bleah, I just spent the day mildly dehydrated. it's been a while. i used to dehydrate all the time, and whenever I did, the first thing that went was the mental capability to realize or recognize I was dehydrating and all I needed to do was drink something. story of my life. but I used to hate drinking water, which of course contributed to the dehydration in the first place, and then didn't aid in the recovery, for which I'd use Diet Pepsi or Mountain Dew. Mm-mm, all that sugar. That stuff just made me more thirsty so then I'd be hopped up on sugar.

I left the apartment planning to just go to Amoeba, so I didn't think about hydration or taking a water bottle. Then I spontaneously decided to go to Amoeba via Twin Peaks via Market St. hill. So there I'm doing 1000' of climbing on my heavy B-bike, without having hydrated, without having really fueled up, wearing a black denim jacket (the sun had come out), but at least I was wearing shorts to minimize overheating, which I was sort of expecting. There's the indication right there that I was already dehydrated. "I know I'm gonna overheat, but I'm gonna climb every mountain anyway".

Judgment not exactly in the house, I got to the top of Market St., rode the flat section to the road leading up to Twin Peaks, and turned right for the final push. But as I made the right turn, I noticed another cyclist, decked out in full cycling garb, waiting for the light to turn left onto the same road, presumably to ride up to the top. My assumption was that he would pass me, I even thought that when he did, I would turn around and head back down, hey, I've been sucking on climbs all year. But dumb male ego made me go, "Well, I ain't going down without a fight".

I've been pretty lackluster all evening and it finally occurred to me that I was kinda thirsty, drank a tall glass of orange juice, followed by a tall glass of cranbury juice, followed by two tall glasses of water, and as I was sucking down a beer I realized that I had been dehydrated all this time. I'm not sure what the moral of this story is. Don't go out for three hour cruises.

And that guy didn't catch me on Twin Peaks. In fact, judging by the time he rolled in at the top, he couldn't have been going any faster than I was.