Attempts to define the slump

I feel like I'm crawling out of the bottom of my latest slump. Which, though predictable, is always a relief. I know there are worse things, and I don't want my blog to become a chronicle of this nothing ride on an endless loop. But I have been trying to summarize my concerns for a note to my doctor, and this blog has always been a good place to clarify my thoughts. I promise, blog, this will be the last I write about this ... for a few weeks at least ...

The best analogy I've come up with is a basin of water. My fitness and sense of wellbeing is the water that gradually fills up the basin, then drains again at intervals. When the basin is full, I feel strong and upbeat. Metrics I can measure — such as resting heart rate, blood pressure, the stats from my bike's power meter, and PRs on Strava — all improve. My outlook brightens, which I'll just clarify to mean my mind shifts from "crushing pessimism about the future of humanity" to "glimmers of hope boosted by beautiful things in nature." My sleep patterns improve. My concentration improves. My creative efforts open. I'm a happy person.

Then, slowly, the basin begins to drain. The first symptom I notice is more frequent instances of insomnia. Often a rash breaks out on my lower legs and feet during this time. My moods become more volatile, and this is where I experience random flashes of anxiety. Like a moody teenager, I have more difficulty concentrating and controlling distractions. I waste far too much time scrolling through Twitter and stewing in my crushing pessimism. I hate everything I've ever written, and admittedly slip into periods of not being all that productive, unless self-editing and liberal use of the delete button counts. When I check my resting heart rate and blood pressure, both have spiked, perhaps because of unfounded stress.

The breathing difficulties come last, and are really only at their worst for two to three weeks each time. But for me, they're bad. Hills that I could race up two months ago, I can now barely soft-pedal in my lowest gear and cadence. I become dizzy and need to take breaks. Fatigue is not how I would characterize this sensation. It's more like an obstruction in my cardiovascular system, removing most of the oxygen before it can reach my brain and muscles. This often results in gasping and trying to deepen each breath, but I suspect the straining does more harm than good. I don't test my moving heart rate nearly as often as I should, but when I check my pulse, it's usually not that high ... perhaps 140 or 150, when a true near-max effort for me should be above 180. But I feel maxed out. These efforts do not leave me tired afterward ... more like frustrated, because I can hardly get a good workout when I am fake-maxed-out. I still have all of this muscle memory and endurance in my body, but the perceived lack of oxygen makes me feel as though I'm suddenly, completely out of shape.

The pipe that moves this water in and out of the basin is an entity completely unknown to me. For a time I thought the force draining my health was asthma, but that doesn't quite fit, because I have good weeks in the spring and bad weeks in the dead of winter. My allergy treatments are going measurably well, my other symptoms are far milder, and yet I still struggle with breathing. In early 2017 I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that causes overactive thyroid. This seemed like a perfect fit — all of the symptoms I experience during my slumps fall in line with symptoms of hyperthyroidism. But every lab test since I started treatment has shown steady improvement. Now my numbers indicate I am "euthyorid," i.e. normal. I like to believe that my experience of these slumps has improved since I started asthma and thyroid treatments — undulating toward normalcy. But again, the metrics don't quite bear this out. My resting heart rate and blood pressure have been similarly spiked in January-February, June and October since I started measuring regularly at the beginning of this year. My Strava stats during these months are similarly bad.

I acknowledge that I could focus on lifestyle changes, but I am a skeptic in this regard. It seems like the things I can control don't really matter. I have felt fantastic during an intensely strenuous week of hiking in Italy when I climbed 50,000 feet while subsisting solely on coffee, pizza and Snickers Bars. And I've felt terrible during weeks where I did two or three short runs while increasing my protein intake and limiting sugar. I've been on fire at 14,000 feet and sputtering at sea level. During every slump I try something new — quitting dairy, taking new supplements, renewing focus on weight-lifting over my favorite outdoor cardio exercises. These experiments never stick, because eventually I feel good again and lose motivation. My latest experiment is CBD capsules, to treat anxiety. I've felt significantly better and had no anxiety episodes since starting this, and since they seem to have no side effects, I'm a fan ... even if it's just placebo effect. But they're expensive, and I imagine my motivation for these will wane as well.

At this point, I'm inclined to believe I'm not going to solve the mystery of the slumps without significant hypnotherapy. If I am doing this to myself with the power of negative thinking, I really need to learn how to harness this mental energy toward positive abstractions, because I'd probably win the lottery. Taking the long view, though, my overall health is mostly fine. I can learn to live with these hiccups, even if I never learn how to control them. The problem is that I still have a desire to be an endurance athlete, and train for big events. Training hardly seems purposeful when my fitness just resets to zero every few months, and my best chances for success seem to hinge on the date I choose to start my adventure. These slumps also seem to strip much of the joy out of my life. On top of increased anxiety and pessimism, I lose my best outlet for peace — hard, meditative efforts in nature. When my breathing is bad and I feel dizzy, all of that joy is taken from me. I'll never find it no matter how long I battle, or how slowly I move. I have tried.

Anyway, I am going to attempt to condense these thoughts and present them to my doctor. I expect she'll just give me a quizzical look and suggest I see a therapist. And that's fine. It feels better just to lay it out there. And I'm looking forward to the next upswing. I enjoyed reasonable breathing and a beautiful morning on Rollins Pass Road with Betsy yesterday:

The weather this week has been warm — temperatures in the 70s most days. It was 45 degrees and calm when we started pedaling from Rollinsville at 9 a.m. I was overdressed with tights and gaiters, although I was glad to have them later. Even though we had some big storms earlier this month, I expected to see almost no snow left on the route. But some has held on, especially in shaded areas at lower altitudes.

The higher altitudes had been blown mostly clear, and we endured much bouncing on babyheads, which was jarring after all of the smooth if strenuous sailing on packed slush. I love the scenery on Rollins Pass Road, and it's the only bike-legal route amid hundreds of square miles of wilderness. But the combination of a gradual and interminable railroad grade with slow maneuvering over and around rocks makes for a tedious ride. I told Betsy that I'm good for one or two trips per year, once memory of the tedium wears off.

Only taking photos on the smooth sections were I could actually hold my camera while pedaling.

Rollins Pass Road does have good winter potential, and I'm open to testing out conditions throughout the season. Or returning on foot. Really, it's all about spending time in these mountains. We stood at the edge of an overlook, gazing out at a dramatic play of sunlight and clouds over James Peak, and mused that we could spend all day up here. Especially when it's warm, windless, and eerily quiet in the shoulder season. Then we raced down the mountain, as we both had tasks scheduled for the afternoon. Betsy was really running late, and we averaged more than 20mph on the final seven miles of gradual descent. I was riding a studded-tire fat bike at 8 psi with fairly low gearing, so I had to spin like crazy to keep up. It almost felt like sprinting, and it felt really good.