A Most Unusual Bicycle Race

Yesterday evening I participated in a bicycle race.

The course started at the intersection of Eastern Parkway and Willow Ave, from whence we bold racer types ventured forth at varying rates of speed (some of us faster, others more leisurely), looped through Cherokee Park, and then ... returned to the starting point after but one lap.

Perhaps the most shocking revelation is that nobody wore a helmet!  Not at all!  And I never saw a single paceline.

Oh, and did I mention that we weren't on bicycles, either?

In fact, based on the clothing and shoe styles of my fellow racers, I suspect that the race in question may not actually have been a bicycle race at all.  It may have, in fact, been (GASP!) a foot race.  You know, one of those running things, that runners do, without bicycles at all!  (At least a couple of people who rode to the start, though.)

...

Okay, okay.  All joking aside, last night I joined my friend Brian from Charter and Republic and Muay Thai along with some of his friends from MT/MMA as well (either from Eric Haycraft's gym or Core Combat Sports) and took part in the Fleet Feet Fiesta 3K.

I wasn't actually entirely sure I remembered how to run, but I try not to let potentially being laughably bad at something stop me (after all, I had spent like all of 3 hours in my life on the 'cross course prior to King's Cross last year, and this year entered that short track race even though I almost never ride singletrack and so forth; I also insist on wading into games of Monopoly and the like even though I am a terrible, terrible strategist).  I was very concerned that I might have trouble figuring out the shifting mechanisms of my running shoes.  Once I realized that my running shoes are single-speed (apparently, the speed in question is "middling"), I felt much better.

When I arrived to register, I was intimidated by many of my fellow races, who appeared in actual running apparel, while I sported my favorite IU shirt and some grey gym shorts over my non-cycling compression shorts.  However, the three other guys in my group also arrived in comfortingly non-technical apparel, and I felt better:

(Image totally ganked from Angie Staley's facebook!

...Also, Denis didn't run. 
And the third guy in our group isn't in this shot because he wasn't there yet.)

The ladies, as you can see, put more effort into looking 'runner-esque.'

Prior to the start, I was a bit concerned about the possibility of simply having to collapse by the side of the road somewhere, what with the whole recovering from mono thing.  That fear did not come to pass.  During the race, I also became concerned -- due to a pain in my side -- that my spleen might be trying to explode.  However, I decided that it might just be one of those things they call a 'stitch,' and that if it didn't get worse, I probably wouldn't die: it didn't; I didn't. 

While I did sleep like the King of All Babies last night, and am feeling a hair on the loafy side today (though, bizarrely, some part of me wants to go running again) I did not find myself to be inordinately tired during the race, except during the first 1/3 of the second of the two major climbs, which was up Dog Hill in Cherokee Park.  Knowing that I could climb that hill no sweat on my bike, however, made it psychologically much easier than it could have been, as did knowing the landmarks of the climb intimately (oh, look, it's that one tree!  It gets flatter from here out!). 

Moreover, I managed to avoid totally flubbing up the whole running part, though I did trip over my own feet a couple of times.  Most importantly, I did not fall while cornering or crash out the group.  I'm not sure if that happens much in running events, but it seemed like a reasonable possibility in this one, since we were running in the dark and there were monster power-climber dudes with strollers, one of whom passed everyone in the that group I started with, much to our collective humiliation and awe.

During the race, I learned a few things:

1. Brian Darlage is faster than I am.
   
2. Cycling and running use completely difference muscle groups.  Really.  They're not just saying that on all those websites that talk about the importance of cross-training because they hate you and they want you to suffer.  Okay, well, they do hate you, and want you to suffer -- but it's also true.
   
3. I have not run any distance in a really long time, and as such my running muscles are ... um ... pathetic might actually be the technical term.  Seriously.  My butt hurts.  What's that about?  And don't even get me started on my hip flexors.
   
4. Nonetheless, I am still quite capable of mostly-running a distance of 5 kilometers (that's roughly 3.5 miles) on a hilly course.  When I'm struggling, I use a trick I learned from the join-the-Air-Force-workout (long story): I count strides.  I run for 200 - 300 strides, then walk for 50 - 150 (the most I was willing to allow myself to walk last night was 150 strides). 
   
   This method yields a really neat psychological trick: say you're pushing up a hill, going for 200 strides, but your legs are screaming bloody murder at you.  If you can get to 50, you know you can get to 60.  Once you hit 60, you can easily get to 100 -- and it would be shameful and embarassing not to make it to 100, once you've hit 60.  Once you hit 100, if you click on over to 110, you're pretty close to 150 ... and so forth.  You can actually do this almost indefinitely.  After a while, in fact, it becomes largely automatic, and there's usually a period in the middle of the run during which the pain goes away and you feel awesome for a while.
   
   For the record, I do this on the bike, too, though rarely.  When I'm feeling cooked but working to catch some bunny who is blissfully gliding along in his big ring and doesn't even know some fat idiot is trying to catch him, or when I'm riding hill repeats in Cherokee Park and absolutely refuse to slow down as I approach the top of a climb, I'll count my cadence.
   
   Sometimes I even count out loud -- except I only count off every tenth stride, and I count by tens (because I can do that without losing my place).  It must be very strange to be passed by some dude shuffling along and occasionally exclaiming, "Seventeen! .... Eighteen! ... Twenty!"
   
5. 90% of athletic success really is simply finding some way to ignore your body when it whines about stuff.  The other 10% is learning when you should actually listen.
   
