France Armstrong!  

Yes, Lance and I have a lot in common these days.  I felt the biking connection via my husband’s amateur cycling races.  And now, I’m spinning two days a week at the gym.  I pretend to hit the flats at record speed and climb the steep mountains with hairpin turns.  Each curve leads to more gear, simulating a higher grade to reach the top, just like Lance.  The latest admission of doping used to be our biggest separation until now.  I confess.  I am on steroids.

There I was, standing in my girlfriend’s kitchen.  We were ready to dive into take-out Thai chicken salads.  I paused for a second, biting my upper lip.  I was contemplating a great thought when a lightening bolt of pain surged from my jaw to my ear.  I pause.  I think it will work itself out like a kink.  I try a bite of lettuce and the pain feels like I walked on a freshly sprained ankle.  It hurt.  I closed up my salad and explained to my friend our lunch date was over.  I tweaked my jaw and I need to leave.

I can’t close my mouth properly.  The teeth don’t touch.  I call the dentist and he refers me to an oral surgeon.  Apparently I had some profound thought racing through my head as I bit my lip like I was reaching for my nose.  I yanked it pretty good.  It turns out the joint is swollen.  Hence, my painful experience munching on a piece of lettuce.  I am assigned a mushy diet, mostly carbs, for two weeks.  I’m not thrilled as I have been off the carbs for four days now, the biker diet thing.  It’s a Lance connection; we eat healthy.

“No comment.”

I’m also prescribed steroids.  An image of Mr. Olympia pops in my head.  EEEW. The doc read the fear in my eyes.  “No.  You will not get big muscles,” she says as she poses like a strong-arm man showing off his best of everything muscles by hugging an imaginary barrel.   I am relieved.  The drug is anti-inflammatory, the opposite effect of puffery, noodley.  I think it must be what Gumby takes to pose like he does, although nobody questioned his exquisite, twisty ability.  But if he was under suspicion, this is the likely performance enhancer.

Immediately I think this might be a good time to try yoga.  If I didn’t have tennis elbow in both arms, I would dive in with all limbs.  Darn delicate condition of aging!  I can’t support myself too well, not even the words in my head apparently.   I never know where or what will break down next.  I go to what I know won’t break me, hoping for shocking results.

I tried out my first ride-on-‘roids at tennis class.  I was so wavy gravy my shots were sailing out of bounds, as if the racquet strings were a trampoline.  Or, I missed my shots all together, nothing but wind.  It was disastrous.  One cannot be too relaxed for tennis. Luckily I’ve been on hiatus for a bit so I was judged as horribly out of practice and not doping.  I felt great and I was happy and nobody was the wiser to my relaxed self either.  I wasn’t ready to divulge my secret yet, just like Lance.  I had something to hold on to and I felt very powerful.  I didn’t bully anyone.  Lance said the same thing.  We are so alike right now.

The next ride-on-‘roids was in the swimming pool.  I don’t know how you win in Masters Class if everyone is just swimming laps and we all arrive at different times.   The only thing I noted was the coach calling out, “Nice sprints girls!”  She never says that sort of thing.  The only problem is there are a lot of girls in the pool.   I can’t be sure it was my lane.  I can only feel it was my ‘roids permeating the pool water and we all swam better that morning.  The guys must be impervious to pool doping as the coach didn’t offer any commentary.  Maybe they should talk to Lance.

The real test was in spin class.  Would I come out a winner?  The instructors are soo creative with simulating riding on the road.  If I am selected to break away, can I keep the lead?  In a room full of stationary bikes, winners are hard to detect.  This bodes well for someone trying to hide a performance-enhancing drug.  As near as I can tell, the sweatiest person just might snag the yellow jersey.  Surely the hardest working cyclist shows it, glistening from head to toe.  I was a veritable swimming pool at the end of class.  I work hard even without assistance but not to this extreme; my ponytail was a dripping faucet.  I honestly attribute the watery manifestation to the ‘roids.  I read a possible side effect is sweating.  Guilty.  I won’t tell my bike-mates.  I don’t want them to feel bad or hopelessly out of shape.  See, I am not a bully.

My Dream.

Now, I didn’t really expect or want anything in common with Lance.  But if I could live out the Lance connection, fully, I would accept an interview with Oprah.  I would admit to all of America I took steroids during workouts.  “I was a victim of circumstance!  I swear!  I hope to God it never happens again. I really do.”  I will talk about how I blogged my confession on my personal blog, shoezle.com.  And Oprah would name shoezle her blog of the month.  After Oprah, Lance and I would be as different from each other as before.  I would go on to do other interviews with say Ellen or The Today Show.  I’d even discuss book possibilities too, my dream just beginning.