Limping Through

     Before I talk about injuries, here's some pictures of fun we had in October and November, including the great time we had around Halloween. We had no pumpkins from the garden this year, so we carved peppers instead. Turned out quite well I thought. Shannon spent a lot of time making costumes for her co-workers and they rocked cereal box characters this year.

Jack-o'-bells, stuffed and ready to cook

I got a little carried away...

I was going for jack-o'-bells being held in a red hand. Couldn't get it just right, but close!

Shannon's group at work. You have Buzz the Bee from Honey Nut Cheerios, Cap'n Crunch, Lucky the Leprechaun from Lucky Charms, Snap, Crackle and Pop from Rice Krispies (Pop got sick so there was a stand-in) and Toucan Sam from Fruit Loops.

   

Nice morning from the garden

The time of frost is back so we have stakes put in to hold up our sheets each night and logs to hold them in place so we can protect our tasty lettuce. The Brussels sprouts can handle the frost.

Trying our hand at garlic this year

Big praying mantis hanging out

     With my wrist feeling better, I was back on the mountain bike by the end of November. My work schedule had me working later than usual, which meant I had mornings off. I was excited to get in some sunrise mountain bike rides on my trail, but my hopes were dashed the first day. I ran into a group of hunters on the trail that were not too excited about me riding. Half of our trail is on a neighbor's land, a neighbor which has never allowed hunting on his land the 10 years he has lived there. The previous landowner was a hunter and we shared the trail with him. The current owner let some buddies hunt and they were less than willing to share with me. We had a talk in the woods where they nicely told me not to come back until after hunting season was over. They were not at all interested in anything I had to say about sharing which really irritated me. They only hunt once or twice per week, but were not willing to tell me when so I could ride the other days. I wanted to talk to the landowner about it, but I decided not to. It wasn't worth taking the chance on making him mad and losing the trail all year long. I just decided to check the parking spot the hunters use. No truck there, I'm riding.

Sunrise through the woods on my one morning on the trail

Morning fog in the creek bottom

The leaves have fallen. It's hard to tell where the trail is.

     The hunters constructed some rickety old stands that were built at least 15 years ago. There is no way I would climb the ladder up one of them, let alone sit at the top. Some of them were so rotten they had fallen apart and were down on the ground. But these guys just leaned them back up and strapped them to the same tree with tie-down straps. I had to take a picture of one because it was so sketchy. It was a rotten stand nailed to a rotten tree. Smart guys I see.

Would you sit up there?

     By Thanksgiving, I had the pain stopped in my gastroc. At some point, the issue goes from inflammation and irritation to weakness. It's almost an overnight transition. One day exercise makes it worse, the next day it's like I need exercise to build the strength back up. I don't fully understand this yet, but I'm sure I will learn more about it this time around. Hopefully, I'll get it all figured out and be able to help somebody else if they ever have the same problem.

     We had our annual Tour de Turkey backyard stage race Thanksgiving weekend. It was a little shorter this year due to weather. We had four stages planned, starting with a long XC on Thanksgiving Thursday. I didn't think my gastroc would hold up for two full hours of mountain biking, but it did. We did a shorter course this year with our trail restrictions from the hunters, which was actually more fun with the whole family riding. We got to see each other more often during the ride and were able to race each other through some sections, even if we weren't on the same lap. Friday night we had a night short track in the cold with the whole family again participating. An incredible amount of rain came down on Saturday and Sunday, so much so that it forced us to cancel our ride plans. It was probably a good thing for me as my gastroc needed the rest after two hard days. I didn't have pain in those two rides, but I could tell it was getting aggravated and I doubt it would have made two more intense days.

     The highlight of my Thanksgiving weekend was actually Thanksgiving dinner this year. It was the best dinner we have had in my family for many years. Everybody came, they got along and we all had a great time. I have not seen that much smiling out of my family members in a very long time. We were entertained with stories of recent events, like one about my Mom falling backwards into a cold, deep creek while out checking beaver traps with my Uncle Bryant. And little Cameron showed his daredevil side with some renegade golf cart driving. We raked big piles of leaves for him to drive through and he loved it. He even tricked my Mom into an "easy drive around the yard" before taking her full-blast through a giant stack of leaves and covering them with foliage. This kid's going to be alright I think.

Cameron driving my Dad

Into the leaves they go

Me and Cameron about to mulch some leaves with our face

We are in there somewhere

There's a few leaves in the cart...

Video: Cameron tricking my Mom. She knew something was up, but did not realize what until they rounded the corner and she saw the leaves.