6. Running is harder than cycling.  At least, for me, right now, running is harder than riding the bike.  Yes, I said it.  I meant it.  I won't say this race was as hard as King's Cross, but it was tough.  I suppose I could have made it less tough by walking more.  Walking -- which I can do literally all day -- is not harder than cycling.  Unless you are carrying like 5 gallons of water or whatever on top of your head, in which case it is probably harder, after all.
   
7. Beer tastes just as good after a foot race as it does after a bike race.  Food, likewise, tastes just as good after a foot race as it does after a bike race: which is to say, I don't really bother with tasting it while I'm shoving it down my gullet :)

Oddly enough, I do think I will probably do this 'running' thing some more.  If only because, you know, you have to run in cyclocross, so I might as well get better at it, right?  (Ahem.)

That said, I draw the line at any kind of formalized swimming.  I love swimming, but the minute one adds 'swimming' to one's menu of cycling and running, one veers dangerously in the direction of the triathlon.



PS: My finishing time was about 41 minutes, 42 seconds or thereabouts.  Apparently, not too shabby for someone who doesn't run like, at all, ever.  I was probably faster back in the day when I used to actually run, but I never ran an actual race back then, so this counts as both my fastest and my slowest 5K time ever!

Goals, and Some Complex Thoughts About Medical Stuff

I've been putzing around with my goals all year, and I don't think I've achieved any of them yet.  The fact that some of them can't be achieved until at least September, anyway, may have something to do with that -- but that doesn't mean that thinking about them a bit more doesn't make at least some sense.

Thus, here I am, thinking about my goals.

What it boils down to is this: I'm not actually all that good at setting goals.  My goals tend to be either too vague, too specific, too pessimistic, or too optimistic.

My non-racing goals, at least, make sense: going out on more sociable group rides is a great idea, and I've actually been following through on that one and enjoying it.  My racing goals, however, could use a little work.

Last year, I set exactly one goal for 'cross season: finish at least one race.  I achieved that goal.

This year, I started by setting the rather vague goal of 'finish better.'

The thing about that goal is that it doesn't give me anything really specific to go on.  Goals, in this context, are useful insofar as they help you design a program to achieve them.  'Finish better' isn't very helpful.

As such, I'm updating my 'cross season goal.  Here it is:

1. Finish Cat 4 races within time constraints (preferably less 5 minutes).

This seems like a feasible goal: I can look at my various races, say to myself, for example, 'Okay, at Applecross, I will need to complete my race in 40 minutes.  This means I will need to be able to ride hard for 40 minutes on varied terrain.'  I can build a training strategy to help me meet that goal.

 I thought about using 'Finish in the last 1/3 of the pack or better,' but to do so would present two problems:

1. It would require me to know how fast my group is likely to be.  In all honesty, I haven't the foggiest.
2. It's based on comparing myself to other racers, which isn't really the approach I want to take.

Likewise, I'm updating my road racing goals as follows:

1. Hang with the pack in the 5-Spot Crit Series (Cat 5) or some other Criterium series
2. Ride a sub-12 hour 200k.
3. Climb like a bad-- err, a like goat ;)

Again, these are pretty specific goals that I can break down into workable steps.

Road Racing Goal #1 only appears comparison-based on first analysis.  It actually breaks down into two more specific goals:

• Maintain 25 MPH average for 30+ minutes.
• Get really comfortable riding fast in a pack.

The only potential problem with the 5-Spot series is that it takes place in the summer, and I have pretty much decided summer shouldn't, ideally, be a racing season for me.

The second of my 5-Spot sub-goals, I've already made headway towards -- in a tight pack, I tend to fall into 'flocking mode.'  This startled the heck out of me on the first fast club ride I did this year.  I was afraid I would find myself boxed into a tight pack and freak out, but instead I just kind of relaxed and went with the flow.  Weird, eh?  Of course, we weren't descending at 45 MPH on a wet, curvy road, either.

The first ... well, we'll see in the next couple of weeks how much more work I need to achieve that sub-goal.

None of my goals, you might notice, are at all results-oriented -- which is to say, none of them has anything to do with where I finish in a given race.  I don't care if I finish DFL in 'cross; finishing at all is enough.  I did it once last year; if I can keep that up, and focus my training on improving my time a little each race, I'll be pretty happy.

Technically, riding a sub-12 hour 200k isn't a racing goal at all -- it's a randonneuring goal -- but it also supports my road-racing goals for next year by requiring improved endurance.  You know, just in case we should actually succeed in having an actual road race around here, let alone in the spring (or, really, any time between the End of the Ice and mid-June).  I was thinking about the Tour of Red River Gorge, but while the non-competitive ride went off this year, the races were cancelled due to insufficient sponsor support, so I 'm concerned that they may be cancelled next year as well.

The whole purpose behind the third goal is basically to not suck at climbing during the summer.  If I climb really, really well during the reasonable seasons (spring and fall), it follows that I should climb at least decently well in the summer, when my respiratory system goes on vacation without me.  This year, I was climbing decently well during the spring, and am now climbing abysmally.

I suppose I should also add one more goal:

1. Take a more organized approach to treating my medical issues.

I don't like say that I have 'medical issues.'  It sounds like a cop-out.

