The Armstrong Lie

I began cycling in 1990, a year after I moved to Laramie, Wyoming. The bike became my most frequent companion (other than my wife, Karen), riding the ranch roads and smaller state roads around Laramie, as well as a variety or roads around Wyoming on my annual visits to newspapers. I took it with me during a week in Bozeman, Montana, when I conducted a communications audit at Montana State University, riding up Bridger Bowl. Two years,  I went to the Carpenter-Phinney cycling camp in Frisco, Colorado, riding Vail, Aspen and Loveland passes. I was hooked

Late in 2003, I started suffering from a continual ache in the lower right quadrant of my back. I tried heat, ice, chiropractic. Karen bought me a massage pad for my office chair. Nothing worked. Finally, my GP ordered an ultrasound. I asked the technician if she saw anything where I felt the pain. "Not there, but there's a mass on your left side." One evening, soon thereafter, my doctor called and asked Karen and me to meet him that night at his office. Clearly, it wasn't good. We ate dinner at the nearby Wendy's, discussing the best- and worst-case scenarios. My doctor came right to the point. You have a tumor in your left kidney. It's probably cancerous.

We set up surgery for early January 2004. The surgeon conducted a total nephrectomy through a double incision still visible today. I was in the hospital for three painful weeks. Four weeks after my discharge, I went back to work, wearing a sweatsuit, the only clothes I could wear comfortably. It was quite a while longer before I could get back on the bike. I can't remember my first ride, but I remember ordering my yellow, rubber Livestrong band. I admired Lance Armstrong and his return to high-level professional cycling after cancer surgery. I vowed to myself that I'd get back to my previous level of fitness, and after five years as a cancer survivor I'd remove the band. Before I left Laramie, I got myself back up to 55-mile rides to the end of Herrick Lane, but I never did get out again to Woods Landing for the 60-mile rides I did in the late 90s in preparation for bike camp.

One day, a couple of years after my surgery, I received a morning call from my good friend, Charles Pelkey, inviting me over to his house for brunch. There was, he said, someone he wanted me to meet. When I got there, Charles, who by then was writing authoritatively about doping-in-cycling issues for VeloNews, introduced me to Greg LeMond. Over bagels and salmon, we talked about cycling, doping, and, inevitably to Lance Armstrong. I didn't get all of the technical data points, though I'd been reading Charles' articles for several years. It was clear that Charles and LeMond believed Armstrong had doped during his Tour de France wins. LeMond asked me why I was wearing a Livestrong band, and I responded that I was a recent cancer survivor. He wished me well, but suggested there were better cancer-fighting organizations to which I could give my money, referring to Livestrong as Armstrong's retirement fund.

I didn't want to believe Armstrong was a doper. I bought his argument that it would be unthinkable for a cancer survivor to take doping products into an already battered body. But, I thought over LeMond's reasoned arguments. I thought over Charles' writings. And I remember how, at Carpenter-Phinney one year, a camper, a licensed pharmacist, asked the late cycling fitness expert Ed Burke what performance enhancers she could take and not get caught at doping control. This from an amateur cyclist; a pharmacist.

I began to believe that Armstrong was a doper, a bully, a liar, and a cheat. I stopped watching professional cycling for a few years and cancelled my subscriptions to magazines that covered professional cycling. I rode for fitness; I rode for fun. In 2009, five years after my cancer surgery, I removed my Livestrong band.

All of this came back today while watching Alex Gibney's documentary, "The Armstrong Lie." Gibney, a serious and prolific documentarian whose work includes "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," began work on the documentary as a confirmation of Armstrong's greatness as he attempted to win the 2009 Tour de France, four years after his seventh consecutive win. As Armstrong fell further and further behind eventual winner Alberto Contador, it became clear that the documentary would not have a happy ending. Gibney, at the time, did not know how unhappy the ending would be. Floyd Landis' 2010 doping confession and accusations against Armstrong; Tyler Hamilton's "60 Minutes" accusation; USADA in 2012 stripping Armstrong of all wins since 1998 and banning him from cycling for life; Armstrong's 2013 confession to Oprah Winfrey. Gibney lays it all out with interviews of Armstrong's former teammates, Irish journalist Dave Walsh, Betsy Andreau (his former teammate Frankie's wife), and more. And, in his own interview with Armstrong, Gibney presses for reasons - why did you cheat, why did you lie, why did you trash all your accusers. The answers are revealing of Armstrong's character, or lack thereof, essentially: "To win," "Because I cheated (though everyone else did too)," "And because I've always been a fighter."

As Gibney notes in the documentary, the use of performance enhancers has always been a part of cycling. Alcohol, cocaine, strychnine, caffeine used as early as 1886. Amphetamines were used by the likes of Italian champion Fausto Coppi; French champion Jacques Anquetil; British cyclist Tom Simpson, who died on the slopes of Mont Ventoux in 1968; and the greatest rider in history, Belgian Eddy Merckx. Cortisone, hormones, steroids, blood doping, EPO, human growth hormone. On and on, scandal after scandal, illness and death.

I'd like to think that professional cycling is cleaner now. I'd like to, but I can't. Enhanced performance is intoxicating. When I moved from Laramie (7,200-foot-altitude) to northern Idaho (2,250-foot-altitude), I had an immediate two-week boost in fitness from having trained many years at altitude. When I developed kidney disease in my right kidney after losing the left one to cancer, my nephrologist proscribed a short-course of EPO to help build red blood cells. That was nice. And when I had a blood transfusion in the early days of my disintegrating pancreas to remedy blackouts from anemia (internal bleeding), I felt like Superman for a week or two.

