One Step Back

It is to be expected…. Two steps forward one step back. Yes I am talking about recovery and not cycling. I go with what is in my face. Two days ago I noticed some swelling and pain in my left ankle. My excellent home health nurse jumped all over it. It was quickly diagnosed as cellulites. It is an infection of the skin basically and can be really dangerous because it spreads really fast. So yesterday I got some IV antibiotics and the chickenhawk will be dosing me through the IV in my hand for the next few days until the infection clears up.

I am feeling like I’ve got the flu; no energy, weak, fever. It is funny how my tolerance for feeling this way is really high. I am not as much as a basket case as I was before the cancer. I’m just sick and these are just symptoms, and they ‘aint so bad.

Speaking of basket case, when I first learned about what was going on I pretty much freaked out. I was sure I would have to go back in the hospital. That made me feel terrified, depressed, angry. It really brought up some major feelings. I know full well that I’ll be back in the hospital at some point, I need to get my brain around that day. I’m not sure how I am going to do that. Well one day at a time.

So for now I am curtailing my activity and just chillin’ around the house.

Home!!!!!!!

After 55 days of being away I am finally home. Dad drove me to Coloma from Stanford on Tuesday afternoon after the docs gave me the OK. It is so good to be here I have trouble finding words to express it. It is fall and the valley is beautiful. I get to see my girls every day and be a part of their lives again. I am feeling much better than I did when I left; I am pretty much independent around the house. I am just glad to be alive.

Now I work on recovering. That means rest, exercises, walking and rest. The other challenge is re-integrating into the family unit. Lots has changed in the way we do things in the last 10 months and now it is changing again. That is going to take some work. I'll write more about it soon. For now, I am home and I feel like the luckiest man in the world.

That is all I've got for now. I'll be back with more ramblings soon.

I am still in the fight

As I go back over this post I realize that my brain is not working very well at all. I have lost the ability to write in such a way that really brings my reader along for the process. I apologize. Below is what I have managed to put together for you.

I have been away from Internet accesses for a long time. After my last (2 second] post. Here is what I have done.

1.Long drive home with Granny doped out of my mind on anti nausea and dope drugs.

2. Spent several (a couple) very nauseous days at home doing daily injections to increase white blood cells for harvesting.

3. Ate very few solid foods

4.Went from too skinny 163lbs. to scary 148.

5. On Tuesday night got a fever, went to the ER at Roseville and spent Wed. thru Sat in the hospital.



The hospital was great. Lots had been going on at home. Granny had flown out to help me thought this (First) two and a half week phase of the BMT. However, before she left her hubby came down with some very scary symptoms. Granny stayed good to her word and flew out to help me thought the first part of this phase, going to Stanford for a Chemo injection. While we were in the middle of Chemo her hubby went in for a biopsy. The biopsy came back with some bad news and Granny rightfully flew home to start the hideous phase of determining how bad her beloved husbands cancer is. Right now we are waiting for more results but either way he has got cancer and my best goes out to him. No one deserves this mess and in seems more and more to me like the ones that deserves it the least get it.


Anyhow Granny leaving left us in some significant need. Her jobs was to take care of me. The ChickenHawk got on the phone and got sister Cris (aunt Cris) AKA little blue scwhinn on the message board. Cris hopped the next plane from SoCal and jumped in as full time kid wrangler. She is one of best kid wranglers this side of the Rockies. She took the kids on lots of great local outing while making sure they had lots of fun time at home. Cris you helped us immensly in a real time of need. There are very few people that could help the way you did and we can thank you enough. Mike thanks for letting her come. It was huge for us.

I started writing this post yesterday while I was having the first round of stem cells removed from my body in a process called aphersis. It took me one day. I now have a two week break before I start the process again. (A big chemo Injection) then daily injections to boost my White cells. Feeling like crap. Breathing through a filter and eating special foods.
najor nausea. This is all stuff that I have had to do for the last two weeks so I am feeling relieved that I don't have to for now.

I spend my time combating anxiety by telling myself that the fears that I feel about eating and living were created by the Chemo that I took 12 days ago. Most of those side effects are out of my body and I can live my life again. That is mostly working and with the help of Ativan I am almost all the way there. That means no more basket case until we start the whole thing over in about two weeks. That is OK I've got two weeks off. I am going to try to eat and exercise as much as possible for the next two weeks.

