Self experimenting

 On Monday I went to the gym armed with a heart rate monitor, a pulse oximeter, a pencil and a sheet of paper. I walked past the weight room and stepped onto a machine I almost never touch — the treadmill. My own poor handwriting lined up my plan for the next hour: Three minutes at 2 mph, three minutes at 3 mph, three minutes at 4 mph, and so on up to 10 mph, with a three-minute walking rest between each faster interval. After 6 mph (which to be honest is about as fast as I ever run outside), I only bumped up a half mile per hour for each increment. It wasn't all that scientific, but I wanted to satisfy my own curiosity in a controlled setting. Could I boost my heart rate to something higher than 160 beats per minute? What is my blood oxygen saturation at a fairly typical aerobic pace? Can I run at six-minute-mile pace for any length of time? I felt as nervous as I used to at the start of races — anxious that I would either shoot off the back of the treadmill or pass out or both.

Standing there, nervous, at 5,100 feet above sea level, my SpO2 was 99 percent and my heart rate was 77 bpm. At 2 mph my heart rate climbed to 88, and my SpO2 dropped to 97 percent. During each interval the oxygen saturation reading continued to fall, in steady increments. 93 percent while jogging at 5 mph with a heart rate of 131 bpm. 91 percent at 6.5 mph with a heart rate of 152. 88 percent while galloping at 8 mph with a heart rate of 171. (171! I haven't seen that in a while.) By the end of the third minute, my heart was still beating strong and my legs felt fantastic, but dizziness was circling around the edges of my mind.

At 8.5 mph, sweat was spinning off my body like a rotating sprinkler. I felt bad for the lady wearing slacks and a nice blouse while walking on the treadmill next to me. At 9.5 mph my heart rate boosted to 181. This felt like an enormous victory. That's my generic maximum heart rate — 220 minus 39. I clasped my left hand around my right wrist to steady it as much as possible. The SpO2 reading was 84 percent. Droplets of sweat spun around me, defying gravity. Dark rings crept into my field of vision. I wasn't nauseated and I wasn't in pain, but damn it, I was definitely going to pass out. I pounded all of the buttons and blindly lowered my speed to 3 mph. For the next three minutes I hobbled along, smudging all of the pencil markings in sweat as I shakily recorded my findings.

"Probably the reason I always feel like there's not enough oxygen in my blood, is because there's not enough &#! oxygen in my blood."

After those three minutes ran out, because I am above all a masochist, I bumped the speed up to 10 mph. Six-minute mile! Six-minute mile! I was only able to hold the speed for two minutes. I couldn't hold my hand still to test my SpO2 with the pulse oximeter. It took every last ounce of concentration just to maintain my position. I mashed at the buttons until the treadmill slow downed down enough to gently nudge me off the back of the machine. I didn't even bother with the planned cool-down. I just stumbled around on the wooden floor, watching late afternoon sunlight stream through the windows, saturated with bliss. Was this hypoxia? The rapture of the deep? As warmth coursed through my blood, I decided I'd just received a dose of the hormone my body doesn't produce as much of as it once did, because there's no real need when my muscles are already conditioned for more than wheezy soft-pedaling ... endorphins.

 The best I can gather from recent research is that doing aerobic exercise with blood oxygen saturation in the 80s isn't the worst thing, but it's not entirely normal, either. The cause could be an exhausting number of things — obstruction in my lungs, an issue with my heart, poor breathing technique, and on and on. I want to gather a little more data and insight before I go down yet another medical road. My endocrinologist and allergist have helped improve important health issues for me, but this one — the one where I breathe poorly and feel badly while exercising — is still in place and as nebulous as it's ever been. I'm wavering between "Just ignore it and maybe exercise a bit less and try to stop complaining so much," and "Spend all the money, see all the doctors."

While I make up my mind, I'll continue to gather data, mainly for my own peace of mind. When it comes to delusions of control over a chaotic world, perceived patterns make a wonderful placebo.

 Boulder's local ski area opened on Wednesday, and I've been feeling a little FOMO for snowy adventures. Election Day was another frazzled mess of work deadlines and fretting, so I was in need of some hypoxic relaxation. I took the fat bike to Rollinsville and set out for what turned out to be a 26-mile, five-hour ride over two mountain passes. I felt refreshingly good — dare I say better than I have in about a month. The weather was sunny, almost calm, and 22 degrees. Just perfect.

