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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I had asthma when I was a kid. There were many days of barely having the energy to crawl, standing just wasn't possible. 45+ years ago the drug of choice was Tedril which pretty much wiped me out for the next 12 hours. 10 years of shots and age eventually cured me, the exercise induced asthma hung on until late in my college years. I feel for those of you who have it, but at least there are meds now that can help you control it.
@VeloSix
Spleenless? Those f*ckers weigh like 1-2 kg. This is performance-enhancing organ removal. Please return your Olympics bronze medal.
@scaler911 Many thanx. 59 ctc
@xyxax
Ha! Maybe I should get a spleenectomy and lose one kidney, a ball and an eye. Seems better than giving up beer to lose weight.
@Chris
I'm curious why you see this as a violation. Seems one could go Rule #9 style on this, and say, "if you are featured in a photo shoot with your closet full of sponsor gear, it means you are a badass. Period." Or "If you are Jan, it means you are a badass. Period."
I'm not sure what explicit violations you are calling him out for, but selling out, without looking like you're selling out seems the essence of being pro.
That said, it is pretty lame to show off your closet full of brand new kit that you haven't even bothered to take the tags off of. And I might have put some single malt in that glass, and made an effort to hide the random wires on the wall. O.K., you're right, he's a douche.
@scaler911
It's all marginal gains, right? Like opting for an aero seat post clamp. Do you think LA really had the big C? No, PEOR pure and simple.
PS: I think you have the makings of an unusual beer marketing campaign. Get your people on that.
@Puffy Thanks for sharing such a frightening experience. Thankfully all I needed on each occasion was time on a nebuliser and some constant attention til the airways settled.
@unverso I' m convinced mine came to the fore after bring hit by a pick up truck on the bike in late 2004. Broken ribs and fractured vertebrae meant weeks of very shallow breathing. By Christmas I was floored by some bacterial chesty/ pneumonia like infection that lasted for quite a while. The next 18 months were filled with repeat chest infections. The Docs weren't convinced it was the RTA so neither did the insurance company when they settled. I know how I was before and how I am after. One of the many good things about Scotland - free prescriptions.
@Ron Ron, when I win the lottery I am going to send you some Rapha kit to see what happens when you put it on.
@razmaspaz
The fact that the shirts in the "closet" look to be different sizes and still have tags would lead me to believe that this is a store front for rapha or another cycling shop. And if I am getting paid to wear their cycling gear I would gladly violate the rules. Such as wearing a vest/sleeveless jersey. And minus the lime green vest I find that kit to be a tasteful option.
@Nate
Go ahead and add me to the mailing list.