     The next weekend I was ready to try to race again. The Clarksville Cyclocross Challenge was being held just 20 minutes from our house at Rotary Park in Clarksville. I was nervous about my gastroc, but knew I had to test it at some point. The wrist was feeling good enough to take some jarring on a bike without suspension. I badly needed to drop some weight. The time off with the injury had caused a little inflation around my torso and I was nearing my heaviest weight ever. It showed when I got ready to race as my Maxxis jersey looked more like my skinsuit.

     I rode down to the race on the road bike for a good warm-up, then lined up for the Pro/1/2/3 race. I was doing this race first, then planned to race Singlespeed right after. I had not ridden either of my bikes at all since the Crossfire CX last December. It was an interesting transition to say the least. My cross bike setup puts me a long, long way from my road bike position.

Start line for the Pro/1/2/3 race

Go!

     It was a chilly morning when we got underway. We were the first race of the day. The start was fast, but I was able to latch onto the front group. There was a hill in the woods with several huge timber poles laying on it that was supposed to be the "unrideable run-up." First time through in practice I rode it. I wanted to ride everything here to keep from running as much as possible. Running aggravates the gastroc. I had to run it the first lap of the race as we were just too bunched up for me to attempt bunny-hopping the timbers.

Simon Lewis with me close behind

      As we popped out of a long piece of singletrack the first time, I was thinking that maybe I wasn't in that bad of shape after all. Sure, I felt fat, but I was comfortable sitting on the back of front group. My confidence was soon shattered as we hit some climbs at the end of the lap and the gap began to open. I stayed smooth, but couldn't close the gap despite riding the run-up on lap 2. I got booed by the spectators. Apparently, they wanted to see people run, not ride. It just motivated me to ride it again the next lap.

Simon Lewis out of the saddle with me chasing him

Shannon Williams

Alistair Sponsel and Pete Young

Simon

Me

     On lap 3 I flatted. Of course I was a long way from the pit and had to run, the one thing I did not want to do today. I got on my singlespeed and spent the rest of the race chasing down two riders ahead and trying to not get lapped. The singlespeed was tough on this course with so much climbing. It took a lot out of me in five laps. My gastroc was getting fatigued, but no pain yet so I pressed on. I thoroughly enjoyed riding the run-up every lap and also hitting the double sandpit. It was deep, but rutted well. You could pick a rut and sprint into it. I was having a blast every time I went through there, attacking it way harder than everyone else, which is probably why I made it through every time except once. The singlespeed got the better of my tired legs once in the final laps.

Pete in the sandpit

Travis Werts was not having the best time in the sand, but he still smoked us today and claimed the win

Josiah Lightle

Travis Werts

Alistair Sponsel

Shannon Williams

Pete Young

Simon Lewis

Filling out my jersey a little too well today

Cranking the sandpit on the singlespeed

Looking ahead as I enter the run-up

The lap I didn't make it. Came up just a hair short.

     I was well ahead of the leader, but the officials pulled me with one lap to go. I don't understand the need to pull someone with one to go when you have less than 10 racers on course and 30 minutes until the next race, but whatever. I just kept on going and did my lap anyway. I ended up finishing 6th. The gastroc was very tired, but still not painful. I did not ride any between races to save up what little energy I had left.

Simon back on his bike after the run-up

Wriggling like a worm to keep the gear turning on this climb

Big Trav en route to victory

Sponsel and Willliams finished 2nd and 3rd

     Singlespeed was a brutal 30 minutes. I was way over-geared as usual and my legs were zapped from riding the singlespeed bike in the Pro race. I was in the back early, behind all the Juniors as well. I slowly picked my way up through the field, finishing in 4th. My gastroc began to hurt with just over a lap to go. Everyone behind me had quit so I was able to back off some on the last lap and even walk the run-up to keep extra stress off the leg. It was a rough return to racing with me feeling fat, limping around on my leg and having mechanical issues. I was just glad to be able to race, even if I did have pain by the end. Now I had two weeks to get ready for the next race. Two weeks to heal more, get stronger and not be so fat!

Singlespeed/Junior start line

Simon Lewis and myself just after the start

Alistair Sponsel leads into the sand the first lap

Jacob Kuper and me in the sand

Simon out front the second through the sand on lap 1

Pete Young and Alistair Sponsel battling for the Singlespeed win

Me in chase mode

Sand roost!

Seth Bassett

Alistair now leading Pete

Simon on his way to the Junior win

3rd place SS Paul Gates

Alistair got the gap at the end and took the win

Bassett

Last lap, too tired and sore to care

Jogged it out for the camera

     We filmed some of the race which is posted below if you want to watch it. Thanks for reading!

