat exhaustion or worse, heat stroke.

I don't get the same queues to drink water when the air is very dry than when the air is very humid.

I also have been wondering this last year or so if I sweat as much as I use to. Maybe a blessing off the bike, but not so much when on the bike.

gthomson

According to the weather report it was more like 100 with the humidity but the sky was clear and the sun really bright so it felt more like a dry heat but it was fierce. Not FL or AZ heat but still very warm for up here in Sept. That's the other thing I'm noticing these days is I sweat like mad now when it gets warm and I'm doing moderate activity. I've always sweat a decent amount, but it wouldn't trigger until my body got quite warm.

indyfabz

One resident doctor over in the Addition thread in the Road forum says that it is not uncommon for some people to grow less tolerant of hot and/or cold conditions. At 58.5, I seem to be one of those people. I have always sweated profusely, but I would suck it up still have a good time on the bike. Now, when it's hot and, especially humid, I am not likely to go on spirited road ride but rather ride to the park, sit in the shade and do the crossword puzzle. Same with cold. While i never lied riding in the cold because of cold extremities, I used to love gong out for walks in the cold and even walking a couple of miles to work. Indeed, I used to make fun of co-workers who drove every morning and couldn't stand to be outside. On more than one occasion I walked the 2 miles to work in heavy snow and got a kick out of doing so. I don't like the cold weather nearly as much these days. But I will NEVER move to Florida! The one big exception is that I don't mind touring out west during shoulder seasons. I prefer chilly/cool riding to hot riding, and you are generally going slower when you are fully loaded, so wind chill is not as big of an issue, except on descents, bt those often come later in the morning/day, when things have warmed up. I'd much rather do a 15 mile climb when it's 45 degrees than when it's 80 degrees.

pdlamb

Every so often you'll get advice which is totally correct, and totally useless. Like, don't get overheated.

Lon Haldeman made a good point: "Hot" is 10 degrees above what you're used to.

So, 5.5 miles, about a three hour hike. No bike-speed cooling, so I'll presume you were sweating heavily. First question, then, is how much did you drink? I think my gut is pretty normal for water absorption, about a quart of water per hour. Did you drink three quarts?

If you drank less than that, how much do you need to lose in water weight during a bike ride before you feel light-headed? Before and after weigh-ins can be your friend here.

Have you experienced dizziness or vertigo before? Was your path rough, rough enough that you may have been skidding diagonally or sideways? How does that compare to your normal cycling, rough single-track, road riding, or something in between? If you're on medications, what kind?

With more information we may be able to progress beyond "when I get dead drunk I can't walk straight" kinds of idle speculation.

Iride01 

Good point, and I tend to agree with that. I am more careful when cycling to make certain I work into and get used to the new higher temps. Usually 3 to 4 shorter or easier rides seems to get me use to riding hard at those temps with out having to worry about cramps or simply not being able to perform well.

I have a harder time though doing such for other activities. Probably because riding a bike is easier to make into a short ride instead of a long ride at almost any moment. The other activities usually require the beginning, middle and end to happen without any last minute edits.

Calsun

Staying hydrated is important both for cooling with perspiration, and to avoid overloading your heart with thicker blood. But your body's ability to maintain a core temperature under 100 degrees can only be partly done by sweating. Feeling light headed is a red flag and time to stop and let your body cool down. At 102 degrees you are at great risk for a heart attack and dying.

Air temperature and humidity are half the equation as heat reflected back from the pavement also heats your body. Our bodies have a very narrow core temperature range and shivering or sweating can only do so much. People are more inclined to stay warm in cold conditions than to stay cool in very hot conditions. They think they can tough it out and pay the price.

Medications can also play a role as can electrolyte imbalance from ones diet. Magnesium and potassium are the key ones to supplement. Most people consume too much sodium so adding more in a beverage is not advised.

Clyde1820

Some thoughts ...

Is the hiking a rare thing, or a very infrequent thing? If you recently attempted several hikes but haven't been doing much hiking, it might well simply be overloading the effort beyond what your body's been trained to easily handle. Toss in a bit of heat, a bit of increased fluid loss, and it can be a recipe for overheating.

Can try slowing down on such hikes, taking more-frequent breaks, increasing fluid intake. And doing such hikes, albeit for shorter distances, more frequently, until your body shows it's clearly capable of handling such hikes in the conditions.

If it goes on for awhile, perhaps it's a condition that you've now got that you didn't used to have, or age is catching up with you.

Myself, I used to be a distance runner. But it took me a couple of years to ramp-up to the speeds, difficulty and distances I became good at, until my body adjusted. During that period, I occasionally over-did it. With symptoms somewhat like you're describing. Overheating, getting tired, sweating far too heavily or not enough (when it got bad). Ratcheted-back the efforts and slowly kept working up to the goal. After a couple of years I was moving right along ... almost in any weather, conditions, elevations, climbs/flats. For running hard distances, anything over 65ºF warranted some caution; anything over 75-80ºF warranted a cutting of expectations (of performance), boosting of precautions, slowing down, increasing intake, changing the route to something less-demanding, or all of those. Anything 90ºF or above was definitely worth considering doing another activity, as anything out in the heat could sap a body twice as fast (or worse) as compared to a "normal" day. In those temps, it always justified cutting the run by half (or more), at the very least.

A ~6mi hike doesn't sound like much, but in the wrong conditions it can take a lot of effort, consume lots of fluids. Might try a few weeks of 3-4mi hikes, perhaps gradually increasing the amount of weight you carry in a day-pack or ruck-sack. Take lots of fluids, and be sure to head out fully hydrated. At some point, your body will likely adjust and begin telling you it's got plenty left. At which point, you can boost the weight you're carrying and/or add another mile or two. Gradually increase loads, temp, elevation, difficulty, until you're easily able to handle and recover from such frequent hikes.

