WHY NOT? PLAN B!!

Last time I blogged an update, I was on a serious yellow card as far as our east coast bike trip. My energy level was low, and the big surprise, I found out I was anemic: low white blood cell count and low hemoglobin. This was a big surprise given all my historic blood work has been excellent. My doctor suspected a low level bleed somewhere internally and that was preventing my system from keeping up with white blood cell generation. She told me to take iron and B-12 and quickly set up some testing. To make a long story short, all tests failed to detect any internal bleeding. So, I asked my doctor to give me another blood screen. Her response, "No more blood tests. Just take your ride and have a good time." Somehow I did not find that reassuring. So, I went out to a lab and paid for my own blood tests. And I have kept on training and putting the miles in on the Surly. Meanwhile my riding buddy wanted to know how my health and riding was going. I told him the training and riding was tough, and I was still looking for answers concerning my health. I was considering Friday, September 6 to be my GONOGO decision day. One thing I have failed to mention is that I have taken on a consulting job that has required me to work in the mornings and train in the afternoons, usually when the temperatures are above 90 degrees. So my riding buddy and I had not been training together. He decided that perhaps the two of us should put some miles in together and if he determined my fitness was not at a sufficient level, he would red card me.

     So, after work one day, we set up a ride, with our touring bikes loaded with our gear. With some level of trepidation on my part, we set out on our ride. Temperatures were in the 80's, and our pace felt really good. He had told me he had been doing a lot of climbing so I was a bit worried when we started riding the rollers. But he dropped the speed down to a very reasonable velocity and the climbing was just fine. In fact after our ride, my confidence level had increased. It appears that I had been over training (not unusual for me) and my anemia was probably sports anemia. Sports anemia can often be experienced by endurance athletes that overtrain and their system is not able to recover, and they become anemic. My blood tests that I scheduled came back and my white blood cell count was back up to normal and my hemoglobin was back above the lower control limit. So, now after my ride with my buddy, my energy level was higher than after my usual training rides, my blood analysis looked good, I was feeling good. Two days later my buddy texted me, 'Marvin, we need to talk tonight'. Huh? That did not sound real good. What might be going on?

    So, he and I got together for a beer and he let me know what was going on. He used to be a racer, he has always been a strong rider, stronger than me, and he is six years older than I am. But he had been fatigued this summer, and dropping weight. He had been riding a heavier than normal bike, but he had not been riding his touring bike fully loaded. Apparently after our ride, he could not get off the couch that night nor the next day. So instead of assessing my yellow card condition, he ended up red carding himself. Wow, I did not see that coming. But although I was disappointed, I fully supported his decision. This was a ride where your fitness cannot be in question.

    But now the ride was off. I was a bit cratered. That night I told Dennie, "Honey, if I was 35 years old, I would do this ride by myself. But I am 65 and that might not be so smart." "Marvin, I am glad you are finally making an intelligent decision." "Honey, don't get a discussion I am having with myself confused with a decision."

     So, what were my options. My buddy and discussed pushing it out a year, but it turns out he had come to terms with his age and capabilities and he said next year would not be an option either. So, find another riding partner, forget about the ride altogether, or do the ride by myself. None of these options looked like possibilities to me except to forget about the ride, and that was not going down well. Maybe I could do the ride by myself? No, that was insane. There is safety in numbers. We can look out for each other and support each other when necessary.  So, if was to do this ride by myself, I needed to lower some risks and I needed some level of local emergency support. So, my brother lives in Philadelphia. I could make the ride shorter, terminate in Philly and not ride as far as we had originally planned each day. All I needed was emergency local support and I could make this ride happen. At least I could ride New England and eat lobster. So, I called my brother, "Hey David, if I take this ride and somehow physically break down, will you come pick me up?" "Sure, but try not to break down in Maine. That's a long drive. Try to make it as far as Boston." 

    So, the ride seems to be ON.

WHAT!? A YELLOW CARD?

    I am attending to last minute details, one of them being getting a physical exam and getting my doctor's confirmation that I am healthy, fit and ready to ride the east coast; a 2600 mile journey on a bicycle. Prior to my doctor examining my blood work, the nurses aide checked my vitals, blood pressure, pulse, and medications. The aide exclaimed, "My! Physically you are 39!" Although I have been pushing it and I have been a bit tired, that sounded good. Bring it on! Then my doctor came in and we discussed cycling for a while and she remembered that after my three months trip to Guatemala, she remembered my family said I could never be gone that long again. She wanted to know how I got a two month 'hall pass' for this trip. "Uh, because they know it is important to me?? I dunno?" 

