For some reason, I’m always drug tested when sleep deprived…

Late last night Justin Dyszelski called.  He’s a fellow ISCorp cyclist, as well as I triathlete who I coached for IM WI this year.  This season he’s worked hard and improved, and that came through is his race as he hammered the pace late in the marathon to place 4th in M18-24 qualifying for Kona 2010.  He was calling because earlier that day he had met with Mike Webber, the ISCorp CEO and an avid cyclist himself (hence his angel and title sponsorship of the cycling team), about starting an elite triathlon team with ISCorp as the title sponsor.  Justin asked if I would coach the team, and then we kicked around some ideas and a timeline for all the loose ends to pull the team together and make this a reality for next season.  Justin has a lot of good ideas, so I think it will materialize.  Clearly it was a good conversation.  The only downside was that it lasted until 12:30, and I was getting up at 5 AM for swim practice.

Fast forward to this morning…yes, I was a bit late to practice :)  Still, it was a good workout with North Carolina Aquatic Masters–stroke felt strong and smooth, and Sam and I stretched and chatted after the workout for a bit.  After a long shower, I drove home with breakfast followed by a long nap on my mind.

As I pulled into the cul-de-sac there was a Suburban driving very slowly in front of me and looking lost.  I pulled around, drove down our long gravel driveway, and parked.  It was a cold wet morning, so I was wearing a TIMEX wool pull-over and also put on the bright orange TIMEX Zorrel jacket as I hopped out of the car.  It was pretty obvious which team I raced for.

The Suburban had followed me down the drive and a man and woman were getting out of it.  I didn’t think anything of it because my dad had mentioned someone coming over this morning to look at the landscaping, gutters, or water heater…I can’t remember.  So, as I approached to introduce myself and show them to the gutters, or landscaping, or water heater, I was surprised by a “We’re from USADA and we’re here to drug test you!”

“Oh, no worries.  Come on in!”

Ok, now rewind to last week.  I was racing the Pinehurst Triathlon on Saturday, and staying on Friday night with my long-time friend and sometimes cycling training partner, Parker, who’s a GP in Sanford.  I had asked earlier in the week for his street address so I could update USADA with my whereabouts for the evening.  Pro athletes are subject to non-advanced-notice (surprise!) out-of-competition drug tests, and we fill out quarterly whereabouts forms to inform USADA of our travel, competition, training, and residence(s) locations and schedules for the upcoming three months.  This is a daunting task, but it’s manageable.  And, if our schedules change, we can simply update them online.  The bottom line is simply that USADA has to know where you are at all times.

You can imagine that sometimes this can feel like an invasion of privacy.  Not that this applies to me, because I’m lame, but let’s just suppose a hypothetical pro  athlete picks up a hot girl at a bar, and they go back to her place for a wild night of…s…Scrabble™.  He’d have to immediately tell USADA:

“Yo, USADA, I’m at 123 Main Street, Luckytown USA. But please don’t test me now because I’m getting LUCKY!!  That’s right baby, this chick has the most Balanced Rack (equal number of vowels and consonants) in the game, and I hear she’s known up and down the East Coast for her Double-Double (covering two DWS (double word squares) in one play, for which the player receives quadruple the word score, including any DLS (double letter squares)).”

And, in the heat of the moment, sending that text or e-mail update just wouldn’t be cool.  “Am I not smart enough for you anymore!?!  Am I’m not Scrabble™-able?!?!  Who are you texting??!??   Am I just your Scrabble™-buddy?!? Do you have another Scrabble™ date tonight?! Is this just your ‘warm-up’?” Plus, you’d get accused of cheating in Scrabble™, and maybe the USASCA, (US-Anti-Scrabble™-Cheating-Agency) would come bust you, because cell phones are on their prohibited methods list.

But, again, I’m lame and don’t live life in the fast lane—except during rec swim hours—so stimulating nights of Scrabble™ don’t apply to me.  But the funny thing was that when I called Parker to let him know I was running late but on my way, he said “There’s a man with a pee cup standing on my porch.”  I had not yet been to Parker’s new house, so my first thought was “He must be living on the wrong side of town if there’s a homeless guy peeing in a cup on his porch.  You’re a doctor, Parker, is this the home you provide for your wife and daughters?” My next thought was, “Oh, it’s USADA.” And I asked, “Seriously?” not because I was surprised, but because if they were there, Parker would not be allowed to call me and let me know, because it has to be a surprise test for me. “No, I’m kidding dude” Parker replied with a dead-pan delivery.

