USADA - thank goodness!

Being in the top 12 in the US for the last year (and now for the next year) I've been on the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) "out of competition" testing list. This means that anytime, anyplace, a USADA officer can come find me and demand that I pee in a cup to be tested for performance enhancing drugs. And once they find me, they can't allow me out of sight, and even, um, have to watch the test. Um, kinda, awkward?

It's a great idea, since even the taint of doping can hurt a sport, however, in practice it's a royal pain in the butt! We have to file a quarterly report with our schedules, and if something changes for ONE DAY (i.e. I stay home sick, or am out of town, or skip a workout) we have to update them with that information.

I made an oopsie on that in September - remember the bike race that got postponed for rain? Well, first, I had a different bike race listed on my quarterly schedule (Brian Head NMBS) and with my wrists healing up decided at the last minute to do the milder Sundance Go-Ride race instead. First mistake: I forgot to update them of the change. Second mistake: when the race got postponed to Saturday, I forgot to update them too! Bad Kimber...

So, that Saturday, when I was racing at Sundance, a Doping Control Officer (DCO) showed up at the gym looking for me. Of course, I wasn't there, but Brad was there and told the DCO where I was. Then, the DCO called me and left a message, and a few minutes later I got the message and called him back, offering to meet him anywhere, but he said he was closing the test!

A month later, I got a letter from USADA saying I had a "missed-test/unavailable" for the quarter - which is terrible, since 3 missed tests in 18 months automatically triggers a positive test, and you're banned from the sport for 2 years! The letter also gave me until October 17th to submit a written explanation for review and appeal.

Fortunately, I spend my job interpreting and reading legal codes, so I went through the USADA handbook, and discovered that the DCO hadn't followed procedures. Basically, he had only looked for me at two locations on one morning, but the rules required him to try ALL of my listed locations for a 24 hour period! Phew. So I wrote up my appeal letter and sent it in, and this week received a certified letter stating that the incident wouldn't be considered a missed test! What a relief!

In summary, I've learned a valuable lesson and have been sending in updates several times a week just to make sure I don't get another missed test. I really can't complain about being on the list, since it's only a small part of the population that is lucky enough to be ranked high enough, no?