I mentioned a while back that I have a problem riding out on cold windy days. Seriously, it's not the cold that usually gets me, but the dehydration from nearly zero humidity and the wind. This week the weather was nice - highs in the mid-upper 70's, with lows in the 50-60's. Cold is something that I build up tolerance to, so even if today was not the coldest day, it was quite a shocker to go out this morning - 32 degrees, 20-25+ mph winds kicking up, and extremely low humidity. Just as my body was used to spring - no fair!
Before I went out to ride, I did some things to prepare. I moisturized my face as normal...waited about 20 minutes for the moisture to sink in and re-moisturized. Somewhere I read that makeup actually "seals-in' moisture, so what the heck: liquid foundation and powder. Then, in addition to the normal morning coffee, I drank a full pint of water, even though I didn't really feel thirsty. Then I lip-balmed and used the moisturizing eye drops and went out. What a difference! I'm sure the biggest part of the improvement is from the moisturizing eye drops. But, not only did my eyes not get dried out, my face didn't really get chapped. And, another improvement was that I didn't come in with the muscle-ache I usually have from riding on cold, low-humidity, very windy days. I suspect that comes from dehydration, so maybe drinking that bottle of water before I went out accounts for that...? I didn't have any problem with the cold - it's easy enough to layer polar-fleece to fix that. And, I know that 32 degrees (probably 40 when I came in) doesn't exactly qualify as bitter cold, but the extremely low humidity and high winds would normally have done me in. But, not today! I got in a nice ride on Brunka and then on Saga, and I might even go out and ride another horse. Karen Thomas [EMAIL PROTECTED]
