Today was hot. And North Carolina hot is a special kind of hot. You could crunch the numbers as far as temperature and humidity are concerned but it doesn't seem to really tell the story. Chris, Jay and I headed out in the earlier morning hours to rendezvous with the Chapel Hill P ride and already the mercury was rising. I don't know that it ever got over 85 but between the wind and mugginess it felt like I had concrete in my shoes after just a few miles. I'm sure we're all familiar with what it is like to ride into a head wind (it sucks), but at least it can sometimes provide a cooling sensation (especially when one's jersey is unzipped).
Not today, and the already saturated air made sure that and sweat produced by one's body went nowhere, which brings me to my minor epiphany and bear with my quasi-lame sales pitch.
In our present day awareness of man's impact on the environment it no surprise that responsible consumption is more and more important. Shop at your farmer's market, support you local bike shop and (this is the new part) eat MAN SALT. Seriously, I must have brushed off at least a table spoon or two after three or four hours in the saddle. Where did all that salt end up? Down the drain! Somewhere there's an Indian shedding a single tear while baby seals fist fight.
For real, someone needs to get on this.
Handle Pipes and Knee Tubes
3 days ago
2 comments:
After the man juice, cometh the man salt. So was it, so is it, and so it shall be.
Oh sure, "man salt," I can just see how this one's going to play out. At first, yeah, it's all green and recycle-y and everybody's sprinkling it on the organic arugula they got from the farmer's market, but soon it starts to catch on and the local spandex crowd can't meet demand. Next thing you know, boom, it's gone overseas and a twelve-year-old Indian kid in a sweatshop, and I mean REAL sweatshop, is pedaling his heart out on a trainer while steel pans (made by Halliburton, natch) collect his droplets and feed them to the distillery. Sounds like a cool idea at first, but YOU sir, are the forefront of capital's global conquest. For shame.
-- awkward seg --
The big encrustations stop after a few weeks of acclimatization. One of the body's adaptations to greater sweat production is that it lowers the salt content to avoid hyponatremia. I can dig up the PUBMED links if you're curious.
Post a Comment