Busy week ahead

In the coming days there will be only a few short updates. That is because I am attending the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco. There I will once again be reminded of how hard it is to develop drugs that work. Contrary to what people think, making a drug that works is very difficult. Even when everything looks great in theory and we all know the drug should work, and we know it works in animals, we often find that it doesn't do a thing in humans. That is something WADA should think about before putting out lists of forbidden substances. It may well be that we think these work, or that we have a rationale as to why they should work, but that means very little without a solid double blind study. And studies are sorely lacking here.

Westin St Francis, home of the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference

Today I ran 8.5 miles in the hills and it was pretty rough going. I hope I am not getting sick. My ribs are pretty much healed now but my shoulder still bugs me and I cannot sleep on my left side. My orthopedist thinks I need a cortisone shot but I am holding off for now. He says grade II AC separations are worse than either grade I or III (total separation) because the ends touch and they keep rubbing and that causes inflammation. It sounds logical and makes good sense, but who knows ? This type of medical reasoning is very common and I too have often indulged in it. Unfortunately it is largely unproven and probably just as often wrong.

Ergomo, with new battery

My Ergomos came back from the shop and they are fixed and outfitted with new batteries. One of these days I will write a product review on this item. For now, all I can say is that the Ergomo is the best deal in power meters out there -by a longshot.

Swimming in a Vegas Pool

I just got back from Vegas where I was invited to a meeting on CNS drug development. The meeting was held at the Four Seasons, a hotel inside the Mandalay Bay. The meeting was quite interesting and I met a whole bunch of new people there. But it was also very busy and I barely had time to get some exercise in.

That exercise consisted of swimming for 45 minutes in the Four Season's pool. I probably swam about 3/4 of a mile. As it was quite windy and overcast there was nobody there so I got the pool all to myself. I am afraid that my swimming has not improved much since I quit doing it. I am still unable to breathe every other stroke and I still have a very strong preference for breathing on the right.

Other than that the trip was unremarkable. I never left the hotel/resort, which was definitely a first for me, but I guess it is something many people do. Actually I did that once before when I visited Puerto Rico for a meeting and stayed at the Conquistador. But that resort was quite a bit bigger and much more isolated than the Mandalay. In Puerto Rico there was literally nothing nearby.

On Tuesday I did a 24 mile ride. On Wednesday I traveled to Vegas, sat on a 3hr panel, and had dinner with the group. Afterwards we went to Mix a fancy bar with a spectacular view of the Strip (See photo). Today I swam as described.