Now, back to the current test.  The two USADA Doping Control Officers and I come into the kitchen and start going through the notification process, which is all pretty familiar by now.  But, I wasn’t feeling the urge to pee.  In med school they teach us that glomerular filtration rate (GFR)—the rate at which the kidneys filter blood to start the process of making urine—is autoregulated via variation in renal blood flow and dilation and constriction of the afferent and efferent arterioles, which are under the control of the macula densa that controls the flow rate to each individual nephron (the kidney’s functional unit), such that GFR remains constant across a range of blood pressures.  However, whenever I exercise, I have to pee, a lot, certainly more than normal.  GFR must not remain constant at the limits of cardiac output.  Anyway, the one thing I’m a guaranteed to do when I swim, run, or ride is to head straight for the bathroom—not good when biking to class late.  Since I had already peed several times this morning, I was dry, and started drinking copious amounts of water to stimulate the 90 mL of urine I’d need to produce for the sample.  We had a bit of time to kill and made small talk.

Then my mom called:

“Eric, can you look in the fridge and take out the roast.”

“Got it.”

“Ok, now put it in the crock-pot on low, and add about an inch of water, and just let it cook all day.”

“Ok, mom. Got it.  Gotta go.”

“And add some carrots.”

“Ok, will do.  I-”

“Now, don’t forget to peel the carrots. And cut them up. Not too small, but not any wider that a half-inch.  Well, if you wanted them to be 5/8ths of an inch think, that’s ok.  They’ll be soft sitting in the crock pot all day.”

“Ok.  Thanks mom.  I think I can handle it.  Consider it done.”

“Oh, you can add some potatoes too…”

“Ok-”

“…and an onion.  That would taste good.  Do we have any red onions?  Well, no worries, use a yellow onion if that’s all we have…a medium one.  And tell Michael to clean his room because we’re having company this weekend, and you guys clean the bathroom.”

“Ok. Got it.  I’m on it.  Commencing Operation: Crock Pot. 10-4.  Over n’ Out”

So now that the USADA agents new the dinner plans, I was hoping we’d wrap this up before dinner so I could grab that nap before this evening’s track workout.

Rinnnggg….Rinnnnnggg

“Hello?”

“Eric, one more thing.  Did you remember to stick a hole in the potatoes?”

“Yes, I stabbed them with a knife.”

“You may want to cut them in quarters.”

“Ok, I’ll take care of it.  Consider it done.”

*click*

So by now the water was doing it’s job and I was ready to do mine.  “Let’s do this thing!” I exclaimed banging my hands on the table.  The chaperon followed me to the bathroom, and I rinsed my hands with water, but not soap, as per USADA protocol.  And then, also according to protocol, dropped my pants to mid thy, pulled my TIMEX wool sweater up to chest level, and the sleeves of up to my elbows, and stood ready to pee in the collection jar.  You can’t be shy here, and being in the medical field I’m more comfortable with bodily functions and anatomy than most, but still it’s a bit awkward when you’re the one in the fishbowl.  For starters, you’re peeing in front of a stranger.  And this isn’t the standard “I’ll stand behind you and let you do your thing” but as describe above it’s a “Pull ‘em down, lift your top up, and I’m going to stand by your side to watch.  Stage fright?”

Another note to make here is that there are some bodily functions that go together, as Forrest Gump would say, “Like peas and car-ROTS.”   You just accept them as normal…when you’re alone.  But in front of another person, especially a stranger, they make you a bit self-conscious.  For example, when I pee, especially early in the morning, I usually fart simultaneously.  I’m not sure what’s going on physiologically, and I haven’t had the (Forrest) Gump-tion to ask any of my professors, but I just assume it’s sphincters in the same general area relaxing.  While this phenomenon hadn’t crossed my mind as we headed for the bathroom,  it became apparent as I relaxed my urethral sphincter.  “Oh well” I thought “this can’t be the first time he’s heard this.”

Hope your morning was as entertaining!  Now it’s time for me to get to that nap.”  :)

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