I'm trying to change how I think about my health -- to think of my asthma not as a barrier, but as a challenge that can be managed.  That said, it has officially crossed the line into 'poorly managed' as of the past week -- which is to say, I'm experiencing significant symptoms pretty much every day -- so I may need to see about getting back on a preventive medication like Advair or Singulair (only cheaper, I hope, because there's no way I can afford either of those) for the rest of the summer.  I would rather bite the bullet, take the meds now, and be able to wean back off them in the fall than try to avoid taking the meds, let the underlying inflammatory process get really out of hand, get really sick, and find myself off the bike for several months again.

Likewise, I have a condition that keeps my androgen levels well below normal, and I'm trying to determine whether or not I should pursue treatment for that. 

On one hand, I want to say it isn't hurting anything, but on the other hand, it is.  I was skeptical about hormone replacement therapy, but when I tried it for about a year, I did feel better, both physically and emotionally.  I have struggled with depression since high school, and I can count the one year that I consented to do something about my hormones as the least-depressed year I've ever had, pretty much.

I stopped hormone therapy for a number of reasons -- first, I wasn't convinced it was entirely necessary.  My feelings about that are much less definite right now: it does seem to help, and as my body has wandered back to its native state (which takes about six to seven months, from what I understand), I have begun to think it helped more than I realized, both physically and emotionally.

Second, my old doctor had prescribed way too high a dose, and even when I trimmed it back my levels tended to be higher-than-typical, which also isn't good.  I wanted to taper back to my own base level, then start over at a very low dose and see how it goes. 

Third, part of me feels really weird about taking testosterone (even though it's prescribed to me) and competing in bike races.  Technically, it's not doping if you have a valid medical reason to be doing so -- which I do, since low sex hormone levels can lead to osteoporosis, among other things -- but as I mentioned, my old doc seemed to have a hard time finding a dose that didn't shoot me above the typical range, and that seems potentially unfair.  Likewise, if HRT always bumps my testosterone level higher than the typical range, I don't know that I'd be able to view any potential success in racing as real.  I fear I'd feel like I cheated.

I'm also concerned about the possibility of testicular cancer, which is -- for someone like me, with atypical sex differentiation including undescended testicular tissue -- much higher when HRT is employed.

I feel a little weird discussing something this personal in this particular blog.  I haven't really discussed this topic here because it never seemed relevant or useful before.  Likewise, there's a part of me that A) would like, for once in my life, simply to be regarded as 'normal' and B) fears that people will be uncomfortable around me if they know I'm 'different' in such a fundamental way.  Also, I get tired of explaining myself: even if most of the population of the United States had any clue what I mean when I say "I have an intersex condition," intersex is such a broad category that it still wouldn't tell anyone anything useful about my anatomical and physiological nature, or why that nature has any meaning for me outside of the most private domains of life.

In light of racing and formal training, though, it does seem relevant and useful, especially because I can't possibly be the only person with an intersex condition who wants to race bikes.  We're simply not that rare (okay, my particular condition is extremely rare; but other types of intersexuality are surprisingly common).  The incidence of Klinefelter's syndrome, for example, is generally stated at around one in 500 males (I'm not sure if that figure counts people who have the 47XXY karyotype and ambiguous primary sex differentiation, or if that population is counted under the headings of their various atypicalities) and KS frequently involves hypogonadism -- that is, low sex hormone levels -- which might benefit from HRT.

It is probably true that in test of strength and power, like sprinting and (to an extent) criteriums and 'cross, my hormonal status, unaltered, could be a liability.  HRT would ameliorate that effect.

However, I'm more interested in endurance and long-distance speed, and I don't know how much of an impact low serum testosterone levels should have -- if any -- on endurance and speed over distance.  My testosterone level, for example, generally falls at the lower end of the window between the typical female range and the typical male range, and there are certainly women who hold their own with the men in road racing at levels much higher than I ever hope to attain.  Therefore, it stands to reason that I shouldn't need HRT to compete as a Cat 5 road racer.  Likewise, I am genetically predisposed to hypertrophy in my leg muscles -- people at work comment on the size of my legs all the time, but the truth is I could do absolutely nothing at all cycling-wise and they would stay the way they are.  My Mom's legs, in fact, look a lot like mine, and I don't think she's even sat on a bike in the past several years.  My Dad's family, meanwhile, is made up of strong people with long, sleek muscles -- so I have exactly no genetic predisposition to much in the way of upper-body development. HRT didn't really do much of anything for me, upper-body wise.

The real stumbling block, for me, is the emotional effect of my hormonal issues.  Everyone is subject to some degree of hormonal fluctuation; my fluctuations impact my mood profoundly.  I can tell when my testosterone level is at ebb tide because I generally feel emotionally cooked.  It's like I just 'bonk' emotionally.  My mood drops through the floor, my motivation goes to pieces, and I just want to crawl into a dark hole somewhere.  The depressions sometimes torpedo my training plans.  They definitely torpedo my ability to keep up with housework.

Right now -- that is, on this particular afternoon -- I would rate my depression level as roughly 7/10, if 0 is the best and 10 the worst I could possibly feel.  7/10 is pretty rough. 

This depression is definitely not situational -- my life is in pretty good shape right now, especially relative to previous years.  Yet still I have these episodes, and they really interfere with my life, and especially with my cycling life.  Yesterday, I had to push myself out the door; today, I have not succeeded in doing so.  I have accomplished exactly nothing today, and I really just want to go back to bed.

