As you know, I love to ride my bike. However, I have never been in a race, and I harbor no delusions about my speed or endurance. But anyone that has not suffered a Rip van Winkle for the past 20 years has heard a lot about bike racers doping in various sneaky ways to increase their performance, Lance Armstrong being the poster child for such things.
So, I was reading an article about "blood doping," and it said that racers will sometimes surreptitiously drain off a unit of their blood. Well, hot dang! The local blood bank had sent out a piteous plea for donations just the other day! So, off to The Blood Connection office yesterday with Paula.
Things went very smoothly, except for my getting dizzy watching Paula's blood draining into the bag.
That's a funny thing, a former doctor who saw a lot of blood for a lot of years getting dizzy, but I guess it's different when it's your wife. The only time it ever happened before was watching the hand surgeon explore Laura's finger which had been badly sliced in a pumpkin carving incident. The nurse, a friend, ordered me to sit on the floor as she perceived that I was going to arrive there soon voluntarily or otherwise. Like I said, it's different when it's your own kid or wife.
So, I did a rigorous bike ride today, including all the good hills in the area and trying to hit it hard. I did worse than usual, which isn't saying a whole lot, but I really did feel puny.
So I went back to the article on blood doping and discovered that I had quit reading too soon. It turns out that "blood doping" was not just taking a unit of blood off, but the athlete is then allowed to build his blood back up for a month and the stored unit is put back before a competition! This would raise his blood count and result in greater endurance. I had only done the first half!
All kidding aside, I can agree that neither part of blood doping is good. I'll plan some wimpier rides after donating in the future.
Dave
