Cracked

As a recreational rider with some ambition, I sometimes participate in races. I haven't been very successful, but the fun of preparing and participating makes up for any disappointment when the results are tallied. As a Clydesdale compared to the ponies who sprint up the climbs, I thrive on routes that have long stretches of flats or false-flats, and struggle more on the hills.

Recently, I participated in a local race and, for the first time, really cracked, so much so that it revealed something I had been in denial about probably for years.

The weather was beautiful, everything (trees and flowers) abloom, and the course a 24-mile route consisting of three 8-mile laps. The route is notorious for a climb at the finish (on the laps, it seems to be in the middle of the course), but otherwise is fairly innocuous. In prior years, the start line was placed at the top of this hill, with a neutral start from the bottom easing the riders up.

This year, due to local traffic and parking limitations, the neutral start was placed two miles away at a local school, and riders rode to the official start line from there. The majority of the two-mile neutral start consisted of generally flat roads, but because of the length of the neutral start and the natural tendency of racers to race, as soon as the bottom of the starting hill came into view, the racing started, for all intents and purposes.

While I wasn't caught out or surprised by this, snapping to this sudden acceleration and climb required a real effort. It is a race, after all. But by the time I reached the top of the hill, I had cracked -- I had no energy, my legs were gone, and I was ready to quit. Why had this happened? It was just a quick sprint up a hill.

I completed the first lap, and despite feeling better during portions, I realized I was toast, and felt so ill I abandoned the race. Soon, I was coughing prodigiously and productively, and began to wheeze. It was an asthma attack!

I'd been diagnosed in my early 20's with exercise-induced asthma (EIA), and given an albuterol inhaler to use prior to exercise. I'd used this most of the time to control my symptoms, and it seemed to work. I'd never had an acute attack, despite cycling, and playing other sports (tennis, basketball). However, I had not been to a physician since the 1980s about my asthma, and when the topic came up in general office visits, I routinely stated confidently that all was well, it was under control.

Well, apparently it wasn't. I had used the albuterol prior to the race with an older inhaler (you see, I didn't take this seriously enough to use the inhaler I'd just gotten for this year, and was still using the 2-year-old inhaler, which was running on fumes). Once the attack set in, I grabbed the newer inhaler, took a couple of puffs, and started feeling the pressure in my chest lift within a few minutes. The coughing continued, and it wasn't pretty. The fact that pollen counts in the area were at their spring peak contributed mightily to the event, but I was a little shaken by all this, of course, and began to think about what to do.

The next couple of days were tainted by the effects -- I was tired, coughing, lethargic, and unwilling to ride. By Monday, I was clearing up, and planned to commute home, but I also called for a doctor's appointment, and was able to get an afternoon appointment on Tuesday. My commutes from work on Monday and back on Tuesday were slower than usual -- I was skittish about exerting myself too much, and the cough was always threatening to return -- but otherwise I felt fine riding again.

What I learned was that I had not been nearly as aggressive or demanding about treatment and relief as I should have been. Not surprisingly, a number of excellent maintenance therapies have been developed over the past two decades, and I was using what amounts to the most rudimentary and least aggressive of anything available, despite my ambitions as an aerobic athlete. Suddenly, a theme emerged that I could see clearly over the years, of likely near-misses on the asthma front.

Now, I'm on a more aggressive set of therapies and moving down a path toward getting this thing under control for the next few seasons. Cracking up in a local race revealed the deficiencies of my approach. Now I have to crack the code of my exercise-induced asthma, and get back in the race.

Culture

Charity rides are a common way for recreational cyclists to participate in long, organized rides. As a participant, you do good, while also creating a domain of cycling culture for a day or weekend. And it's this last aspect -- the creation of a temporarily cycling-centric world -- that I think makes these rides and events so appealing, interesting, and memorable.

When you sign up for one of these rides, the fund-raising that is required begins to shift you almost imperceptibly into the domain of cyclist vs. non-cyclist. It's a gentle nudge consisting of priorities, focus, and goals. You become a little different, a little distinct and monotonous in your focus. You have a date on a calendar that others don't, and you are tracking totals and training to that date.

Donors are often sympathetic to the cause the ride is supporting, so they donate, but they are not typically cyclists, so the point of commonality is the cause, not the cycling. This is all for the good, but begins to demarcate where the cause ends and the cyclists begin. It becomes clearer and clearer as the ride approaches that the donors will be independent of the event, while the cyclists are committed to riding on a specific date, and training for that event.

As the date approaches, the cycling culture around the event becomes stronger and stronger. Often, if it's a well-known ride, you begin to see jerseys from prior years on riders during morning commutes or weekend training rides; you get shouts of encouragement from friendly drivers and joggers; and the bike shops are filled with riders making preparations and getting their machines tuned. The momentum is building, and the cycling culture is emerging.

If the ride is a single-day event, the "event horizon" is fairly short -- usually, about 24-48 hours, with smaller pieces occurring farther out during training rides and perhaps some related events, such as team picnics or group rides. If the charity ride is a longer, weekend or full week event, the event horizon is usually much deeper. In fact, the event horizon is, I think, equal on either side of the ride to the length of the ride. So, for a single-day event, the day before and the day after the ride will usually be consumed with aspects of preparing or recovering from the ride. For a 2-day event, the entire event -- pre-event, event, and post-event activities and immersion -- will last about 6 days, given the approximate event horizon on either side. And for a full-week ride, the ride's effects can last about 3 weeks.

During the ride, and within the event horizon, you get to experience a culture in full that we, even as cyclists, only see fleetingly otherwise -- it is the cycling culture, manifest as hundreds of people with helmets, bikes, and cleated shoes all bringing the same traits together independently to form a cohesive picture of a culture. Diets and customs are similar. Gels, bars, and PB&Js are compared with often ribald remarks. Normal indications of social rank and many signals of cultural status are obliterated, so people are simply cyclists. They talk about the hills, the wind, the events on the road. They complain about their seats, or recount flats, spills, or great descents. They talk about past or planned events. They are tired, hungry, and thirsty, so everything is a bit more mellow. There's a lot of laughter and genuine discussion. It's a good culture.

It's tempting to wish the our dominant culture were more like cycling culture, and in some ways, I wish that were the case. But, instead of wishing for an ocean of cycling culture, I'll enjoy the lakes and ponds I find, and wade in whenever I can.