I have a lot more of these days right now than I let on.  Usually I manage them by main force -- I force myself to get outside and ride the bike; I force myself to put on a happy face (on the 'fake it 'til you make it' principal) -- but sometimes that method doesn't work.

When I was on HRT, I had far fewer of these days.

For some, the question of whether or not to pursue HRT is a simple one: a lot of people like me aren't comfortable with their own ambiguity.  Personally, I am comfortable being an androgynous pretty boy (the fact that I'm gay and that DD likes me the way I am probably makes that easier for me) -- so it becomes a complex analysis of risks versus benefits.

Right now, the benefits are winning, and thus part of me feels a bit like a traitor to the cause.

Basically, I want people like me to be able to be who and what we are, without feeling like we have to conform to some culturally-approved sense of what it means to be 'male' or 'female' or 'human.'  My reasons for considering HRT have nothing to do with that culturally-approved sense, but I still can't help but feel like I'm weakening my own argument -- that it's okay to be what I am -- if I pursue something that effectively makes me more 'normal.'

I intend to think this thing through very thoroughly.  DD and I have been talking about it: he tends to lean towards the non-interventionist side of things, because he worries A) that medical intervention might lead to unforeseen consequences and B) that I should be allowed to be who I am in all senses of the word, and that I might be more subject than I realize to the pressures of 'normalization.'

As for me, I would simply like to stop having these days on which I just want to crawl into a hole.  The lack of motivation is, in and of itself, destructive, since I tend to judge myself rather harshly when I don't get things done.

Today I have done nothing but write this blog, and I am pretty unhappy about that.

A Few Thoughts About Perception

I think I mentioned that I somehow managed to wind up +1 pound in February -- which makes either an inauspicious start to my 'lose 30 more pounds' campaign, or sets the bar a little higher and makes the challenge a little more exciting, depending on how you look at it.  Depending, that is, on how you perceive it.

It also makes me feel, well, fat. Which is silly, because one pound of difference is really no big deal, and for all I know simply represents water retention or some similar phenomenon*.

On Sunday, DD wasn't feeling well at all, so I kitted up and rode over to church. Before I left, I glanced at myself in the mirror and decided that I looked generally tubby and embarrassing, and maybe like I was trying too hard. I briefly considered whether or not one can ride in a muumuu, and if so, where one can find a muumuu at ten o'clock on a Sunday morning (preferably en route to church).

Perhaps as a result of my 'meh-tastic' attitude, the ride wasn't one of my best. I failed to inflate my tires before heading out, so ran about thirty PSI low (jeez ._.).  Then, instead of feeling grateful for the extra challenge of the head- and cross-head winds, I spent a great deal of time privately whinging about them. There were more cars out than I had hoped for (one does hope to ride with less traffic from time to time), and for most of the ride I didn't see even one other bike (after church, I saw a few, and even got a friendly wave from a serious-looking roadie on a really nice bike).

Things did eventually pick up, of course -- it's hard to remain grouchy while riding a bike.  Riding gets the blood pumping, something I am convinced that we super-athletic (ha!) cyclists with our ultra-low heart rates need to get adequate blood to the brain ;)  I relished my newfound confidence on Eastern Parkway's climb into the Highlands, which used to be one of the few local climbs that I didn't like (I think, honestly, I used to gun it too hard at the bottom in an effort to maintain my usual riding-in-traffic speed).

That being said, I still felt like a walrus in a body-stocking when I walked into church.

At church, though, one of my fellow handbell ringers said I looked like a pro.  The ringer in question is one of the fittest, leanest people I know, so it was pretty confidence-boosting to hear that from her.  At the time, I choked back a reflexive, 'Nah, I'm too fat to look like a pro' and just kind of basked in the moment and let it percolate (while tooling around on bikes and eating pizza with my friend Robert).

This morning, things of settled into place.

I realized that it all boils down to perception.

Take, for example, hills.  I say that I'm a pretty good climber, but historically that statement represented something more like a magical incantation ('If I say it as if I believe it's true, it will be true') than any real self-confidence. 

There were a few climbs in this, my fair city, that vexed me.  Eastern Parkway was one of them.  Though I didn't understand why, I often found myself winded after riding them.  I was particularly annoyed by my performance on these climbs because I understood that they shouldn't be hard for me: there was no logical reason that I should find them challenging at all.  There were a number of other climbs -- longer and/or steeper -- that I routinely rode without blowing up.  It simply didn't make sense.

Then I went out for a hilly ride with RCCS.  I realized afterwards that I felt great on the climbs (even the two longish ones with steep, punchy finishes) -- and that I felt great on the climbs because I wasn't thinking about climbing.  I was just riding, talking bikes, and generally having a good time. 

Moreover, none of the climbs I routinely ride are much, if any, steeper or longer than the best ones we tackled.  I decided that if I didn't find myself winded on the climbs I rode with RCCS, there was no reason to reach the top of any of my regular climbs spent and out of breath, and that if I did, I must be doing something wrong -- possibly something mental, possibly something physical, but probably both.

I decided the familiar hills were no big deal, and I resolved to remain loose and calm even on the climbs that frustrate me.  I rolled the dice on a little mental admonishment ('Calm down, it's no big deal.') when needed -- and it worked, and it worked well.  Surprisingly well.

