My New Office/Jersey and pics of the lab report

Above pic is part of my view from my new work desk. The best view are the pics of Cezanne and I. I have to put up a couple of cycling pics too. Nothing like some good pics of guys in tight spandex.

I don't know why I look surprised in this pic, I took it. You get a good shot of my receding hairline and impeccable sense of style. Actually, the style part is shown below.

I have some of my titanium dioxide sunscreen on my lips in the above pic. It turns everything it touches a pale pinkish/white. I guess I have to accept that rather than my skin itching for a week when I use "regular" sunscreen.

I got this Assos jersey last week, half price from Competitive Cyclist. It's Assos' bottom of the line jersey, but still retails for $170. I have a few Assos items and love them all. This medium jersey is a perfect fit. The material is a little thin, so you can easily see the bib straps, but I'll take it. My goal at some point is to purchase the Assos top of the line bib shorts...but I'll wait until the winter sale (hopefully there is one) since they retail for $360.

Below is part of the blood work I got done showing the low testosterone level (noted by the "L" next to the number) and the normal range for males. I hope I'm still a male! I think I said this in my last post, but the range is so wide because testosterone decreases as men age and maybe there's a lot of variability in the population. Right now, 151 is about 25% of the testosterone level I should have.

Also, just so my fellow cyclists didn't think I was pulling their chain about my hematocrit level, I posted that pic below. What is interesting, besides the high value, is that the range they have goes to 52%, when the World Anti-Doping Agency (or maybe it's the UCI), sets a 50% limit for cyclists (or maybe every athlete).

Like I said in my previous post, I've seen my values before around 42 and 47. Hematocrit is apparently affected by a ton of factors...genetics, altitude, training fatigue... The one explanation I have is that my blood was drawn a week or 2 after coming back from a week long vacation in Utah at Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks. Maybe the little bit of altitude training cause a small jump when I got back down to sea level. I honestly have no idea if that's how it's supposed to work, I'm totally guessing. Even so, I don't think Zion and Bryce are located at a very high elevation.

Additional pics of the jersey below.

Diagnosis: Low Testosterone

My younger brother Jon (on the right) did the Eagleman Half-Ironman Triathlon this past Sunday.  I made the trip over to Cambridge, MD to see him do the event, really cool.  They had a great set-up, it was a great day, and Jon completed his FIRST half-ironman triathlon.  That's us above after the event.

Above pic is Jonnie in the last 200 yards of the 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, and 13.1 mile run adventure.

Cezanne's new Prius!  Doing our part to stimulate the economy and not stimulate the environment.

Bono is taking a nap, a pup after my own heart.

Cezanne's family: Bro Ryan, Step-Mom Sarah, Dad Dave, her and me.  This was us during her Grandma's 80th birthday weekend about an hour north of Pittsburgh.

Now, onto the subject of this post.  I have my testosterone levels checked about twice a year or more often if I feel it necessary, given how I'm feeling.  My body doesn't produce much of the stuff given my bilateral testicular cancer, so I have to supplement my body with it by rubbing gel on my shoulders and stomach every morning.  Males need testosterone to maintain normal energy levels, libido and longer term: deep voice and lean muscle amongst a bunch of other things.  Malaise or depression is also a symptom of low testosterone.

So, my level was 151 from the blood that was drawn on May 27th.  Normal range for males is 280 - 800.  Testosterone fades as you age...but right now I don't even have the testosterone of an 80 year-old man (I'm guessing).  When I look back on the past few months, I remember I had been complaining of being overly tired to my wife Cezanne.  When the Endocrinologist asked how I was feeling I said more tired than usual, but gave the excuse that I had just got back from a week long vacation of hiking, biking, etc.  When I think back to the cycling season, there was a point when my performance and desire to compete dropped off, possibly coinciding with my testosterone level.

I talked with the Doc today and I'll get my blood drawn tomorrow to verify the reading.  During my cancer treatments, they took a baseline testosterone level (before the surgery that left my body without the ability to produce the necessary levels normally).  That reading was 610.  Since being on the replacement testosterone my levels have fluctuated, but we've normally been able to keep the levels between 500-700.  It's tough though because after a while it seems like the same dose isn't providing the same level.  Maybe external factors play a part.  I don't think it's an issue with how I've recently been putting it on.  My wife says I'm the "model" patient because I put it on at basically the same time every day and never miss a dose.