Video: Clarksville CX Challenge #2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qt9HeGAcxpk

Beaten Down Again

     I have spoken before that my plans for the end of the season were to focus on mountain bike events, mostly longer-distance races. One of the races I intended on doing was the Lock 4 Six Hour Challenge, a race that has notoriously kicked my butt in one way or another. Most of the time, it physically beats me. Other times it's mechanical issues. To make a long, painful story of my history with this race short, I've never done well there.

     Wood-N-Wave hosts a road ride every year called the Trail of Tears Century that has always been on my radar. I love riding with the people from the shop and also heard the course for this ride was a tough one. You get a Trail of Tears pint glass for finishing the full 100 miles and I intended to get me one this year. The only problem was that this ride was the same weekend as the Lock 4 Six Hour. Ugh. There's always a difficult decision with scheduling...unless you're feeling crazy. I decided that my fortunes at Lock 4 are not worth me skipping a fun ride to focus on that race. I opted to try both events. I decided on this back in August, so some of my long rides in September and early-October were in preparation for the double. I felt ready after Race to the Canal. I was riding really good and knew this was a good chance to do both events and do both of them well.

     My preparation got a little complicated the week of the events. I had an awful day from Hell at work two days before Trail of Tears. I had to unload a huge cookie dough order by myself at the worst load-in we have. The people at this school must hate us, which is odd considering we are not only delivering them cookies, but also a big fat check for their part of the sales. You think they would love seeing us pull in. But they make things as difficult as possible for us and I wound up having to push a 400-lb. cart of cookie dough up a long hill six times to get the truck unloaded. The truck was late arriving and it took me longer to unload than we had planned, so we tried to pick up the pace on the packing process. I was worn out when we left at the end of the day.

     Everything was fine until the next morning. I woke up with a sore forearm that got drastically worse over the course of the day. By the evening, I had a huge knot on my tendon and could not move my wrist without severe pain. I could not only feel the tendon creaking as it slid through the surrounding sheath, but you could hear it! I did not freak out as this has happened to me before. I aggravated the same tendon about four years ago while doing trail work with new, heavier clippers. It's inflammation around the tendon and the tendon sheath. It's called tenosynovitis. It's simply from overuse. In my case, from flipping boxes of cookie dough all day. The cookies come in four-pound boxes that are then packed into a bigger box that holds eight of the smaller boxes. The cookies came in plastic tubs with handles until a few weeks ago. The handles and the rim of the plastic tub made it easy to pull the cookies out of the big box. Now they have changed from plastic tubs to smooth boxes which require you the handle them more. With the rush to make up time, I did not handle them in the best way and wore out my forearm with too much wrist rotation.

     It takes time to get rid of tenosynovitis. You can't just stop using your wrist altogether. I had to slog through a work day of therapy where it seemed I needed my hands all day so it was pretty aggravated come Saturday morning. Shannon worked hard on massaging it to break up the tendon from the sheath. If she had not done that I doubt I would have been able to ride. I slapped some kinesiotape on it to reduce tension on the tendon and packed the car for the trip to Grand Rivers, KY for the Trail of Tears Century.

Cruised over to Kentucky Lake before the ride to see the first colors of Fall

     The weather was sketchy that morning. Rain was forecast, but there was a chance the majority of the weather system would miss the area. I had convinced myself it was going to miss. It was a little disappointing when the rain began to come down the second we started the ride. We were not even out of the parking lot yet and it began to pour. I stayed up front early to be sure I didn't caught up in some crash because of the rain. To my surprise, there were just five of us together after four miles. I was hoping for a big group to stay together early so I could save my legs for a fast finish. My goal was to finish in under five hours on this hilly course, but I knew it would be a challenge as my legs were sore from pushing that cart at work.

     After eight miles it was just Tom Gee and myself together up front. We were not going hard, but apparently it was harder than anyone else wanted to go. I felt like we were going easy so I just went with Tom and decided to go for the all-day breakaway. Tom is a true legend of cycling in these parts. He's in his 60s and can take just about anybody in this area. You might be able to go faster than him for a minute, but I promise he will beat you in the end. The man rides so many miles it is scary. He has ridden Paris-Brest-Paris multiple times. If you aren't familiar with PBP, it's 1200 km long and you have about 80 hours to complete the route. Yeah, Tom's freaking awesome. I have ridden with him a few times and every time is a lot of fun and an honor to ride with someone with so much experience on the bike.

Tom Gee and myself early in the ride

photo by Shawn James

     The rain poured on us early on. I felt ok at the start, but my legs started to fade out at mile 10. That is never good on a 100-mile day. All I could do was eat and hope the legs would come around later. I kept feeling worse and struggled up the climbs. The rain gave us a break after 25 miles. Shawn James was out on course helping us at turns and giving us updates. We were 12 minutes ahead of the group when we got to the town of Smithland, KY after about 35 miles. Shortly after Smithland came the biggest climb on the course and Tom rode off from me. My legs just gave out and I struggled to make it up the climb. Shawn offered me a Coke at the top, but a Coke was not going to help me today. This was not from bonking. My legs just weren't there.

