New York bound

I'm leaving for New York next Monday. This time I'm going by bus so my chances of actually making it there are a bit better. That'll be an adventure in itself. I hope it's a nice and peaceful trip. I thought about flying but I don't want to deal with the hassle of airports, especially considering what they did to my luggage when I went to Chicago in 2005. That was a real stress producer.

Sitting in a bus for three days is probably not on the top of my wish-list but when I think about it, I've done that drive by myself numerous times and they were some most enjoyable and memorable, albeit tiring, times of my life. On the bus I'll just be kicking back and enjoying the view so other than possibly having to deal with trouble makers, what's not to like. It costs only $99 each way. You can't beat that.

I've got my DF all packed away in the wheel box I made for my dual-700 for the Northbrook trip. I was happy to find that the whole bike, wheels and all, along with a bunch of other junk fits in its 25.5"x25.5"x11" size (pictured next to the trailer). Everything else I'm bringing will fit in the rear cargo box.

I've got to do cabin maintenance along with some groundskeeping in New York. Also, I'm having 96 Canadian Hemlocks shipped so I can plant myself a nice privacy wall and windbreak. I'm planning on staying at least two-and-a-half weeks but I will play it by ear and may stay much longer. That's another benefit of taking the bus. The tickets are good for a year and I'm not tied to any specific time.

On the physical front, I'm weighing 174lbs and slowly dropping. I mistakenly thought I could cheat on my diet occasionally but that isn't so. One taste of junk food (sweets) and it sets off a nasty hormonal reaction which drives me to eat massive quantities. Anything less than maximum payload leaves me unsatisfied. I guess I have an addictive physiology. It's a good thing I never got into smoking, drinking, or drugs because I would most certainly be in deep shit by now. How I avoided those things, considering my family history, I don't know. Anyway, my lapses have slowed down my weight-loss progress but I'm back on the wagon.

I've been riding a little but mostly for utilitarian purposes. I did twenty miles the other day and was stung by a bee or wasp in the chest. As soon as I felt the sting I grabbed it so I don't think I got the full dose. The stinger came out with the offending insect and I never did see what it was. Nonetheless, I had quite the swelling along my sternum and upper abdomen. There were actually pools of fluid underneath my skin. Fortunately, I didn't need to resort to using my Epipen. The next few days I felt lethargic but that has passed. I now believe the swelling I experienced in my mouth after the Davis Challenge was due to allergens in the air. That seems to make the most sense since the swelling took place exactly where the highest amount of air intake pressure was felt. The bee sting added lethargy and my taking Amoxycillen on an empty stomach caused the drop in blood pressure which led to my passing out and, later, vomiting.

I'm still not physically up to par. Moderate efforts have been taking an excessive toll on me and for this reason I've given up weightlifting altogether. Since doing so I have to admit that, except for the sting episode, my health and feeling of well-being has improved lately. One of the effects of riding less is that I read much more. I've always been that way. Again, it makes me wonder what effect all of the weightlifting I've done has had on my life. I'm sure it's dramatic. On the other hand, being passionate about weightlifting, or anything, as a teenager (and even adult) probably saved my life. It's been a double-edged sword.

Anyway, one sure way of telling that I'm feeling better is that my interest in lowracing is on the rise. It's been non-existent. I'll see how I feel when I get back from New York. If my New York experience is too good I may just pursue my original passion full-time and that is to live old-school out in the country (I guess that doesn't preclude racing, especially since I'll be closer to the Midwest racing action).

I've been wanting to do that since I was a child. For some reason the thought of living as self-sufficiently as possible really interests me. Nothing makes me feel more high than being alone in the country. I saw a neat documentary on PBS called Alone in the Wilderness a couple of years ago about 51- year-old Dick Proennekke who moved up to remote Alaska and built himself a log cabin. He intended on living there for one year but ended up staying thirty-five. I bought the book as well (called One Man's Wilderness by Sam Keith). That's a bit too remote for me. He was fifty miles from town and relied on a friend with a plane to bring in supplies. My place is close enough to everything that I can bicycle to get what I need. I'm twenty miles from a Super Kmart and thirty-eight from a Sam's Club. When I'm in a pinch there's Dick's Country Store five miles away. The sign says, "Groceries-Gas-Guns-Guitars". Jeez, what else does a redneck need (not that I'm claiming to be one)?

