Cancer sucks

For some cancers the survival rate is pretty high. With my Thyroid cancer it is up above 98% if caught soon enough. Or if it is a rare form, like with Roger Ebert, his had spread and affected lymph nodes and his brain. I am really starting to think that Thyroid cancer is the worst one to get, only around 24,000 or so people per year are diagnosed with it.

With other cancers they do not cut out the entire body part. A vital body part. Sure they may remove a mass, or a little bit of something here or there, but with therapy, and good care, there is still functionality left. Once you get through the treatments, your body slowly recovers, using it's own ability and functionality.

The thyroid is a vital part of our body. It and the endocrine system affect everything. Insulin, adrenaline, testosterone, growth hormone, and a variety of other things. With thyroid cancer, they remove the entire thyroid gland, like with me. Sure you can take pills to try to replace what is lost, but its not that easy.

This is what is frustrating. Taking a pill doesnt cover everything. What happens if your stress goes up? What if you exercise? What about during the winter? How do you kick your metabolism up? One little pill doesnt do it. The pill doesnt change sizes like your natural thyroid does to adjust for your life.

You cant drive down the freeway without changing your pressure on the accelerator pedal. If it is at one level and you need to do 10mph more, you push harder. You cant do that with Thyroid cancer. You take one pill. Its stupid, no wonder nobody really recovers properly. Without something better in care, you certainly arent going to regain everything you were at before.

Notes from today

I had been trying to ride mostly on the road last year for training and to build my endurance up. I get tired of doing the same roads down in the Foothills area and the variations. I had found a nice route down through the casino area to add a few miles and some different scenery.
Lately I have been hitting the trails behind the house. It is easy to get an hour or so in. I usually dont wear a heart rate monitor on the trail, I know I am working at a higher rate anyways. I wore one today and found that my hr is a good 10 beats higher just on the single track. Normally I can cruise big ring in the 130-140 area and I was seeing 150 or more out there today. That has to be good for my endurance and race pace since you rarely challenge yourself on the roads that way.
I miss being able to ride up to what was called the helicopter pad. Back when the Foothills was just test roads for heavy equipment there was a helicopter pad at the top of one of the hills. It had a great 5 minute climb and a fast single track descent on it. Quite a bit of fun to do some reps on it to build power.

What does it take to really become a champion?

I have been working on a book for a while. Actually several books, some fiction some non fiction. I had been exploring writing a bicycle racing book. After all I have been racing since 1984, and have won a few races over the years. I figure that I have a little something to offer, at least for a beginning racer, or someone trying to step up to an elite level. It's not like you are going to write a 400 page book and tell someone how to win a Grand Tour, that takes years of work, you don't start training on the Friday after Thanksgiving for that one.

I got to thinking a bit about some of the characteristics in what makes a champion. I have won a few State Championships, and didn't think anything super special at that time about any of it. Some people just perform at certain races, and success comes from experience and putting the right tactics together. What really got me thinking is what has changed for myself, and some other master's racers over the years from when we raced elite and now. It's obvious we enjoy what we do, but that doesn't necessarily make everything right. Enjoyment doesn't get you out at pre dawn hours in freezing cold.

I started to boil things down to obsession. There are small and large obsessions in our lives. Many think negatively about that word as well. Yes, in the wrong hands, just like a weapon, obsession can be misused and cause damage to oneself and others. A healthy obsession however can pay massive dividends if applied correctly. I realized that when I was younger there was a certain obsession involved in riding at a very high level. Those that feed it, and fully explore it's boundaries seem to take that next step up. Those that use it wisely have some success. Managing it in your life can change you forever.

At our advanced ages, with some desire for success in whatever we do, how do we artificially create an obsession without that motivation? That I am still searching for. How to start that water boiling again so to speak. I have found books about combating an obsession, but few that help in creating one. Observing and mapping out one's energies from day to day, and how to really focus them is very difficult, we lead scattered lives, with little strings pulling us in many directions at once.

So my partial conclusion on what it takes to become a champion is a healthy obsession. Now for how to do just that.

Worst month so far

I had been reading about Steve Tilford, and several others have great months. Very inspiring, and with the stars and stripes jerseys being handed out last month it makes you want to get out and ride.

My last month in a word: sucked.

I changed doctors and went on Armor for my replacement therapy. Calculations were a bit off and my TSH skyrocketed up to .99, the goal is to stay at .1 for suppression purposes of any thyroid tissue. I have never had such bad headaches ever before. I also got run down and now have the worst sinus infection I have ever had before. I am not exaggerating a bit. When you get out of balance so far, it is amazing what you go through.

I wanted to be out riding all December. I was looking forward to having 2 months training for the the first races of the season. I know atleast I can do some riding and my heart rate will be 100% better than last year. My max wouldnt reach 180 last January, now I can hit 200 again, and have some abilities back. I look forward to racing, but my early season plans are destroyed. So I will postpone what I had hoped, and will try for a strong late spring and summer.

The heat affect

You may have heard about how in Alaska during some times of the year the sun doesnt come out, or doesnt go down so it hard to have good sleep patterns at that time of year. I think the same thing happens in Arizona with the extreme heat.

You are forced to get up at day break to get any riding in, any later in the day and training is survival, not advancement. With your day scheduled out, you have a certain lack of sleep. 6 or 7 hours is not enough when you train every day, and try to recover from constant dehydration.

So I am looking for someone that will help me win the lottery so I can move to some place with good weather year round. Where you dont have to witness the sunrise multiple times a week. Where your pool water isnt bathtub warm right now.

Lack of personality in sports

I dont know if it is the media coverage now, or the people involved, but it seems that you witness little personality in most sports now. There used to be some entertaining individuals out there, that made things interesting on and off the field of play. Is everyone so wary of the media that they are now subdued?
Watching the Tour de France is not the same, there is little drama and its nearly robotic. The World Cup doesnt have much focus. It was interesting for a few minutes on a Lewis Hamilton breaking through on F1, but Michael Schumacher coming back didnt pan out well. American sports are just as robotic, just sign my paycheck...

Why is everything so hard?

A friend posted this on facebook a few days ago. She was struck by a car a few months ago and is trying to come back from multiple injuries, and only being able to walk right now from exercise. The physical therapy is not that much fun.
I feel the same way also. It is so frustrating to see improvements in my fitness weekly. Its like I can draw chalk marks of I made it to here on the hill, or my heart rate is better. I can see it. I dont see it on the scale though.
This is weird to me. I have a theory also. I can hit higher heart rates on level ground in a sprint, or other things. Going uphill I cant get above 180. I can't max out on an effort like that. Its hurting my ability to go uphill with the group. When we run out to the sprint on one lap I am fine, I even recover now to get up the hill partially after that. I know there is progress. But I think my strength to weight ratio is holding me back. I cant power my weight uphill, to the point I cant use cardio fitness to overcome that problem.
I have made it an entire week without soda. At first I got my weight down to 196 on Tuesday. But it ballooned back to 200 on Saturday. My diet is very square right now. My body just will not shed pounds right now. I dont think I rode enough this week though. I aim to hit over 200 this week and see what happens.
I was hoping to get down to 190 pounds here in the next 3 weeks. The 196 was encouraging.