It's not a cold

Well, there’s not one flu. The term is something of a catchall for what you get when you’re infected by one of a variety of influenza virus strains that all tend to cause fevers, coughs, chills, and those other symptoms that have sufferers thinking, “Wait, what if this isn’t just a cold?”

Each year, as the leaves change from green to orange, red, and brown—well, somewhere they do—seasonal flu outbreaks begin in the Unites States. Those fevers, coughs, and chills start to spread throughout the 50 states, and health agencies, starting at the federal level and working down to counties and cities, begin pushing vaccines in the hopes that they’ll stop whichever microbes are causing the headaches and sore throats and such.

Christine Gaiger, San Luis Obispo County’s supervising public health nurse and manager of the communicable disease program, said locals began getting vaccinated at the end of September. This is the first year all local hospitals have adopted mandatory “shot or mask” policies, meaning doctors, nurses, and the like have to get the vaccine or wear a face mask while at work. After receiving a written recommendation from the county’s health officer, the Tenet hospitals enacted the policy as of Oct. 1, Gaiger said, and the Catholic Healthcare West facilities (“even Marian Medical Center!”), which opted out of such a move last year, put it into place as of Nov. 1.

But with literally countless strains floating around the planet, there’s no way a person could get injected with potential protection for all of the bugs that circulate among humans.

So flu vaccine planning is something of a guessing game, though the guesses are educated. Back in July, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced the strains its public health experts were expecting to be big this winter, like a must-have Christmas fad—think Tickle Me Elmo or a Cabbage Patch Kid—in reverse.

“You’ve got to quit using the ‘S’ word,” CDC spokesman Jeff Dimond said when asked about the notorious flu that alarmed the planet and gave hypochondriacs so much joy and fear during its 2009 global run. “It’s actually a California sub-strain.”

And that strain is still kicking around, even if it doesn’t kindle the sort of hype it once did. The other expected baddies this season were “A/Perth/16/2009 (H3N2)-like virus” and “B/Brisbane/60/2008-like virus.”

Notice that geographic bit in each of the names? That indicates where the strain was originally isolated. Two of the three strains to watch for this year were first spotted in Australia, and that’s actually pretty common. Dimond said influenza strains tend to move south to north.

In fact, representatives from the CDC, FDA, World Health Organization, and other public health agencies look to the Southern Hemisphere when they’re aiming to predict what the next season’s strains will be in the United States.

Dimond explained that each February, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices—made up of doctors and health officials from around the country—meets to crunch numbers and follow gut feelings while looking roughly half a year ahead.

“They don’t just go into a corner and wonder what it’s going to be,” Dimond said. “Nevertheless, they still have to go out on a limb six months ahead of time.

Strains or sub-strains can come from Asia, Africa, or Central America. They’re carried by human travelers, flocks of birds, or whatever. Plus, they mutate, or “reassort.” Swine, for example, can simultaneously catch two different kinds of flu. Swirling around in a perfect pig host, the pair can produce a new strain.

“One of the vexing characteristics of flu is that it is totally unpredictable,” Dimond said. “Flu viruses are always mutating.”

So it’s essentially impossible to project all the various flu migration patterns and combinations, but Dimond said history has shown that health workers can reasonably know what’s coming by looking below the equator.

“It’s important to understand that these are science-based projections,” FDA Press Officer Rita Chappelle wrote to New Times. “However, according to the CDC, even in seasons where the vaccines and strains were not … well matched due to unanticipated changes of the circulating strains, substantial protection has been observed against severe outcomes, presumably because of vaccine-induced cross-reacting antibodies.”

Peak form arrives...

How do you now when you have reached peak form? When you then lose it, of course. Unless, that is, you are one of those riders with sufficient resources to own a power meter and, more importantly, employ someone to make sure you use it correctly, in which case you will presumably reach predicted peaks at times chosen to coincide with major riding goals. And the inevitable troughs to follow.

Me? I don't generally experience much by way of fluctuations in form, let alone what might be termed a peak in it, mainly because I couldn't be bothered with structure in my riding "program" and also because I tend to ride pretty much the same amount and at a largely unvarying pace all year round. My evening "10" times indicate as much, such rare improvements as there are these days only coming along as the weather gets warmer or I try out some spiffing new component.

Somehow, this year has been a bit different. I'm ascribing it to the week I spent with Dave "Shiny Boy" Arthur in Majorca back in March, during which I lost 2kg and regained some real enthusiasm for racing. It is fading a bit - I haven't ridden an open TT for a month and my recent C-category LVRC road race victory may well prove my only ride in a road race this year - but the hard miles I've had to ride during the last eight weeks have been enough to polish something I didn't know was there until last Thursday.

Almost exactly one year ago, Shiny Boy tucked me away in his only time trial outing of the year and, given the fact that he has shown an annual improvement since I started at RCUK while I have, er, slowed down, I sadly concluded at the time that he was now quicker and likely to get more so. His form in Majorca only served to reinforce the feeling.

So, although I'd manage to put him under pressure a few weeks ago on a recce ride of the forthcoming wiggle Magnificat cyclosportive, I was expecting little. The event was one of the Redmon CC's evening 15 mile TTs over the course of the club's famous Grand Prix des Gentlemen; lumpy in parts, fast early on along the A24 dual carriageway and hard through the lanes back from Rusper. Turns out it was one of those evenings when you can't feel the pedals.

Right from the first few pedal strokes I felt fast. Setting off one minute after Germain Burton may or may not have helped; for sure, there's no way I was going to see the lad, who is progressing at a stunning rate. But you generally know when you are going well and I finished hoping for a quick time, which I reckon is what I got. Conceding 1'20" to Germain over 15 miles ain't too shabby, after all. Nor is handing out an unexpectedly heavy beating to young DA...

But, just to prove that the ride really was done at peak form, I woke the next moring with a sore throat and cold. And when I got back on the bike, the pedals felt very heavy indeed.