On Sunday, at the bottom of the Eastern Parkway climb, instead of feeling that knot of worrisome anticipation in the pit of my stomach and steely tension gathering in my arms and legs, I stayed calm and loose: and then, suddenly, I was at the top, then over.  I sailed up the two small climbs that follow at a very nice clip, with a blithe and easy heart.  Experientially, it was similar to the courier runs I did this winter from downtown to the highlands -- because my mind wasn't on the hill, the hill was behind me before I noticed it.

This surprised me, though perhaps it shouldn't have.

I believe in the power of words, even though I am almost entirely a non-verbal thinker.  In fact, my belief in the power of words may be so potent because I'm almost entirely a non-verbal thinker: to put my thoughts into words requires translation; it's an act of conscious will.  Since I believe deeply in the power of will (at least when it's coupled to faith), when I want something to be true of myself, I simply make a declaration: "I am x."** 

When I decided, initially and with a totally insufficient body of evidence (excepting one 60-ish mile solo ride which logged some 3,000+ feet of climb, which didn't really seem like that big a deal until much, much later), that I had the makings of a decent climber, I simply declared myself to be one: "I see by my outfit*** that I am a climber."

However, that RCCS ride made me realize that it works better when coupled with experience.

That's where perception comes in.

In psychology, we differentiate between sensation and perception.  Sensation is the process by which we receive input about the world around us from our sensory organs; perception is the process by which our brains interpolate that information and make sense of it.

Thus, perception -- already a much more nebulous thing than sensation -- is subject to the slings and arrows of neurology, mood, memory, and mental state.  It is shaped by experience -- so much that if we have no experience with a thing, we may not even perceive it (imagine hearing a foreign language for the first time: it sounds like a meaningless stream of syllables; often, we can't even perceive individual words in the stream of sound).  In matters of perception, one's frame of reference -- the sum of one's experiences -- is everything.

I live a life pretty much immersed in the world of cycling, where I personally fall more or less in the 'roadie' category.  Thus, when I look at myself as a cyclist, my frame of reference tells me that I'm still pretty hefty; that I could stand to put in more miles; that I'm not really trying that hard.  Even in my winter kit, which is now basically all slimming black and charcoal except for my neon-green long-sleeved jersey and my rain jackets (one orange, one yellow and blue), I think I look tubby and totally not pro and like I should buy a pair of shoes that don't have laces (the shoelace-induced crash has become my new obsessive worry).

Meanwhile, a friend at church who rides a bit but isn't what one would call 'into bikes' sees me decked out in my winter kit and says, "You look like a pro." 

In other words, when I look at myself, and compare myself to the vast universe of cyclists who are stronger and faster than I am, I think I look like a schmuck.  But when she looks at me, instead of seeing my shortcomings, she sees a dedicated (if slightly insane) rider in a pulled-together kit.  Interesting.

Likewise, prior to the RCCS Hills-n-Coffee ride, I had a fair sense that I was okay at climbing, but the experience of the ride in question gave me a better set of data.  It showed me what happens when the perceptions you might have had are replaced by good company and conversation.  Suddenly, you can simply brush by your the limitations you have perceived yourself to have, when perhaps your senses were trying to tell you something else (like, 'Relax, it's just a little hill.').

I think this is one of the reasons that group rides are invaluable for any rider who wants to race or ride long distances.  Riding alone, you may focus on overcoming the burning of your thighs or the fact that you feel like your lungs are going to explode as you fight to slay your personal best time on a given ascent or that after sixty-odd miles you really kind of want to take a nap -- but riding with a group, you don't focus on the burning thighs or the exploding lungs at all, so you don't feel them nearly as intensely.

Riding alone, you may create difficulties where there are none, as I kept doing on Eastern Parkway.  Riding with a group of friends, you don't tense up at the bottom of a climb that normally worries you, because you're probably not even paying attention to the climb in question.  You relax and roll with your peeps.

There is safety, but also strength, in numbers.  The social reality of the group means your focus turns outward, away from yourself -- where, in my opinion, it belongs (...he said, writing in this, the most navel-gazing of blogs).  Like the practice of meditation, like saying the rosary, riding in a group quiets the monkey-mind and fixes the mind's eye on the present moment, which is -- as Thich Nhat Hanh observes -- the only moment, and a wonderful moment.  Breathing in, I am one with this flock of colorful birds.


Even if you're fighting with every fiber of your being to keep up, you've turned your mind's eye away from your own human weakness and towards a worthier goal. 

Though you may not realize it, as you go, you're coming closer to that goal and perceiving the experience.  After, you might remember the ways in which you surprised yourself -- especially if, after a group ride you didn't perceive as particularly challenging or hilly, you learn that the course involved 1,229 feet of climbing over a short 27 miles -- not a staggering percentage, but healthy enough that a good many riders would call it 'challenging.'  You may realize that you rode stronger than you thought you did, simply because you weren't focusing so very hard on your own effort.

Later, having banked those experiences, you can generalize them, and sometimes this makes your life radically easier.  It is one thing to guess that you might possess a given strength; it is another thing entirely to experience that strength without even realizing it.

We are at our best when life lifts us up and out of our narrow frames of reference; out of the close little canyons of our own perception and up onto the high and lovely ridges of experience, from which we can really see.  Each time this happens, we gain an opportunity to widen and raise the canyons of our perception, until at last perhaps we might lift ourselves high enough to live lives of continuous experience, in which our own imagined limitations are burned away like fog by the bright morning sun.

Iroquois Park on Tuesday: the climb is worth the descent. So is the view!

Notes

*To self: NEVER STEP ON A SCALE AFTER TWO DAYS OFF THE BIKE.  EVER.

