Must be Something in the Air...

Well it hasn't been a very good week on the bike. I have been feeling a bit out of sorts for a couple of weeks and made an appointment to see my doctor on Monday. By the time I got to his office, my blood pressure was almost 170/88 and my pulse was 91. Dr C had a look of incredulity as he looked at the BP reading- seems to me the last time it was about 128/72 or thereabouts. It had been more than an hour since I had left work so shouldn't have been suffering too much stress.

We talked about the situation, was I still cycling the same amount and with the same intensity? "Yes" and "yes- except I was having difficulty garnering enthusiasm for my morning rides." And that continued as I didn't ride Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday of this week.

Took another BP- the systolic had dropped to 165 but the diastolic had climbed to 91 and my heart was still racing at around 90. The Doc ordered a series of blood tests and x-rays so I spent most of Tuesday either being stabbed with needles or being bombarded by x-rays while posing in a contorted position that felt more like something that may have been used on the house guests at Abu Ghraib. 

I also got to wear an automatic blood pressure cuff for 24 hours. Every half hour during the day and every hour at night, the little pump fills the cuff with air and records the info for later download/analysis- or so the theory goes. This one had a bit of an issue in that the internal  clock appeared to have been set incorrectly and so the cycle was reversed. Every half hour all night, the pump would kick in and inflate the cuff to the point where I thought I had a tourniquet on my arm. Then it would ease off and deflate leaving me (and Dee) to try and get back to sleep before the next instance came around.

I don't think we were asleep for many from about 2:00am onward.

On a positive note, the Doc did say I could keep cycling, but there is to be no sprinting or hillwork allowed- just an easy pace. The hillwork I don't mind giving away, but it was really, really, reeeeaaaalllly hard watching most of our Saturday morning ride take off on our weekly little sprint to the Casino as I calmly kept to my 28km/hr.

My results are expected this week. 

Cheers- ride safe

BoaB