It's been a few days since I last posted and a lot has happened around here. I had my first muscle biopsy performed and it was pretty uncomfortable and gross during the procedure, but healed-up quickly in the days following. Of course, I've been on some more great rides too! Two days ago, Thomas from Denmark, and I did a big ride leaving from the hospital in Switzerland. We climbed narrow paved roads up Mont Tendre, the highest mountain in the Swiss Juras, while looking across massive Lac Leman into the Alps and Mont Blanc. Spectacular!
Parking?
Yesterday was our first really rainy day and it felt like home! Rather than riding in the rain(too early in the year for that), Russell and Nikole(visiting for the week) took me around in their rental car and down into Geneva. We walked around the old city streets, had an awesome Swiss lunch, and some good beer. It was cool seeing Geneva, but it did seem mostly to be a city for wealthy shoppers.
Veinous and arterial lines in place.
Today was a pretty crazy day at the hospital, to say the least. I performed two VO2 max tests; one at current altitude(about 1000 meters) and one at a simulated 2600 meters. During these tests, I was hooked up to an insane amount of sensors and gadgets, including veinous and arterial catheters, cardiac sensors, a brain-blood ultra-sound, and some sort of other muscle sensors(forgot to ask what they were for). As crazy as I looked, it was actually surprisingly easy to ride normally in the tests. The arterial catheter was really the worst part, which had to be placed by a certified anesthesiologist. Even this task wouldn't be a big deal if I wasn't so freaked out by needles. This trip is really helping me face my fear!
Plugging me into the matrix!
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