** This,  by the way, works much better than "I will become x," for me.  My guess is that the "I will become..." formula is too vague; you can put it off indefinitely as long as you're making just a little progress.

*** With apologies to Peter S. Beagle for borrowing the title of his life-changing book, I See By My Outfit.

You Give Me Fever

One morning last week, our head mechanic came in with a cough.  By closing time, he was looking a bit cadaverous; the next day, he called in sick.  That same day -- Friday, in the morning, to be exact -- I developed a curious itchy sensation in my throat.

I worked all of Friday with an itchy throat and an ever-growing sinus-headachy, wheezy, puny feeling, but went home feeling optimistic about the lovely weekend forecasters were promising.  By bedtime on Friday, however, I was feeling pretty bad, though still not so bad that heading to the doc-in-the-box was a foregone conclusion.  Saturday morning, I woke up feeling just a little worse; by around 11:00, I had decided that I didn't feel up to riding even though it was absolutely beautiful out, and also that it was probably a good idea to head over to the nearby Take Care Clinic 'just to be safe.'

I arrived at the clinic with a temperature of 98.4  Since my normal temperature is rarely over 97.5, I was a little concerned, but not terribly so.  The nurse-practitioner on duty checked me out, diagnosed a sinus infection, noted that my lungs sounded a little rough as well, prescribed some doxycycline, and sent me on my way to the pharmacy, reminding me to call if things either got worse or if I wasn't starting to feel better within 48 hours.

By the time I got home, I was feeling rather bedraggled.  I went to bed with a temperature of 99.1, slept like the dead -- and awoke on Sunday feeling like the inside of a dry-rotted tire.  In the rain.  Or something like that.  By then I was running a fever of 100.3, and I felt like I was breathing through a straw.

Later that morning, my temperature was hovering close to 102 degrees Fahrenheit, and I felt thirsty enough to drink the Great Lakes dry.  Within the course of the day, I took a really long nap, then downed basically an entire half-gallon bottle of Gatorade, plus assorted glasses of water, iced tea, and lemonade.  Since my fever showed no sign of abating, and indeed seemed determined to keep on climbing, DD and I both began to worry.

After some debate (more in the vein of 'should we call, or just go straight to the ER?') DD and I started trying to call the Take Care Clinic, which actually proved to be rather a challenge.  When we finally managed to get through to them, it was around 4:00 in the afternoon.  The nurse-practitioner sounded pretty concerned, decided to prescribe a steroid, and debated switching my antibiotic prescription to Levaquin.  She was concerned that I might have pneumonia (again) and said that I should head to the ER if the initial steroid dose didn't start improving things in pretty short order.

DD went out and picked up the methylprednisolone dose-pack for me, which I greatly appreciated.  While he was out, my temperature peaked at just over 102, and I started sweating like crazy -- like, hard-sprint-in-July crazy.  I was extremely happy when DD came back, owing both to the simple comfort of having someone you love near when you're sick, and to past experience, which has dictated that in situations like this, steroids are extremely effective in getting my lungs to straighten up and fly right, so to speak.

After much sweating and a ridiculously-hot bath, my fever broke, dropping my temperature back to a more tolerable 99.6, though it climbed back up to 100.9 by bedtime.  I slept pretty well, though several coughing fits woke me up during the night.

This morning, I woke up with a temperature of 97.1, and it has been no higher than 98.4 all day, which is a vast improvement over yesterday.

So why am I writing about all this?  Partly, I suppose, to satisfy a kind of morbid interest in human disease modeling.  I was really surprised by how fast this thing came on -- though it's possible that it had some kind of 'incubation' period -- and even more surprised at how aggressively it progressed.  I'm curious how B, our head mechanic, is doing (I actually *GASP* called in sick to work!).

Partly, though, I'm writing about this because it's worth noting that, while I'm still more prone than most to respiratory infections, it does seem that cycling has done my immune system a world of good.  The last time I ran into an aggressive infection like this one, given almost exactly the same course of treatment, it took nearly a week before I felt semi-human again.

At the moment, I'm still subject to violent coughing fits -- though I also think that cycling has improved the function of my respiratory system in such a way that those coughing fits are doing their job, clearing stuff from my lungs, instead of just nearly breaking my ribs for no good reason -- and I still feel pretty puny (I almost washed a dish this afternoon, then realized I actually wasn't up to doing that much just yet, LOL).  However, I feel about 60% normal right now, which is really pretty surprising.  I'm hoping by tomorrow I'll make it up to around 80%, so I can get my butt back on the bike.  (Sidebar: If I continue at this projected rate of 20% gain, I can expect to feel about 160% normal by Saturday, whereupon I will find a nearby race and dominate the by-our-lady out of it.)  In reality, that might be asking a bit much, but we'll see.

Perhaps just as importantly, the fact that I'm now used to feeling pretty darned good, physically, made it pretty easy to tell when things had reached that 'better safe than sorry' break-point.  I've found riding provides handy little reference-points -- I knew on Friday that things weren't quite right when I was feeling a bit washed out and wheezy during the afternoon scheduled runs that I ride pretty much every day.  Moreover, the moment I realized that I didn't feel up to taking a ride with DD on a mind blowingly-beautiful day in late January was the same moment I realized I needed to go to the doctor.

