I started riding in the preparation rides and was able to finish all but one. \u00a0Of course these rides occur in the heat of summer. \u00a0I had purchased bigger and bigger bottles plus multiple water bottles holders and always struggled to get enough water inside me. \u00a0During one of these rides in the hot August month, I started getting chills. \u00a0Chills? \u00a0The temperature was in the 90’s and I was cold? \u00a0I thought that was very odd. \u00a0I felt fine except for shivering. \u00a0I thought it was odd enough that \u00a0I stopped at a volunteer water spot and told someone that I was having chills. \u00a0(Volunteers along the route provide water and expertise in medical situations.) \u00a0 Immediately I was told to sit down and someone plastered me with ice bags. Whoo! \u00a0 I was given a water bottle to drink and then another. \u00a0After a while I felt good enough to let a sag wagon take me back to my car. \u00a0(If you sag, you get to ride the sag wagon-a volunteer car that carries non-finishers back to their car.)\u00a0I had to lay in bed the rest of the day with my eyes glued shut, the blinds down and suffered from a headache and dizziness.<\/p>\n
I had suffered heat exhaustion! \u00a0I hate heat exhaustion!<\/p>\n
After that, I found the perfect solution to keeping hydrated, a\u00a0camelbak water container<\/a>. \u00a0It’s a long plastic bag filled with water that you wear as a backpack. \u00a0There’s a tube that you clamp to the top of your shirt and that’s how you suck the water into your body. \u00a0One hand or no hand and you are sucking water into your thirsty body. \u00a0You chill the water at home before the ride and you have a nice cool spot on your back. \u00a0Not only do you have water, but it keeps your core temperature down for a while. \u00a0This is one of the best inventions ever for bike riding!<\/p>\n Later in the summer, I discovered the Katy Trail. \u00a0Missouri is taking abandoned railroad beds and making trails to cover the east coast of Missouri to the west coast of Missouri. \u00a0That’s the plan. \u00a0At the time, the nearest Katy Trail was in Sedalia. \u00a0I would drive to Sedalia (fifty miles), get my bike out, ride a number of miles to the end of the trail and back. \u00a0Then \u00a0drive back to Kansas City (fifty miles). \u00a0It was far ways far to call for spouse-back-up if things went wrong. Also there was nothing that could be done if a stray thunderstorm occurred while you rode along. I got to enjoy one of those during my infatuation with the Katy Trail. There was no way to make the miles “from” lesser than the miles “to” (roundtrip). I also learned that hills are to be enjoyed rather than hated. \u00a0There are no hills on the Katy Trail so you have to pedal every single foot of the trail. \u00a0There’s no rest “coasting”.<\/p>\n I was biking along the Katy Trail. \u00a0I had made it to the end of the route and was on the way back to Sedalia. \u00a0I was exhausted. \u00a0I rode into a small town with a park. \u00a0It had picnic tables. \u00a0I got off my bike and staggered to a picnic table and sprawled on the top. \u00a0I must have looked bad because a nice couple came over and wondered if I was ill. \u00a0I agreed that I was near death. \u00a0They offered to take me back to the start of the route. \u00a0They looked innocent. \u00a0I was wondering about dying on top of a picnic table. \u00a0I accepted their offer. They delivered me and the bike back to Sedalia. Thank God for good people!<\/p>\n The first MS 150 ride started in Kansas City and went east. \u00a0We rode the black top back roads. \u00a0I made it in fine style. \u00a0I had no problems. \u00a0My spouse served the ride by driving and picking up riders that couldn’t make the ride. \u00a0He was a sag wagon. \u00a0He was busy during the day. \u00a0One guy lost control of his bike and dove head first into a drainage pipe. \u00a0He survived. \u00a0The people that didn’t make it had equipment problems or got sick from lack of practice miles. \u00a0I made it and celebrated about a week after riding into the finish line. I still have my MS 150 medal. That was a triumph for fitness! \u00a0I was also a size less in those tight black bike pants! \u00a0YAY!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kansas City has a huge bike charity event called the MS 150. MS 150 stands for “ride a 150 miles over a September weekend and raise money for Muscular Dystrophy”. \u00a0The people who volunteer for this event are legion wide. \u00a0There are practice bike rides throughout the summer to help you get prepared to ride the MS 150. \u00a0 Often times the rides have their own T-shirts so you start collecting some mighty fine T shirts to show the miles you have ridden. There are MS 150 rides in different…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[105],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-biking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2698"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2794,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2698\/revisions\/2794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/MS150-225x300.jpg\" "\\"MS150\\"")
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