One thing I've noticed about living a simple life without all of the constant input of city life is that I appreciate the little things so much more. When I was putting the roof on my cabin, sitting on the ridge, a couple of bluebirds were chasing each other and flying circles around and below me. I found that to be more enjoyable than anything I've ever seen on TV. Another treat is watching the storms come from the northwest. They have real weather in New York and it's quite a spectacle. I would pull up a chair on the deck and watch the beast roll in. The lightning is beyond belief making me glad I installed a lightning rod. The special treat comes on the weekend nights. On my wind-up radio I listen to Imagination Theater while laying in bed in the dark. They air a mystery show just like the old days complete with all of the sound-effects. It's fantastic.

Boy, I'm making myself homesick.

ibuprofin therapy...

is going well. I took three 600mg doses yesterday and I will finish with three more today. The numbness in my arms and hands is gone and so is the mild, radiating, fatigue-like pain in my chest.

I can still tell my heart is tired as well as my muscles. I attribute this to a few things.

I've been lifting the past few weeks and I think it has caught up to me. Loking back I should have seen it coming. One of the telltale signs is that I get easily agitated and I was. I also noticed that I was less tolerant of things that I usually let slide. As I've stated in the past, I've noted that not lifting feels healthier than lifting. It seems moreso the older I get. I would like to continue some form of upperbody strength training so I'm going to try lifting using sets of low, maybe only one, reps. The reasoning behind this is that I want to avoid going anaerobic as I think that is my Achilles heel. I know that single repetitions are anaerobic but they don't require the level of oxygen debt that higher rep sets do. I had been focusing on the 10-20 rep range. I will avoid the excess stress of heavy weights by limiting myself to moderate ones. I have no interest in pushing my limits in this area, I just want to maintain decent strength. The last thing I want is to have some belligerant motorist in a guillotine choke only to realize that I don't have the strength to pull off the submission. That would suck.

Another thing that I've stated in the past is that my body just doesn't like aerobic efforts greater than 70%, on a wattage basis, and prefers a limit of 50% for health and well-being. I did heavy climbing up Mt. Diablo at an intensity of 90% or greater of my AT followed three weeks later by who knows how much time (hours) at the same intensity in the Sierras. This surely flooded my body with whatever toxins plague me.

On top of this, I was not fully recovered from the Davis Challenge in April. It takes me two months to fully recover from a 20k to 30-minute effort at AT so why did I think I could attempt such foolhardy endeavors? I let my ambition write checks my body couldn't cash. It won't happen again because, once and for all, I've learned my lessen. If I ever race again I have to accept my niche; nothing anaerobic and nothing over an hour at AT with at least two months between efforts. I knew this from the beginning and stated as much. If only I would have followed my own advice I would have saved myself a lot of grief and money.

All in all, I'm pretty happy. It looks like I get to live to fight another day. Who knows, maybe the ol' Fogcom will make another appearance. I've quit racing enough times, certain that I would never again, to know that is a possibility.

I've got a theory...

aka, I don't know what the hell is going on.

Anyway, the other day after unloading my DF I took it for a ride up the street and it was almost unrideable. The bars were shaking violently back and forth. There was nothing wrong with the bike and I realized it was me that was causing the instability. I must have been using my arms to stabilize the load while doing all that climbing in the Sierras.

I got to thinking this morning that maybe that was the cause of the pain I felt in my chest/right armpit area. Maybe I irritated a muscle which swelled and put pressure on a nerve. That would explain the numbness and weakness I feel in my arms and hands, especialy the right one. I've been feeling pretty funky in other ways but that could be nerves playing tricks on me and the overall effect of a volume of effort that I'm not used to. A bit of my ill feelings could be psycho-somatic as well.

Through this all my heart has never misbehaved. Three weeks before my tour attempt I did a relatively long climb up Mt. Diablo and I felt like a million bucks and performed beyond what my prior training had led me to believe I could.

Still, I'm puzzled by the fact that while I feel fine while in the process of putting out some types of effort I have an excessive response of fatigue afterwards. Yesterday morning I tried doing a warmup set of overhead presses with 45lbs and I felt like puking. On the other hand, I rode my recumbent a total of four miles to the hardware store and back as well as did a little digging in the garden and felt fine while doing it. The rest of the day I felt as if I was on my death bed though.

