It's not the heat...

It's the humidity.

This is from the weather history for Little Rock yesterday

Temperature:
Mean Temperature.....85 °F
Max Temperature......95 °F
Min Temperature......74 °F

Moisture:
Dew Point............72 °F
Average Humidity.....65
Maximum Humidity.....94
Minimum Humidity.....36

Then I went to this other cool website to calculate the Heat Index, which has this to say about Heat Index:

What Is Heat Index?
Heat index (HI) is sometimes referred to as the "apparent Temperature". The HI, given in degrees F, is a measure of how hot it feels when relative humidity (RH) is added to the actual air temperature.

The following equation approximates the heat index. There are many assumptions made to produce this, far too many to list here. The equation was obtained by multiple regression analysis and there is a ±1.3 degree °F error.

HI = -42.379 + 2.04901523T + 10.14333127R - 0.22475541TR - 6.83783x10 -3 T 2 - 5.481717x10 -2 R 2 + 1.22874x10 -3 T 2R + 8.5282x10 -4 TR 2 - 1.99x10 -6 T 2 R 2

where

T = ambient dry bulb temperature degrees Fahrenheit
R = relative humidity

Yeah... whatever. More importantly there was a calculator that you could plug in the numbers, click on the "Calculate HI" and it magically gave you the Heat Index. The answer was an invigorating 103 degrees.

Take that 103 degrees and place yourself in some hilly woods. Let's add a little more by imagining there's a breeze, but you can't feel it. You're almost there: you are hot, it's humid, there's no breeze. Are you drenched in sweat yet? No? How about one more little thing to make the experience complete, 1.5 - 2 hours of physical exertion! Sounds like fun, huh?

There were about 10 of us that ended up making the trip from Texas for the 3 Legged Dawg race in Little Rock. While just surviving the heat/humidity seemed to be a major accomplishment, most of the group made it to the podium.

It was a fun trail and except for the added misery brought on by the high Heat Index issue it was a fun race. I'm glad we made the last minute decision to go, just wish we had a portable a/c unit to mount on the bike.

Planning? Who needs planning?

8:51pm Friday - decision is made to drive to Arkansas for a mountain bike race.

Spur of the moment non-planning rocks. Gotta go pack.

Hmmm, I may know someone like this

Time to catch up

Let's see... what kind of exciting things have I been doing lately?

The AJ and I road tripped to Alabama for the Bump & Grind race, which this year was part of the UCI US Cup Mountain Bike Race Series. It's amazing that in the 9 hours it takes us to drive west to Terlingua, TX we can drive east on I-20 and leave Texas, drive through Louisiana, Mississippi and half-way through Alabama... but I digress. We are joined by Claire from Austin for the drive and weekend of racing.

This is my third trip to Oak Mountain

and my second attempt at the race, which is a twice around a measly 17 mile loop that includes 600' of climbing in about 3 miles. The first year I passed on the racing as the distance and Open Women's class didn't sound too appealing. Last year I lined up, but shamefully didn't finish the race. This year was my chance to redeem myself. Although it was still an Open class (all Cat 1 women 19+ race together), I wanted to finish what I started and get up that climb both laps.

The day before the race we did some driving around Birmingham and found a neat little neighborhood on the side of a hill. How would you like this for your driveway?
You can see the roof of the house hiding in the trees next to the trash can.

We also found a nice collection of cars in the parking lot of the mall








My race was more of a ride (Claire kicked butt, winning the Open Women race), but I did finish and did not have the slowest two lap time (hey - gotta go for the little victories). While I did have some mechanical issues with my chain (thanks to a combination of sand and water) I did ride up most of the Red Road climb. I think I could have made it to the top if the chain had not given me problems. "Proof" I was there, as was The AJ.

After our race we stayed to watch the Pro race, which was made all the more exciting as we knew 4 of the Pro men racing. To add an extra dose of excitement, two of our friends were racing single-speed bikes.

Mitch finished in the top 3rd of the Pro Men, and Will was right there with him until he flatted towards the end of the race.

As a parting note, it's important to color coordinate your polish and helmet straps

Too bad I don't have the SUV that completes the ensemble

Blogger blues

There are words to be written and pictures to be posted, but time seems to be spent other ways.

So... until I find some time here's something to ponder:



How much are you willing to spend on a McChicken?