I may be conflating correlation and causation, here, but I can say that both my health and my awareness of said health, not to mention my fitness, have improved dramatically over the course of the past year, during which time my bike-usage has also increased dramatically (as has the population of my bike-stable, LOL, which now consists of three bikes that I actually own -- though only one of them counts as a fully-operational road-worthy bike at the moment, while one is still an embryonic, wheel-less frameset -- and, by extension, DD's assorted machines).

I'm currently deciding whether to try to work tomorrow or to play it safe and stay home.  I guess that will ultimately depend on my ability to breathe at around 4:45 PM today, which is as late as I can safely call up JP at work and say, "Ohai, I can haz nuthor sick dai pleez?"  We shall see.

I guess the whole point is that, at least from my perspective, cycling is paying some very measurable dividends (beyond being tons of fun and a good way to spend all that extra money we all have lying around right now ;D).

I think I have now used up my coherent-thought quota for the day, so back to reading the internets...

It's SCIENCE!!!

First, I haven't been on a bicycle in like SIX WHOLE DAYS. I am pretty sure that at any moment I am going to A) burst out of my pants, having gained 286 pounds (even though they seem to fit exactly as they did before I went to the doctor way back on Tuesday) and B) die. Of lack of exercise and/or bicycle withdrawal syndrome. Etc.

Hm.

The following may be kind of gross. I invite those who would rather not read an in-depth exploration of the current state of the inside of my mouth to visit Cake Wrecks instead.


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It's okay, I won't be offended.


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No, really, you can go. We're good.


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Still here? Okay, well, don't say I didn't warn you.

So, here goes.

I am mostly over my bronchitis/sinus-infection thingy — and that in and of itself is actually a good thing.

However, I had conveniently forgotten that the medication I normally wind up taking for these things because I'm allergic to penicillin, amoxycillin, and erythromycin — co-trimoxazole, a combination of sulfa drugs sold under the name 'Bactrim,' if you actually feel like paying a brand-name price for a medication that's been around since the 1960s — has one very unpleasant side effect: oral thrush.

So now I no longer have bacterial squatters livin' it up in my sinuses and bronchii, but I do have flesh-eating fungi going to town in my mouth. Jeez.

I guess I'm actually kind of happy that the thrush isn't terribly bad. The last time I had this, it was violently unpleasant, and I couldn't eat for a week. Switching to another antibiotic and direct treatment with liquid Nystatin saved my bacon that time; this time, I don't think I'll need to go that far.

Rather oddly, it appears that artificial sweeteners help keep this stuff in check. I got a bunch of those sugar-free flavoring tubes to put in my water, since my sense of taste had gone all screwy and I couldn't bring myself to drink plain water, and it seems that whenever I drink some of the stuff from the little tubes, my mouth feels a little better.

It also seems to kill off some of the fungi, though not all of them. At least, however, I don't have furry white plaques all over the inside of my mouth. It just kind of looks like I got punched in corner of my lip right now, which is okay. It's also nowhere near as painful as previous episodes I've had.

Now, I suppose I could see this as solid evidence that the little drink tubes are, you know, basically poisonous (and, in fact, since they contain aspartame — whose metabolites contain formaldehyde, among other things — I would have to agree that's true). However, the same argument can be made in favor of most medications. Sulfa drugs will kill you if you take too much (and not just because you will slowly be turned into a giant yeast mold); even caffeine will kill you if you ingest too much.

I, for one, think it's fascinating, and once I figure out how to plan a formal experiment that does not involve my mouth or anyone else's (petri dishes and agar jelly should work, right?), I think I would like to conduct a study to see which substances other than Nystatin actually do help control this stuff (because my connection could be erroneous, and it could just be that my immune system is working better than before, largely thanks, I would hazard, to all the time I spend on the bike).

Thus far, artificial sweeteners look promising (sorbitol-sweetened mints also seem to help, which doesn't surprise me, since both sorbitol and xylitol have antiseptic qualities), and I suspect honey may help as well (honey is semi-famous for its anti-whatever properties).

In other news, I'm planning on starting a big ol' retrofit on the Swift some time soon, and as of the 23rd DD and I will have been seeing each-other for six months officially. Huzzah!






P.S. If I was Jens Voigt, candida spores would fear me too much to try to infest my mouth.

Sadly, I'm not.

Things I've Learned in 2010: A Third-Term Report Card

The nearly-beginning of November seems like a good time to reflect on things learned in the past almost-year: not yet time for a final assessment, but a good time for a progress report. Think of this as a kind of third-quarter report card, like the one your parents might have used to determine whether you were going to summer camp or summer school when you were a kid ;)

Cycling-wise, it's been a pretty good year for me. I bought my first serious (albeit old, though we prefer to say 'classic') road bike; I rode my first metric century, even though it was supposed to be Imperial; I finished my first 'cross race (slowly, but dangit, I finished).

This isn't to say that 2010 hasn't had its difficult moments -- I blew up my knee 'purty good' after making a truly bone-headed cornering error on my faithful old hybrid; I bonked hard around mile 70 of my first imperial (as in miles-vs-kilometers) century back in July -- but the great moments have overwhelmingly outnumbered the sticky ones.

I've also learned a lot, and for that I owe thanks to a bunch of great local bike-geeks, roadbikereview's forums, bikeforums.net, the immortal Saint Sheldon's venerable website, and an ever-growing list of bike bloggers (Connecticut-based racer Sprinter della Casa stands near the top of the the list).

