If Lance Armstrong is found guilty of doping, I may just have to forgive him.
The fact is that I hate that there is doping in sports. The idea that people cheat, using illegal and possibly dangerous drugs, is disturbing. It makes sports more dangerous and less fun.
In full disclosure, I sort of dope, especially during the winter and allergy season. I am on a daily regime of Zyrtec (OTC), Cingulair and Advair (the baby dose, usually), and I will take one shot of Xopenex before engaging in athletic activities. I have a doctor’s prescription for all my drugs and they serve the purpose of addressing symptoms such as sneezing, runny nose, watery eyes and my inability to breath normally (Cingulair, Advair and Xopenex are all targeted at allowing my lungs to function normally) caused by my allergies. During the winter, I drop the Zyrtec, but I keep up my asthma-drug regimen to address my athletic induced asthma. I try to take a break from drugging myself during the summer when the hot air helps to mitigate the effects of athletic induced asthma.
But, enough about me.
This past year, Barry Bonds was tried and found guilty of obstruction of justice for lying to a federal grand jury about the fact that had used illegal, performance enhancing drugs (which are also known as PEDs). Bonds was acquitted of some of the charges levied against him and a mistrial was declared on other charges, but that is getting away from the point.
What is amazing to me is that the charges levied against Barry Bonds are child’s play relative to the charges that could potentially be leveled against Lance Armstrong (yes, that “Live Strong”, Sheryl Crow’s ex, Lance Armstrong). The U.S. Department of Justice has asked Interpol officials, including French, Belgian and Italian officials, for help in gathering information on an alleged international doping program, allegedly formed and utilized by Armstrong and his U.S. Postal Service cycling team. Charges of fraud and conspiracy may be pursued and phone and bank records are being gathered by the DOJ. Agents from the FBI, IRS, DEA and the FDA are all involved in the investigation, with the DOJ serving as the lead agency. This is much bigger than the Roger Clemens or Barry Bonds investigations ever were.
So this past Wednesday I hopped on to an “Expresso Bike” at the Scarsdale (ooh, fancy – but not really) New York Sports Club. For those of you who were too lazy to click on the link above or would have a difficult time navigating multiple windows on your smartphone, an Expresso Bike is a high tech exercise bike. The bicycle has toggles on the handlebars that allow you to shift gears up and down and there is a screen, which displays a scenic route, in front of the bicycle. Before you start peddling, you choose a route from one of the many route options, each of which has different scenery, ascents, descents, distances and difficulties. There are other riders on the screen, you can pass them or they can pass you depending on your speed, the scenery changes (as I was riding a horse started galloping next to me, which was a wonderful, yet strange experience – mostly because I was enjoying the feeling of being in touch with nature, and then I realized that it was in a basement in a gym), you have a speed gauge, your RPMs are displayed and you can see your progress on the course. It is imperative to keep up with gear shifts, which can be rapid, because you can get mashed by steep ascents that pop up quickly and you can miss the opportunity to take advantage of descents. Anyway, I finished a 13.66 mile course in 1 hour and 3 minutes, moving at a sloth-like 13 miles per hour (I need to bicycle 25 miles in the triathlon). I was absolutely spent. The ascent of 900+ feet killed me. What is crazy is that this would be a joke of an easy day on the Tour de France. My pace was pathetically slow.
So here is the thing – I cannot forgive Barry Bonds, Jose Conseco and other PED users who play(ed) baseball. Baseball players get to bat 4 times, maybe 5 times, per game, swinging a 2.5 pound bat 12 – 25 times a game…that isn’t that tough. Baseball players might sprint after a ball, running 100 – 200 feet 10 to 15 times a game. I know that they need to have lightning fast reflexes and would like to hit the ball a long way and pitchers need to throw a ball fast, and they all need to recover from injuries. However, the stresses on baseball players’ bodies pale in comparison to the torture that football players or, as I am learning, professional cyclists endure.
All I am saying is that after a little more than (a mere) 13 miles in a little more than 1 hour (forget a Tour De France, which is a 3 week, 2,200 mile ride – yes, that is approximately 100 miles/day – up fantastically steep mountains), I think I could have easily gone for a PED or two. It would have made walking up the steps @ NYSC much, much easier.