But it's all illusion. You are what you are, you ride as you ride. I'll never be a strong rider, because that's my physiology. I'll always climb like a cat without claws. So what. As Armstrong wrote (with Sally Jenkins), "It's Not About the Bike." Maybe that's the truest thing Armstrong ever said. It's also not about winning at any cost. It's not even about winning.

For me, it's always been about enjoyment, and in more recent years it's been about staying healthy enough to live through another surgery if it becomes necessary. It's why I suffer nearly every day during winter with my bike locked onto a trainer, building endurance and strength, so that when spring comes I can take my bike back on the roads and trails around Northern Idaho and Spokane, and ride the Tour de Cure, an event that, as a Type 1 diabetic for the past four-and-a-half years means a great deal to me.

My performance enhancers: Gatorade and homemade energy bars that prevent my blood sugar from dropping and causing crashes, both metaphoric and literal. It's not about the bike. It's all about going out for a ride, having fun, and coming home in one piece.

Today's Special

When Karen and I lived back in Laramie, for several years we belonged to a university-based foreign foods group. About a dozen couples belonged, and every month we'd gather at a member's home to eat and drink way too much. Someone would decide which ethnic cuisine we'd try the next month, and every couple would make a dish or three for everyone to share. I remember Spanish, Greek, Scandinavian (worst choice, ever), Italian and Indian. I'm sure there were more, but they probably weren't as memorable.

We'd become great fans of Indian food, making the 90-minute drive to Fort Collins, Colo., every so often for a buffet lunch at the late, lamented, Star of India, or to the Indian restaurant in Loveland. Eventually, we found some Indian ingredients and sauces at a natural foods store in Laramie, and then an Internet Web site for Tasty Bite foods. Karen even bought a kit of Indian spices and made her own blends while I was off at work.

There are several Indian restaurants in the Spokane area, but the best of the bunch is downtown, about 30 minutes away. I've done some Indian cooking, but not much. I did tonight, though, but with more inspiration than effort. Yesterday evening, we downloaded a Netflix movie called "Today's Special," starring Assif Mandvi of "The Daily Show." I'd never heard of it before Karen found it, but it was really good. The story involves sou chef of Muslim Indian descent, who aspires to be chef of a top French restaurant - spurning the family's Indian restaurant in Manhattan. When his father suffers a heart attack, he reluctantly takes over the family restaurant and, with the help of a cab driver/former chef, makes the restaurant a top draw for New York foodies.

While trolling the aisles of the Post Falls, Idaho, Wal-Mart today, I discovered they now carried whole wheat (a sop to my diabetes) naan, the delicious Indian flat bread. Back in the car, Karen asked, "Are you going to make Indian food because of the movie we saw last night?" You bet, but I didn't have a lot of time to work at it. On the way home we stopped at The Trading Company grocery store so Karen could mail some packages at their contract postal office, and I found packages of Tasty Bite Kashmir spinach. I bought two. Then, off to Albertsons to pick up our meds and buy some lamb. By the time we got home, it was 3:30.

I sliced up some onions and sauteed them with a little butter and olive oil in a cast iron skillet; chopped up some plum tomatoes and threw them into the pan; cubed the lamb and added it to the onions and tomatoes. After the meat was done and tender, I added the two packets of Kashmir spinach (saag and cubes of paneer cheese), covered and let simmer for about a half hour. When nearly done, I oiled the naan and sauteed it in a separate frying pan. A Red Hook IPA (India Pale Ale), and it's dinner. Not as fancy as the food cooked up in "Today's Special," but pretty good chow.

On Seeing Eagles

This morning, driving down Wellesley Ave. in Otis Orchards, Washington, I saw what seemed to be a hawk circling near the elementary school. The area is flush with red tailed hawks, and so I didn't find this particular bird remarkable - until I got closer and thought it must be the largest hawk I'd ever seen. Then, I saw the white tail and the white head. It was a bald eagle, probably over from Liberty Lake for brunch. It was a rare sight.

A few years ago, Karen and I were walking from our house in Post Falls up to the old barn when we saw a flock of crows circling the upper meadow. As we approached, they rose up, and we saw a deer carcass, which had been largely picked over. There was no blood trail. It looked like a coyote kill. Walking south along Anna Spring, we were shocked by two bald eagles crossing the trail about 10 feet off the ground, 20 feet in front of us. Magnificent. It was the first time we'd seen bald eagles here, though there are times they've been seen in profusion at Liberty Lake and Lake Coeur d'Alene.

When we lived in Laramie, Wyoming, I often saw golden eagles while on bike rides on Herrick Lane. Along that flat, undulating route, with cottonwoods along distant springs, the eagles built nests and perched atop telephone poles. Brown feathers flecked with gold, massive, watching for vermin. I thought this morning, as I saw the bald eagle, that I favored the golden eagles. Birds are what they are, but to me the golden eagle seems more stealthy, more deadly in its visual subtlety.

These days on my rides, I mostly see ducks and geese on the Spokane River along the Centennial Trail. Some quail. The occasional coyote. And, of course, red tailed hawks. I miss seeing the golden eagles as I ride, racing pronghorns across the prairie. You make do with what you've got.