 I continued to take SpO2 and heart rate readings along the way, although this outdoor ride at 9,000-11,000 feet with snow resistance is even less scientific than my treadmill test. Still, the readings fairly reliably measured my "feels like" status. When I still felt fierce and strong, I saw numbers in the low 90s. When I felt myself faltering, I started seeing 80s. My heart was working like a champ, though, with plenty of time in zone 3 and even zone 4. Grinding through several inches of snow up a 10-12 percent grade requires that level of effort, hypoxic or not.

 The descent into Pickle Gulch was the epitome of fun snow biking — a solid base masked by several inches of powder, so I could rip at top speed over a surface as soft and silent as water. I'd had a good climb and a fun descent, and was nearing cloud 9 of Jill Heaven, so I wasn't about to stop there. I turned up Apex Valley, a daunting climb even when it's dry summer gravel. There were moments when I thought I might black out or slip off the back of my bike as it crawled up the steep grade, but my heart kept beating, so I kept grinding.

 Near the top I encountered a California couple with a strange armored vehicle. They were standing outside in the sunshine and chatting with a fast-talking local man on a snowmobile. The man rattled off a barrage of facts about this luxury expedition RV he didn't even own, while simultaneously peppering me with questions about my bike. The California couple took this break in their part of the conversation as an opportunity to pack up their stuff and leave. Before they climbed into the cab, they told me they'd tried to drive over the hill, but the snow was too deep, so they turned around. I was surprised, as it seemed like only a skiff of snow covered the road, but I'd also been riding the very good trail that this heavy machine made for me. Apparently this EarthRoamer costs $1.5 million. Looks cozy. It's probably your best chance to survive the Zombie Apocalypse. But can it cover as much ground as a fat bike? No. No it cannot.

 Past the EarthRoamer track, the chatty local's snowmobile track went for another mile. This track was much less rideable, but I gave it my best effort. There was so little wind that it felt almost hot at this altitude, even though temperatures were in the 20s or lower. The air was crisp and dry, and I felt like I was back in Alaska, deep in the Interior, riding the Poorman Road to Ruby. So sublime.

Once I hit the descent, there was no track at all. All that remained was pristine snow, deeply piled in wind-driven waves. I'll admit, I wasn't expecting to have to walk three miles and 1,700 vertical feet downhill, nor was I expecting to continue to gasp for oxygen as I pulled my wheeled anchor and tired legs through thigh-deep drifts so late in my "short" ride. But this unanticipated effort didn't make me any less happy.


If anything, I was even more thrilled, and counted my blessings. When it's summer, this road is a river of babyheads. There is nowhere to look but down, while bouncing over a jackhammer of rocks and hanging on for dear life. When it's winter, walking at 2 mph, I finally noticed all of the stunning scenery. I glanced at my heart rate monitor. 151 bpm. When I was walking on the treadmill at 2 mph, my heart rate was 88. "When I mark this down on my spreadsheet, it's going to kill the pattern," I thought.

 Oh well. I need to get used to the reality that I may never find the answers I seek. The only concept I can easily grasp is that I'm happiest when I'm in motion. Even when I feel physically weak and bad, and even when an expected fast descent falls under some strange microclimate to be utterly buried in snow, I'm still happy. Is this another shot of endorphins? The rapture of high altitude? Maybe, just as some days are inexplicably bad, others are inexplicably exceptional. Just as some descents are effortless and flowing, others are deep and arduous. Maybe there's no logical reason for the difference. Maybe all the experimenting and questioning is meaningless. Maybe I should ... just ride. 

Thoughts on Unruly Bodies

Hiking above Heart Lake on Sunday. It's truly shoulder season here — warm, incredibly windy, and weird snow conditions

I know, I know, I said I wasn't going to write any more blog posts about slumps. This is only about that on the periphery. Also, I lied. 


Earlier this year, the wonderful author Roxane Gay compiled an online anthology called “Unruly Bodies.” In this series, 25 writers explored emotional, cultural and scientific connections with their bodies, with titles such as “The Body That Understands What Fullness Is” and “The Body That’s Too Asian and Too Sick for America.” Each essay offered new insight into the different ways individuals experience the world because of the bodies in which they reside.

A woman with a progressive neuromuscular disease, Kelly Davio, contributed “The Body That Can’t Run Marathons.” Kelly’s essay was about coping with chronic pain and disability. More broadly, it was about the fantasy of discipline.

 “I understand the temptation to look at the body as a thing that can be disciplined out of its unruly ways — something that, with the application of enough will or moral fortitude can be made to behave, to be quiet, to stop its complaining,” she wrote. “After all, I broke my own bones over the fantasy that I could will my body to be something that its very cells are incapable of becoming.”