I'm hoping it's just pressure on nerves causing this. I'm going to try some ibuprofin with my breakfast and see if this brings back the strength in my hands and arms. Speaking of nerves, for sometime I've been feeling a twinge in my left shoulder resulting from, I believe, how I positioned myself on the Fogcom. This resulted in numbness in my left hand whenever I'm in a certain position like sitting at the computer. Nerves can be funny. Both my daughter and I have passed out when our vagus nerves have been stimulated by gastro-intestinal issues.

On the cycling front, I returned Tubby to his original form since I've decided that is the bike I will use for utilitarian purposes since recumbents are so much less stressful overall than DF's. I don't know if there will ever be any more racing content in this blog so Warren, if you are reading this, feel free to delete my link or place it in the "whiney old man" category. On the other hand, I can't promise that Tubby won't show up at a race (or this blog) with a Birk-like tailfairing or (gasp) even fully-faired in the future.

Regardless of how things turn out, I'm going to keep up with the changes I've made in my diet. I'm dropping weight and who knows, I might end up going to the extreme that Adventurous Greg did. After all, I don't live in the barrio anymore; going to the grocery store is no longer a life-threatening proposition; I don't really need to carry around the extra ass-kicking mass any longer.

So far I have eliminated copper-laden tuna, all partially-hodrogenated fats including coffee mate, sugar (all junk food), and I've cut my caffeine consumption in half. At last check I was at 177lbs. As I stated before, my all-time low was 170 back in 2005. I can see going down to 165lbs or even 160lbs. The size of my lower-body bones would prevent me from getting down to Greg's ~150lb level.

the heart-friendliness of recumbents...

can be a bad thing. Ever since I started riding recumbents ten years ago I noticed how much easier that position is on the heart for any given effort; the more laidback, the moreso. If it wasn't for my recent foray back into DF riding I may have continued riding reclined in blissful ignorance and maintained my abusive dietary habits for who knows how long. This could have hindered my plans of living a long time out of spite. I was/am hoping to draw a pension for a loooonnnnngggggggggg time. If I don't watch out I won't live long enough to receive the first payment. That would suck. I don't want my last thought on this earth to be, "damn, stuck by the man again!"

I'm not sure what is going on with me. I did have an echocardiogram taken when I was in the hospital in April but since I'm in the process of disputing my treatment in the hopes of favorable negotiation it wouldn't be right for me to receive beneficial knowledge that I have yet to pay for. I did receive an appointment by mail from the doctor but I promptly cancelled it.

Since day one, when I started cycling fifteen years ago, I've had an abnormal response to aerobic exercise. Actually, as an ex-competitve powerlifter, the same can be said about anaerobic exercise as well. I've always required unorthodox methods to make progress.

I've never done well riding every day no matter how easy. Commuting to work would inevitably run me into the ground. High-intensity efforts, near anaerobic threshhold and beyond would do so more quickly. I could never do standard TT intervals or train my sprint at all. Doing so would result in reduced fitness for many weeks. I assumed it was because I was just your average, mere mortal and that the other mortals who adopted these training methods were just wallowing in relative mediocrity, not living up to their potential.

Well, it seems that I am sub-normal. The thought has entered my mind that something could be wrong with me but I was comforted by the fact that, though I couldn't perform at a high level (relatively) on a frequent basis, I could perform well some times. Surely, I thought, if something was really wrong with me, especially my heart, I wouldn't be able to perform well at all. After all, there are a lot of healthy people who are slower than me and I'm by no means aerobically gifted to begin with.

Hopefully, I'm not actually getting progressively worse. It was two relatively extreme rides that exposed the chink in my armor. One was the 162 miles of the Davis Challenge with almost 9000 feet of climbing which was complicated with other issues and the other was last Monday's 8-hour ride in the Sierras with an excessively heavy load. Perhaps it's the length of these efforts that are so damaging to me. During last Monday's ride it wasn't until after mile 70 that I started feeling chest pains. Recent online research I've done supports this theory. It seems that after three hours of hard effort the risk for problems, like death, rises dramatically. Another factor is that I didn't/can't condition myself properly for these efforts. Regardless, I'm going to play it safe and continue to watch my diet and eliminate all extremes of physical effort. If it isn't healthy, I'm not doing it.

On a positive note, I've monitored my blood pressure and pulse all week and my BP has been in the 110-120/50-65 range and my pulse has been 47-48 consistently. Hopefully that's a sign that my heart is not in too much distress.