Maybe the tiredness and loss of desire to compete are in my head and the reading I take tomorrow will be normal, but it would definitely help explain things a bit.  Working 13 hours a day at the new job isn't helping the tiredness either.

I also got a CBC (complete blood count) taken and on the bright side, my Hematocrit (HCT) level was 49.1.  Nice!  I'm almost illegal by anti-doping standards, which is anything over 50.  I've seen mine before at around 43 and 47.

Besides all this, things are going well.  The new job hasn't been too crazy yet, but I typically work 7am-8pm Monday through Friday.  Most permanent employees come in the office work Saturdays too and some even come in on Sundays depending on the workload.  Capitol Hill is an interesting place and it's got it's own set of strange rules and language that I'm starting to learn.

I got up at 4am one Tuesday morning, so I could ride the trainer from 4-5am before getting ready for work, but I didn't enjoy that.  Riding the trainer at the end of a 13 hour day, on a full stomach wasn't fun either.  So, my riding has been limited to the weekends which isn't too great for getting/staying in racing shape and for that matter, neither does my low testosterone level and general feeling of fatigue.

I signed up for a 3 stage/2 day race this weekend that I was really looking forward to, but I'm not going to be able to do it.  I've signed up for 2 more races this year, both in July and I hope I get to do them.  I'm kind of writing this season off and hope to be able to dedicate more time to riding next year.  It's a bummer because I think this year started with a lot of promise.

These long work hours will last until the end of December, then I hope to resume some good winter training.  But, I actually don't know where Cezanne and I will be living!  I took this temporary assignment and thought I'd be going back to the job I had before (since I was scheduled to be in that position from November 2008 to November 2011), but someone was ordered into my position.  So, I'll have to negotiate with my detailer for a new set of orders.  We are hoping we'll stay in D.C. for at least the next 2 years.

Cezanne and I just had our 2-year anniversary on June 17th.  We're going out to a nice dinner this weekend.  She's been absolutely awesome while I've been working these hours.  She's typically up helping me get out the door in the morning and then making dinner for when I get home.  She's a sweetheart and doing most everything lately!

Long blog post...but I haven't had much time to write lately.  I don't have the energy right now to go back and check for grammar errors, so oh well!

My new favorite photo angle

Yesterday I did my 2nd 13-hour day in a row. Basic working hours for me are 7am-8pm. Most difficult thing right now is learning the Congressional language and what all the different procedural measures mean.

The above pic is of me at my desk watching the TV we have in the office, which is usually on the House proceedings. There were a few votes yesterday that the Legislative staff was briefing the Congressman on.

I'm still trying to figure out when I'm going to be able to workout and ride my bike when I'm getting up at 5am and going home in time to eat a late dinner and go to bed. I haven't done anything in the way of riding or the gym this week, at all.

JW asked why I was wearing a suit to work. Those are the rules for Legislative Fellows, no uniform, civilian clothes the entire time.

I'm thinking about Toon right now and his wedding to Michelle this weekend. Cezanne and I are really bummed that we couldn't make it. If we would have kept our original plans and airline tickets, we would be in Michigan right now. We'll just have to make other plans to see them when this "deployment" is over.

First 12+ hour day at the new job

That's me on the Metro on the way home today.  First day with the Congressman in the office tomorrow.  Not a good day to be late...but, I have to pick up my parking pass and that office doesn't open up until 7:30am.

The rest of June is supposed to be really busy, July too.

Luck

Found this yesterday on a walk with Cezanne and our dog Bono.

I'm off for a week vacation with high school buds, RVing, Camping, and hiking in Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks.

Happy Birthday to me

It would be nice if my birthday gift every year was to ride with a pro cyclist. Better yet would be an annual ride with Lance. I haven't posted this picture on my blog yet, but I know I've circulated it.

Thanks to Bob Cullinan from www.cycleto.com for the pic from the 2008 San Jose LiveStrong Ride. I'll have to post this picture once or twice a year to remind myself of this incredible experience.

Yesterday was my birthday, but Cezanne and I are celebrating it tonight. Having her as my wife is gift enough, but she decided to renew my "Bicycling" subscription as well as get me a massage for this Saturday. It's been a long time.

It was supposed to be sunny all afternoon yesterday. Turned out it wasn't. I still made it out for a ride in Rock Creek Park. It was decent. The rain stopped, so I just had to deal with the spray coming of the tires.