Kelly didn’t even want to run marathons. She just wanted to run. Even after repeated warnings from her doctor about her porous bones, she stepped onto a treadmill. She jogged, just a little, to see how it felt. Then her ankle snapped.

“The body has its own rules," she concluded. "Its logic doesn’t hinge on America’s moral panic over pain, just as it doesn’t hinge on my daydreams about achieving transcendence on a treadmill.”

Wind and snow conditions on the Divide looked a little too iffy to risk ascending the headwall

I’ve been thinking about this anthology recently, because so much of it refutes athletic dogma: What the mind can conceive, the body can achieve. Goals are not deserved, goals are made. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger. Pain is weakness leaving the body. We’re all capable, as long as we put in the work.

I’m guilty of embracing such dogma. “If I can do it, anyone can,” is something I’ve said, because I’ve never been an natural athlete. But I also didn’t fully recognize my own socioeconomic and health privilege that allowed me to invest the necessary time and energy into pursuing my goals. “I can do anything,” is also something I nearly believed, before life rightly trampled all over my ego. Now I agree with Kelly. The body has its own rules, and its logic doesn't hinge on self-righteous platitudes.

It’s not that I no longer believe we should strive toward goals — life is all about striving. But there’s a certain tranquility in accepting inevitable limitations, and in doing so, better understanding our uniquely unruly selves.

I told Beat I wasn't feeling strong enough to endure the wind. We still went for an off-trail excursion to a nearby ridge.

I’m a little tired of my unruly self. All of these new little problems build on past little problems, like compounding interest. There’s a little bruise on my right shin. It’s been there for more than two months, since I fell into a boulder on my birthday. The leg still feels tender when I run downhill, but the pain is minor, not worth fussing about. Still ... two months. I fell because of my rickety left ankle. It causes instability on the most benign terrain, but I become especially clumsy on the chaotic slopes of the mountains I love. I injured this ankle badly when I was 19 — probably broke it. Never had it set. Beat thinks I should have this looked at. Maybe it's a problem that can still be corrected.

Surgery for a 20-year-old injury seems absurd, especially when I can still take my wobbly body wherever I please. Still, the bruises and scars continue to accumulate. I feel them when it’s cold, when the wind blows, when I’m teetering on some ledge. I startle and struggle to catch my breath.

Sometimes my breathing is just bad. It’s so bad that I can’t even boost my heart rate out of zone 2 before I’m winded. I start gasping when I walk up the stairs. I become dizzy and despondent. For three years, this what I’ve invested in — dozens of hours and thousands of health care dollars — to find a solution. I agreed to be injected with what feels like poison to me — allergen immunotherapy — on average once a week since October 2016. Another doctor treats me for thyroid disease, with a liver-damaging drug. Am I measurably less thyrotoxic and less allergic to things now? Yes. But sometimes my breathing is still bad.

Recently, the distant but familiar anxiety episodes of my early 20s re-emerged. Do I need a psychiatrist now? More drugs? Maybe I just need more time to heal, but I’m losing faith that any treatment will solve these issues. At this point I’m just waiting to be diagnosed with functional illness, which is another way for the medical profession to tell me they can’t help me. At least then, I’ll be that much closer to acceptance of my unruly body.

I enjoyed the scenic diversion, but I was annoyed by how weak I felt, and embarrassed that I was holding Beat back.

As much as I want to discipline my mind toward acceptance, wild hope will likely persist. I may venture down the rabbit hole of holistic medicine, which is similar to athletic dogma in that it offers unconvincingly simple solutions to complex problems. But there is wisdom buried within.

Traditional Chinese medicine embraces an intrinsic connection between emotions and organs. This tradition teaches that people hold grief in their lungs. What would I need to grieve? Nothing right now. The people I love are mostly healthy and happy. My life is good. I’m undeniably lucky. But as I process current events, studies about climate change, and the increasingly volatile state of nature, I think, “This is what I’m grieving. The world I love has been given a terminal diagnosis."

The whole world is a big thing to grieve, and bodies can only hold so much grief. So I close out of news sites and promise myself limited exposure to online commentary for at least a week. Hopefully I’ll start sleeping better, stop sweating at night, start breathing with my whole set of lungs. I do recognize that my body still enjoys a lot of privilege, especially when I read essays like Kelly’s. But that isn’t the point of the Unruly Bodies series. It wasn’t created to help the normals feel better about themselves. It’s there to illustrate that none of us are truly normal. It’s futile to try to fit ourselves and our uniquely unruly bodies into tidy molds.

I’m tempted to toss all of my striving to the wind and just run free, as free as I can, for as long as I’m able.

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.