Monthly Archives: August 2014

For the first time in far too long I got on the bike.  It’s shocking that it’s been so long but what can I say.

I decided I’d go on a group ride with the Silver Wheels Cycling Club.  The calendar said it was an easy *2 ride of 30 miles.   I woke up a few minutes late so out the door I went.  This would haunt me later but I’m a big boy so what can I say?

I got there on time and there were a total of six riders.  I was the youngest at 58 (my birthday was just a couple days before).  We got on the road and I admired the bikes.  There was a Madone, Felt and the one that I want to get when I lose the weight, a Specialized Roubaix.  Took a mile or so for my legs to loosen up but once they did I felt great.

Before I left I noticed that the battery in my bike computer had died so I was riding blind.  Didn’t matter much as I couldn’t ride faster than the ride leader.  I’ll have to buy a few of those batteries since they fit in more than one of my devices, (watch, guitar tuner, etc.)

It was a warm day with temps just about eighty and I went through my water bottle quickly and realized that I only brought one.  Luckily halfway through we stopped at one of the rider’s houses and we got refills.  It was a nice break in the shade and I took a couple pictures with Paul Zacharias.

The ride took us into LaGrange and then north.  It was a perfect day to ride.  Around mile twenty-five I ran out of water and realized that rushing out of house without breakfast was a mistake.  At mile thirty I bonked, seriously hitting the wall.  I couldn’t ride about ten miles per hour.  What a dummy!

All in all it was a great ride.  I’ll never leave without having something on my stomach and two water bottles.  We ended up going a respectable thirty-two miles.  I’m back.  I plan to keep this nasty beard for a while but guarantee it will be off by Christmas

The stats:

I had my fourth colonoscopy in three months this morning.  There had been a couple spots on my colon that were suspicious.  The surgeon has been scraping away at them trying to get rid of the bad tissue and get down to good tissue.  Good news today is that he finally got rid of it.  He then said, “It was on the verge of being cancer“.

I’m okay.  I have to have another colonoscopy in two months but I’ve dodged a bullet.  One that my two brothers and assorted relatives haven’t.  I can breathe.

I will be having genetic testing in a few weeks.  The doctor is sure I have Lynch Syndrome, a genetic mutation that raises the risk of colon cancer to 60% to 80% in one’s lifetime.  In women it can cause ovarian cancer too.  My sister had ovarian cancer when she was in her twenties.  One of my cousins was recently diagnosed with it.  My grandfather, Clarence Bott, died from colon cancer in 1937 at the age of 40.  I can remember my Uncle Bob dying at 41 when I was a teenager.  We called it the family curse.  If my father hadn’t died in a car accident at the age of 42 he probably would have succumbed to it as he was obviously a carrier.

On to cycling.

When I get these colonoscopies I don’t eat for three days before and I’m week for a few days after.  That means no exercise and no cycling.  Plus I’ve been under an incredible amount of stress.  That ends now.

I plan to get on the bike.  I’ll be sixty in two years.  I plan to be the fittest I’ve ever been by then.  Who knows, I may even enter Calvin’s Challenge.