Acclimatizing

One of my goals this year is to race the district raid championships in Bakersfield. It's on June 1st and the start time is 10:00 am. It will be hot - no doubt about it, and the course has lots of climbing. I've never done well with climbing in the heat. There's something about 90+ and climbing that tends to leave me on the side of the road seeing spots and pouring water over my head to stave off heat exhaustion. So on Sunday I thought I'd better start getting myself at least mentally prepared for this. I left SLO at 10:00 on an already warm morning and headed to the north county where I knew it would be high 90s by the time the ride was over. It was and I suffered, but I managed to tough it out. I never completely cracked, but rather had to slow at times to keep it together. I stopped in Santa Margarita about 12 miles out from home for a coke to cool off, and went into the bathroom to fill my water bottles. I looked a horror - beet red and sheeted with sweat. It must have grossed out the other patrons in the cafe, but I just didn't care. I'm going to repeat on my long rides for the next three weeks leading to the championships and see if it helps. It certainly can't hurt.