Having asthma is kind of like winning the lottery, except it happens to more people and instead of money you win a chronic difficulty in breathing. I wouldn’t say I’m proud to be an asthmatic, but it’s not information I’m ashamed to share. In doing so, I often discover others who are similarly afflicted, and upon doing so we instantly go from being perfect strangers to perfect strangers who know something insignificant about each other.
My asthma attacks are experienced in a variety of forms, ranging in severity from a shortness of breath to “holy shit, I’m dying”. You can liken an attack to breathing through a straw with your nose plugged; depending on how bad the attack is, the straw keeps getting smaller, going from the wide one you get with a Big Gulp all the way down to those little ones you get with a coffee at a crappy diner. Cycling with asthma is like breathing through those straws while doing wind-sprints up a flight of stairs.
This straw-breathing effect is caused by the contraction of the airways leading to the lungs. The traditional treatment is to use an inhaler to suck in medication which dilates the passages and restores them to a size that allows for comfortable – if still sub-normal – breathing. There are newer, more effective treatments but many of them scare me because they cite side-effects like spontaneous death.
After 38 years, I’ve come to understand a bit about what causes my attacks. There is the cold-induced sort – which can be quite severe – but in my case will usually resolve itself throughout the first hour of riding to where it becomes a nuisance rather than an impediment. I also have acute attacks, which for about 32 years I believed were caused by an allergy to sawdust. These don’t resolve themselves and the condition gets worse until I intervene with an inhaler or a visit to the Emergency Room.
It wasn’t until I moved to Seattle and started having more frequent severe attacks that my doctor here pointed out that it was “crazy” to suggest I’m allergic to sawdust and inquired as to what kind of quack I had been visiting in Minneapolis who would tell me such a thing. He pointed out, quite logically, that I was simply allergic to something that was aerosolized in sawdust. As it turns out, this same element is present in whatever pine trees give off from October to May. Thanks to the Pacific-Northwest’s monopoly on pine trees, I now carry a rescue inhaler with me whenever I go training during these months.
The thing about being a Cyclist with asthma is that Cycling, as an endurance sport, is quite dependent on the rider’s ability to breathe well. In fact, I’ve found that the single most important factor to how well I’m riding on any particular day, regardless of how fat or out of shape I am, is how well I’m able to manage my breathing. The exciting bit is that training with asthma is a lot like resistance training; you get used to a reduced ability to draw oxygen into your lungs, thereby restricting the supply that gets to your muscles. Its like reverse blood-doping. You get used to it and your body adjusts to the reduced supply of gun fuel. Then, on days when the air is clear and warm, you ride like you’re on EPO. I call this the “EPO-Effect”.
I read some time ago that 80% of Pro Cyclists are diagnosed asthmatics who hold a prescription for an inhaler. This makes for a remarkable attraction of gifted endurance athletes to the most breathing-dependent sport on the planet. Surely this is because the EPO-Effect makes asthmatics strong like bull, not for the dilating effect the medication has on the air passageways.
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@DCR Offer good for Ron-level Rapha-hating only!
@Nate Well damnit. Here I was getting my hopes up.
@Nate
I'm going to start working vitriolic anti-Colnago language into every post I write in the hopes that one day a vintage steel frame will show up on my doorstep without explanation.
@scaler911 Wasn't suggesting you train with pneumonia, fuck that even more! Meaning that riding with asthma restricted airways was training at altitude type experience.
My recent bout of chest/sinus came after a 400km week, probably nothing for some, but the biggest for me in my build up. @scaler911 and @frank you have both also experienced walking the tightrope, and where you are really on form, sickness beckons. A while ago someone also suggested they had a safe body weight, where if they dipped below, they would get sick (may have even been you scaler).
I read some interesting research lately on this topic. One indicated you are more susceptible to infection/ have a reduced immunity for up to 48 hours after a severe physical effort. I reason your immune system is too busy trying to fix the fucking that you did to your muscles and organs. Fuck knows how badly guzzling carbs on the bike (probably another whole article) to maintain performance affects your internals trying to filter that shit out and put it where it's needed, it just ain't natural.. We're basically putting our bodies in hyperdrive, easy to see why they might run low afterwards.
Another piece suggested rapid weight loss also impacts your immunity, your body is almost in shock trying to deal with the loss of nutrition (or lack of beer and frites), as well as increased training load as above.
A third dealt with blood glucose and how wild fluctuations again affect immunity. This is significant as riding, particularly without refuelling, drains stores significantly and then we refill afterwards, starve gorge, starve gorge.
And the final was that people have an optimal body fat percentage, which acts as a buffer in the starve phases of training, otherwise your immune system is shocked trying to deal with the lack of fat to cannabilise when the glucose runs out.
Having asthma (weaker lungs), dropping 3kg in 3 weeks, a 400km week and a toddler with a cold. The perfect shit storm...
@DCR
Not to mention that not even a Rapha sponsored rider would get 6+ copies of each product/color the company makes, or be willing to decorate their home exclusively with Rapha prints...
For the record, I think Jan looks pretty baller in the Rapha get up.
@Nate
Yes! My cynicism has finally paid off! Thank you, Nate. What is the California Powerball up to?
@VeloVita
Or maybe he's planning ahead for his always changing waistline.
Yes, yes he does.
@razmaspaz None of the above, I'm just not a fan of his yellow gillet of authority. I certainly don't share @Ron's rampant Rapha hate.
@Ron
No one is winning so the jackpot is growing. You might get a whole house full of Rapha.
@xyxax
That's fucking hilarious!!!