By myself at the top of the toughest climb of the day. Tom has already come and gone.

photo by Shawn James

     After the crest of the climb, I was able to chase Tom back down and provide at least a little more help before leaving him to go on solo. We worked together another eight miles before I finally popped for good on another steep climb. I struggled on to the next rest stop at mile 60. I enjoyed the home-baked snacks at the stop and a dreary, but still nice view of the Ohio River as the rain began again. I was waiting for the group behind me. I thought they would surely be getting close with how slow I had been riding. I waited for about 20 minutes, but was forced to continue on alone as the rain was making me cold.

The Ohio River in the rain

     The course then followed the river bottom for 20 of the longest miles of my life. The wind had picked up and was a full-on headwind, combined with a pouring rain. It was miserable. I was pushing with what little I had left and moving at about 12 mph on a flat road. I kept looking back, but never saw the group. I even stopped for some pictures at one spot and still no group. As I exited the river bottom back to Smithland, I finally saw some riders coming behind me. At the last rest stop, I joined forces with a group of about eight riders and we slogged through the rain to the finish together. I was in pain the last 20 miles. My leg soreness was back with vengeance. Every muscle in my legs became very tight and I started to have pain in my gastrocs and in my hamstrings. The scary part was that I had pain in my right gastroc in the same spot that bothered me all last winter on my left side. But I did not have much choice but to continue on. I hung onto the group for the full 101.7 miles. We finished well outside my goal time, ending at 5:35. Tom finished in under five hours despite riding over half the course solo. I was so destroyed afterwards. The wrist had not been much of an issue except for when sprinting in the drops. It was now the least of my worries. My legs both hurt in a very bad way. It was a rough day, but it ended well with a nice bowl of chili and a huge muffin from the Lite Side Bakery & Cafe across the street from the shop. That's one of the many perks that comes with your entry to this ride.

Riding towards Smithville

     That night was focused on recovery and massage. I still had every intention of doing Lock 4 the next day. It had rained some at home, but not near as much as it did in Kentucky. I have had some awesome one-day turnarounds before, like last year the day after the Lock 4 Six Hour when I had an awesome day at Cross the Farm. But when I woke up on Sunday, it was clear that I needed to stay home. My entire body was tight and sore. I could not move my wrist, and I had a lot of pain in my right gastroc at the attachment to the femur. My measuring stick for gastroc injury is walking down stairs. Eccentric load on the affected leg will quickly point out damage at the muscle-bone junction. I had a lot of pain going down the stairs. It is against everything inside me to skip a race or DNF, but I knew this was serious and my body needed to rest. I was disappointed, but knew it had to happen.

     I took four days completely off from all forms of exercise. The wrist was problematic. I couldn't completely rest it because of work. And we were really busy at both of my jobs. I modified the way I unpack cookie dough boxes which helped, but the pain was still there. Too much pain for me to even think about getting on a mountain bike.

     I hopped back on the road bike after the rest break for a three hour ride with Pam Tanner. We met up in Cedar Hill and took a tour of the Tennessee-Kentucky state line. All was good until the end of the ride when the pain came back in my right gastroc. That started a three week battle of three hour rides that all ended with pain. I was pain-free for three hours then, like clockwork, the pain would come on. It came on at almost the same minute of every ride. Rest did not help. Massage was not helping. Riding was not helping. It was like last year's nightmare all over again, just on the other leg.

Field of dried soybeans on a morning road ride

     It was discouraging, but I knew I could overcome this. I had more knowledge about the issue this time around and I knew how to attack it. We finally found "the spot" in the upper gastroc and after some work on it, I was able to handle some shorter rides at a fast pace. Intensity did not seem to bother it, so I focused on shorter, faster rides. It took about four weeks to get rid of the tenosynovitis in the wrist. It was possible only thanks to Shannon and my athletic trainer friend Holly spending a lot of time working on me. They threw the kitchen sink at it with massage, ultrasound and iontophoresis.

     The right gastroc injury was my third injury in less than a year. I guess it was a fitting end to the year that has been full of setbacks and comebacks. I was forced to miss many local cyclocross races and the Dry Creek 6 Hour Championships in Dalton, GA that had been my target for November. Instead of working on riding, I was back to working on rehabing a gastroc. To make matters worse, my left gastroc was also sore from Trail of Tears, just not so much as the right side. If that ride had been any longer I may have experienced the full effect of the race's name.

    More on my recovery in the next post...