The deer were out in full force yesterday. There were packs of them all over. I stopped less than 10 feet from one and it just sat there staring at me. I thought for a minute it was either going to run away or come after me... I snapped the above pic, but it doesn't do it justice. By the time I pulled up my vest, got into my pocket, took my phone out of the plastic sandwich bag...the deer had made it's way across the street.

The Manayunk Wall. Cezanne used to live in Manayunk and is familiar with the "wall" as they call it. I think it's part of the Philly week races and the cyclists do the wall several times. Last time we were in Philly she saw this cool piece of art and she decided to get it (while I was driving from the Ephrata RR to Philly).

JW previously posted a video link to a guy doing a one-handed wheelie up the Manayunk wall:

http://jwbender.blogspot.com/2009/04/you-wish-you-were-this-cool-i-wish-i.html

Jeff Cup to Bunny Hop: Good to Awful

So the bike racing season goes for me: Good to Awful.

I don't know what I'm doing. I've gone from being in the top 6 or 7 heading into the last 50 feet of Jeff Cup (before 2 guys crashed a few feet in front of me and ended my top 10 finish) to getting dropped and lapped at Bunny Hop, a self proclaimed "good crit for beginners." Pathetic really.

I'm actually chuckling to myself right now (and shaking my head). Things have been off since last Thursday, starting with tired legs, but I was still able to post respectable top third finishes in the Tour de Ephrata RR and TT (not so much in the crit).

Maybe crits aren't my thing, but still, I usually have no problem hanging in and giving it a go even. It was raining pretty heavily today and I can honestly say that I cornered like I was 8 and it was my 5th ride on a bike. I consistently lost ground at every turn and it eventually became a TT on every straight-away to try and catch up to the main group. In the end it wasn't doable.

I didn't use my bike computer for the race. I'm sure it would have been fine, but I didn't want to chance getting any water into the Garmin 705 head unit with the heavy rain. Maybe in retrospect I just wasn't too excited for this race and that manifested itself in more ways than not using my computer.

I wasn't too upset at the end and managed a smile for Cezanne. She, of course, was being a really supportive wife and out there in the rain cheering me on...and watching me drift further and further back. She also put up with my slight grumpiness on the drive over to the crit. This has been the closest race to our place, but leave it to downtown DC to always have stuff closed off! We had to detour, u-turn, backtrack because the police had shut down what seemed like random streets.

So, I'm not sure where this leaves me and racing. I'm scheduled to race next Saturday (May 9) at the Fort Ritchie Criterium. After that I leave for a week long trip to go RVing, camping and hiking with my best highschool buds out in Zion National Park and Grand Canyon National Park. I'm out of town Memorial Day weekend as well as the weekend of June 6/7 (Toon's wedding!!!), so it's possible that after the race on May 9, I might not race until the Tour of Washington County on June 20-21, which is a stage race like Ephrata.

The possibility exists to do a the Fulton Road Race in Lancaster County, PA on May 30, but not sure about that weekend yet.

So I'm thinking I should try to bury myself with a tough week of training this week (if I can muster it) and not worry about a result in the Fort Ritchie Crit and then use this next week's trip as a rest week and start things from there.

Including the 2 crits I did in San Diego last year, the 3 Tradezone practice races at the beginning of this year, today was my 10th mass start, so I could put in for my upgrade to Cat 4. I'm still undecided if I'll put it in soon or after the last race of the season and then just start fresh as a Cat 4 next year.


On Saturday Cezanne and I visited 2 Embassies in DC as part of the Passport to DC event. The 2 closest Embassies to our place were Iraq and Nepal, so we decided to walk to both. The line to get into the Iraqi Embassy was so long we went to Nepal first. Above is my gorgeous wife outside of the Nepal Embassy.


We learned that Nepal is bordered by India on 3 sides and China on the other. They served some curried potatoes with some sort of dry rice cereal. It was good!


We worked our way back around to the Iraq Embassy and the line was about half the size. Above pic is of the line.


Yup, this is the Embassy. We went through a metal detector and on in. They had some old artifacts and a brochure with the history of Iraq and a ton of photos of the Iraqi troops working with US troops.


Out back they did a little Iraqi dancing and they had Iraqi food. The dancing and food was surprisingly like Greek dancing and food.

On the way home we walked a different way than we had ever been and approached the National Cathedral from a different angle.