The Anti-blood-doper

I like a good challenge and while I may not appear very competitive, certain things get me going. School is a good challenge. Taking care of my family is a good challenge. Getting gold medals on G. Wars for the Wii is a challenge. And anytime some other person on a bike passes me on my way to or from school, THAT'S a straight up challenge and it is always good fun passing them or respectfully calling off my pursuit (which, in the rare time it happens, goes unknown to the challenger). There's one guy on a mountain bike with rear saddle bags covered in a yellow plastic poncho that is FAST. I've only seen him once, but he blew by me at an intersection and try as I might, the gap just got bigger. He's passed my friend and classmate, Lance, a couple times, to his frustration. There's some other guy I've seen ahead of me that I could never catch up to, but our paths are only the same for a few blocks.

Fixie riders aren't even a challenge, although they'd like to be. They try, but nope. Today I took it slow on the way home because I donated a double-count of blood. Normally you donate a pint, but most places also have a machine that filters out the blood cells and puts your plasma with some saline solution back in you. You lose no volume of blood, but you've lost 2 pints worth (not 2 pints) of oxygen-carrying red blood cells. I did that at school today, so I rode a slower pace home with Lance. Within a block, some chump on a fixie (with no helmet, like he's so cool and metro on his fixie that a helmet would cramp his style) passes by pedaling fast. I watch him tackle the first block up the hill on Sacramento St. and forget about it. We chug along, and up the second block, there he is WALKING his bike. Lolzorz. If only he knew that I don't change gears up that hill either, that would have made him feel really dumb! (If you can't tell, I'm trying to be funny......sort of LOL).

Having not lost any blood volume, I'm not worried about passing out or fainting, but I figured there's less oxygen getting to the muscles, so I'll get tired more easily. Woof. By the top of the neighborhood, my heart was burning and I was struggling for air and I didn't even go that fast. It was pretty cool actually. Lance pointed out it's like the opposite of blood-doping, where athletes illegally inject red blood cells into their veins to temporarily get more oxygen-carrying power. It also makes your blood thicker and your heart work harder to pump it all. Guys that do that are sissies. Real men take the RBC's OUT and do the same work, just purely for the challenge!


Here's some bike related pictures. I broke the big chainring on my bike a few weeks ago, the same way I broke the last one, but instead of bending, it snapped almost clean off. At the same intersection, too. Eerie, or I'm just CRAZY STRONG!!!!! They're not all bike related, but I like em anyways.