JohnDThompson 

The symptoms are consistent with dehydration. What color is your urine after riding or hiking?

Bald Paul

I suffered a bout of heat exhaustion several years ago while riding. It was a very hot day (90+) and the course was hilly enough to make me work harder than I should have.
I had a bad habit of not hitting the water bottle often enough.
I was feeling fine, riding along, until I hit one particularly long, fairly steep climb. Suddenly, I felt nauseous, and my legs turned to jelly. I had to find some shade by the side of the road and lay down. I drank two water bottles over the next hour or so, just laying there, until the feeling passed.
Ever since then, it seems like I can get to that point without as much effort on a hot day. I set the alarm reminder in my Garmin to beep and notify me to drink every 10 minutes now. It really helps. I have two large bottles, one filled with water, the other with Gatorade, and I alternate between them. Seems to help.

Calsun

There is the mistaken assumption that all one needs to do is drink enough water to prevent heat stroke. The body has a limited ability to cool itself when the combination of ambient temperatures and reflected heat is great. People that are dying from heat stroke are often doing so while in their homes as we see in urban areas like Chicago.

The 1995 heat wave in Chicago killed more than 700 people, mostly elderly residents in the poorest neighborhoods where air conditioning was either not available or not effective. They did not die from dehydration but from heat that resulted in a core body temperature of 103 degrees or more.

It is important to drink water before it affects the color of your urine. The chart shown exaggerates the amount of water needed and this has been demonstrated in a number of recent studies. Just because someone creates a chart it doe not mean that it is based on scientific research, often quite the opposite.

VegasTriker

We have had people die this summer in both Death Valley NP and Zion NP when they underestimated how much heat they could tolerate. Zion is at higher elevation than Death Valley and generally a nice place to visit in the summer but this summer has been really brutal in the desert southwest. It is pretty easy to get heat exhaustion and if you ignore that get heat stroke which is particularly deadly. The older we become, the less able we are to tolerate heat. Here are the symptoms for heat exhaustion. You might shorten the time spent in the heat or ride early in the day. When it was reaching 110-114 in Las Vegas I only rode right after dawn and kept my rides short enough to get home before the temperatures got too hot.
Heat Exhaustion Symptoms: Heavy sweating, Weakness or tiredness, cool, pale, clammy skin; fast, weak pulse, muscle cramps, dizziness, nausea or vomiting, headache, fainting, First Aid: Move person to a cooler environment, preferably a well air conditioned room. Loosen clothing.

gthomson

All great feedback and a lot to think about which I didn't take into consideration when I was younger. At 55 I'm not old, but older than I was at 45. I definitely did not have enough water on the hike by pdlamb's advice and I was with my wife who is smaller than me so doesn't generate as much heat as I do. Carrying a few more pounds then I should be and I'm on BP pills just recently. I felt a lot of the symptoms mentioned above but to a lesser degree. Slightly light headed, slightly nauseous, etc.. so good thing I didn't go any further. My wife kept looking over at me asking, "are you OK?" Not a good sign.

I also have a bad habit of not drinking enough when I ride and it's because i can't stand warm water. I can barely finish a full bottle as it gets warm about 2 hours in. As for urine colour, on long rides beyond 50 km's I usually won't pee for the rest of the afternoon as I've sweated out every last drop of water in me.

jon c. 

I've enjoyed high heat for most of my adult life. I'm one of only a few folks seen walking my golf course when it's over 90. Suffered heat exhaustion a few times over the years when doing heavy tree cutting/planting/landscaping work in the summer but never had a problem when riding or playing golf. This year for the first time I started having issues developing tension headaches the evening or morning after golf or biking in high heat. I somewhat assume this is at least in part a function of becoming less able to deal with the heat as I've aged. And it has been a bit hotter this year than the last few summers. Hydrating aggressively hasn't proven to be a panacea but it definitely helps. As much as I hate to admit it, I think concessions to aging may sometimes be necessary.

rm -rf

Bike riding in heat is way easier for me than walking or doing chores in similar conditions.
I think its due to:
conditioning for bike riding efforts vs walking ;
cooling airflow! ;
and the ability to coast yet keep moving!

And the water is right at hand. Although I do tend to forget to drink enough at times. I tried setting a 6 minute timer loop on my Garmin, to beep and show "drink", but I often didn't pay enough attention to actually follow through.

gthomson

I'm glad to hear other people mention they experience similar problems and being more susceptible to overheating as we get older. It's new to me so I wondered if there was something wrong with my health. I really like the idea of setting an alarm, when riding, to make sure I have something to drink instead of just waiting for an opportunity to stop the bike and have some water.
Any suggestions on keeping water cold over long rides? ice cubes are obvious and that helps but I find after an hour they are melted. Is there a light weight insulated water bottle out there?

Chuck Naill

I'm sure we don't improve with age, but sadly, the stories of new military recruits and high school football players dying from a combination of heat and activity is common. I also think we need to take it on a day to day consideration. It is not as if we wake each morning having eaten or drank the same.

When I volunteer I work hard intentionally. I've found 2 hours of lifting, pulling, breaking down cardboard and carrying food boxes to be my happy time limit for the weather conditions this Summer. My point is, pay attention and know/accept your limitations. I'm sure this Winter, I will be able to last longer.

pdlamb

Polar insulated water bottles, Camelback also makes some. IME the ice melts after two hours, but I should have drunk it all by then. Time to stop at a convenience store if you're near one, fill the bottles with ice from the soda fountain and buy a liter of water -- the clerks are usually happy with that.

You can also use a hydration pack, fill the bladder with ice then top up with water. That's usually good for 3-4 hours IME.