   Then she started looking at my blood work, and muttering, "Mmmm, well, hmmmm, this does not look good. Maybe you are leaking blood somewhere?"  What is she talking about? So she asked, "Have you been sick recently, or had any infections?" "No", I responded. "Well your white blood cell count has dropped significantly, and your hemoglobin is low. You are anemic." Oh no! I am five weeks away from our east coast ride and I am anemic!? YELLOW CARD! She wondered if my iron or B-12 was low, so she sent me to the lab immediately to test for iron and B-12. She also told me to start taking 325 units of iron a day and 1000 mg of B-12 daily. And she set me up for a test for H Pylori, to see if I had a relapse for the bacteria that knocked me down from my last Guatemala trip. Low white blood cells and low hemoglobin can be caused by bleeding, often intestinal bleeding, so now I am scheduled for a colonoscopy. Low white blood cell count and low hemoglobin can also be caused by other things that you can Google to determine, none of them leave me with a settled feeling.

   The iron, B-12 and H Pylori test results came in and all is normal. On one hand, that is good, but we still have not determined cause. At this time I am playing with a yellow card and I am still in the game. Some have suggested maybe I should rest and determine what is going on. But I think I need to keep pushing, and if I break, and get red carded, I would rather get red carded before we get on the plane for Bar Harbor instead of physically breaking down a few hundred miles down the road.

   So, I am still riding hard, but I am a bit concerned. I will keep you all posted.

STAYING CONNECTED

Next month we roll, just about five weeks from now. When Jim and I did our west coast tour from Canada to Mexico, I was the technical support with my PC, my Garmin, and my Verizon hotspot. Of course, Dennie was driving SAG (Support And Gear), so weight was not an issue. We just put everything in the car in the morning, rode light during the day, and then blogged in the motel at night. But on this east coast ride, we will be unsupported. We will be carrying everything on our bikes and no one will be driving SAG for the two of us. I will not be hauling my very large laptop, or my Canon SLR cameras on my bike. But never fear, I remain committed to blogging as often as possible. My "PC" this time will be my iPad

and I will use the on screen keyboard rather than a Bluetooth keyboard. That will be a considerable weight savings. Editing on the blogspot.com site, if you don't post photos, is pretty straight forward. BUT, photos are important. IPads are a bit more cumbersome, compared to a PC, when it comes to editing and filing and posting photos. But between my Photogene app, and my Blogger app, I hope to be blogging with photos while we are slogging down the east coast, so stand by. I am practicing by only using the iPad to post this blog.

In addition to blogging, it has always been important for me to record and post our daily rides using my Garmin GPS, my PC and the Garmin MyConnect application. However, the iPad does not have drivers for the Garmin, so this was going to be a big problem. I was considering buying an ultra thin ultrabook PC, but this was going to be a pricy solution. I even considered contacting Brian Krzanich, one of my friends from my beginning Intel dayside Fab 7, and now he just happens to be the CEO of Intel. I was going to ask, "Bryan, how would you like to sponsor an old man's bicycle ride from Bar Harbor, Maine to Key West, Florida using Intel technology? All you would have to do is provide the technology, one of those solid state drive, ultra thin ultrabooks with Intel inside? Huh, how about it? Whaddya think?" But my solution turned out to be much more elegant, even though it did not require Intel inside. The newest Garmin GPS, the Garmin 810, has Bluetooth. 

And it can download real time to my smartphone. And my Android smartphone has a Garmin Connect app that downloads to Garmin's MyConnect. So all our rides will be recorded and I can post them every evening. Even better than that, if anyone wants to follow us while we are actually riding during the day, like family and friends, the Connect app on my phone updates and tracks and publishes to anyone I invite by email when we start our ride each morning. By the way, invites are not that exclusive. If you are interested in following us, send me your email. Instead of 'Where's Waldo?', you could play 'Where's Marvin and Jim. 

    In addition to blogging and tracking, we of course will be texting (NOT while we are riding), phoning (NOT while we are riding) and Skyping (also NOT while we are riding).