Meanwhile, a good number of other bikey people have kept my obsessive nature from running away with me and helped forestall my tendency to obsess about gear ... well, at least, somewhat (what do you mean, I can survive a few more months without a proper 'cross bike? ...by then, 'cross season will be over!).

I'm recording my thoughts on what I've learned here primarily for my own amusement. Someday in the future, I plan to look back on this post and chuckle at my seemingly-impossible naiveté.

However, if you stumble across this post and it makes you laugh and reminds you of a time when you barely knew how little you knew, or helps you feel like there's some hope that someday you, too, will disentangle the great mystery of freewheel-vs-cassette-vs-freehub, or whatever else, then this post will have done double (maybe triple) duty. That's icing on the cake.

So, without further ado, here are a good number of things I've learned in 2010.

The Technical Bits

The little stick in the middle of the presta valve stem is supposed to be loose when you unscrew the little metal thingy that keeps the valve closed. This does not mean the stem is broken*.

There is no such thing as a 21-speed bike, or a 27-speed bike, or even a 10-speed bike -- rather, there exists a staggering array of bike frames, all of which are compatible with at least one combination of cog- and cranksets. However, not all parts are compatible with all frames, and almost no parts are compatible with some frames. The existence of track dropouts does, however, mean that the animal known as a 'singlespeed bike' does, in fact, exist.

Given creativity, a set of tools, and a sufficient budget for parts, it is possible to customize almost any bike with almost any array of gears, as long as the frame doesn't have track dropouts. Some racers swap out their cogs according to the demands of the race at hand. Some of them even carry multiple sets with them to races.

Cassettes are not freewheels. Freewheels are not freehubs. Freehubs are not hub gears. None of them are derailleurs, no matter how you spell derailer.

Some things are best left to the professionals, and if you leave them to the pros, it doesn't mean you're a totally worthless home wrench. That being said, if you can't change a flat, you might want to learn before you head out on a century.

Yes, good quality components do make a world of difference. No, you don't have to buy them new.

Spinning is winning. Mashing is ... bad for your knees.

The Reflections-About-Myself Bits

If pressed, most of us in the cycling world will admit we have specialties. I am okay at sprinting (a good skill to have if you ride in traffic a lot) and pretty good at just plain old rolling, but God Almighty made me a climber. I'm grateful for that.

That being said, there are still plenty of hills out there that can whup me good, so I'll never forget Who's in charge, here. Likewise, there are plenty of climbers better than I am, so my ego won't get too overblown.

Eating when it's 100 degrees out with 89% humidity when you've been pulling faster than you should have been into the wind for way longer than really was necessary is a skill. More precisely, it happens to be a skill I don't have. Likewise 'pacing myself.'

Crashing gracefully, on the other hand, is part skill and part talent. I am grateful that I seem to have both. Had I not, I would probably be dead by now.

Yes, it really does help to take a day off once a week.

Goals also help.

I am a hopeless bike junkie. I have no desire to admit there's a problem and change.

The Philosophical Bits

It's better to own a crappy bike that you actually like riding than a high-dollar beauty you can't stand. Moreover, it's okay to ride what you have. I've always believed both these things, but I've lost sight of them and relearned them from time to time, so onto the list they go.

A high-quality bike will, in fact, help you ride faster in less time if you're using it to replace a not-so-great bike -- but it doesn't have to be a new, state-of-the-art carbon soufflé miracle with unobtanium stays or something. A good-quality steel-framed racing machine from the early 1990s will do the trick, as long as the components are solid, provided you can find one. Moreover, people will be significantly more impressed and/or pissed when you leave them in the dust on just such a steed.

That being said, it is still cheaper and more effective to trim some weight from the rider than it is to trim some weight from the bike. Likewise, bear in mind that when you're used to riding a sweet, light beauty, you will suffer the next time you find yourself straddling a rented beach cruiser.

If your bike could still outrace you if it had a better rider (well, and I guess if you had two of your bike), it's not time for an upgrade yet (there are certainly folks who disagree with this philosophy; that's okay, too). In the immortal words attributed (perhaps apocryphally) to Eddy 'The Cannibal' Merckx, 'Don't buy upgrades, ride up grades.'

In a 'cross race, even if you're Dead Effing Last, remember that there were probably eight guys who dropped out in your category, and next year, you probably won't come in DFL. In a road race, from what I hear, there were probably twenty who DNFed, but you still might come in DFL next year anyway, so you should at least try to inject some heroics, like pulling the guy who eventually wins up some big hill or something.

That being said, discretion is the better part of valor: 'When all else fails, run away / and live to fight another day.' It is okay to quit if you aren't feelin' the mojo, unless you have sponsors, and then it's okay to quit under whatever condition your sponsors say it's okay to quit. I don't have sponsors, so I can't comment further on that. I do have my own personal soigneur/team driver/cheering section/awesome boyfriend, but since he's a physical therapist, he's very much in the 'don't kill yourself if you don't have to' camp.

Finishing a century is an awesome achievement, but so is having the brass 'nads to start one, even if you don't finish.

Not every ride is a race. That being said, there is no such thing as a 'non-competitive ride.'

Anyone who says otherwise is probably lying.


notes
*Ironically, I actually did break a valve stem core this morning. Um, oops. It was time to pop Quicksilver's rear wheel off and clean the cogs really thoroughly, anyway. Yeah, that's it. That's the ticket...


In other news:

Adorable Kitty Pictures. Sort of.