So right now it is very quite around the house. The kids are in Oregon for the summer and we miss them dearly. I want to take this moment to reach out an say thanks to all that have helped us so far with meals, planing, babysitting, housework, logistical support, driving, spotting me, dancing with Sarah, and so many other things. I am at a loss how to say thanks. While I was in the hospital I spent a lot of time alone and it was really good for me. I enjoyed it because I got to think of all of my friends; what you are going through right now, what you are working on, your successes, your challenges. I am really proud that I know you. You are the fuel that burns my inner fire. So do me a favor, in the next two weeks, send an email, give a call, leave a comment. I want to know what is going on with you!

Thanks for reading and again I apologize for the scattered writing

News and Jerseys

I am feeling really quite good lately. I had a massage from Heather F on Monday and that just pushed me into a place of less pain and more mobility than I have felt for a long time. I have a new mantra that seems to be working. It goes like this:

I am ready to feel good

I am ready to be pain free

The cancer is leaving my body

I am returning to normal.

There is not a lot to report on the medical front. I did have IV Chemo again last Thursday. It went a lot better than last time I was only sick for about 3/4 of a day instead of 4-5 days. There was a big fiasco with it though. The new Chemo that we switched to takes 2 hours instead of 1/2 an hour. However the doc forgot to tell the Chemo nurses about the change and it looked for a minute like we might have to come back at a later date. That was a big problem. The chickenhawk works really hard to schedule child care and all of the needs of the family when I go in for Chemo. If she would have had to re-do that it would have been a major problem for her. The chemo nurses were cool, they made the doctor beg and then we went ahead and did the infusion, no problem. Poor c/h though, she was really upset.

I am not sure why I am feeling so much better. It might be because the frontline therapy (oral chemo) is really working and kicking in. It might be because I am taking some new phosphorus supplements and it might be a combination of all of the above. Whatever it is, I'll take it.

I am worried about my left femur these days. I have been feeling more and more pain in the hip there and there has been some pretty bad bone loss from that area. My fear is that I'll break that leg. That would put a real damper on my recovery, not to mention my quality of life.

So we went to see the Radiation Onclogist today to see if there is anything that can be done about it. He does not see a tumor there to aim radiation at but many of the images that we have are from back in January or February so we are going to do some more testing, CT Scan, and bone scan as well as X rays etc. Fun stuff. I do feel like I am getting really good care though.

Jerseys

For the past two years I have had custom jerseys made for my riding group Velo Loco. This year I haven't had the energy to do that. I've been busy you know... This year is going to be different. I have asked Matt Barnes to help me out with a new Jersey project.

In the past the jerseys have just been available to the Velo LoCo riders. This year we are going to do the jersey's as a fund raiser to benefit my foundation. So they will be available to the general public. Here is what they looked like in the past

This year we are going to do a redesign. I will post artwork as soon as I have it finalized. The new jerseys will be the same blue color with the same double stripe on the sleeve there will still be the patch on the shoulder that says 49 which is for Highway 49 that runs from Yosemite north through the Coloma Lotus Valley and up to Tahoe. The big white stripe in the middle will be accented top and bottom by thick fight-cancer-yellow stripes. Under the words "Velo LoCo" in a smaller font it will say 'puddin riders'. On the pockets in the back in big yellow letters it will say: Ride Hard, Fight Hard!

We are using a great custom Jersey Company called Champion Systems. They are the same company that I used for last year's jersey. I have been very happy with their quality. The owners of the company have been touched by cancer and are very supportive to my cause. They make jerseys for much of the pro peleton including Toyota United and Jelley Belly as well as others. They fit snug like a good jersey should, they are full zip and they are relatively inexpensive compared with many other custom jersey companies. Cost for the Jerseys will be in the neighborhood of 70-75$. I am looking at selling them using a paypal account.

The proceeds of the sale of these jerseys will go to my foundation. I will use the money for several purposes. First off I will cover the un-reimbursable expenses of my upcoming Bone Marrow Transplant which will include travel and housing for myself as well as my care takers while I am away at Stanford. I will also use some of the proceeds to make sure that my kids are well cared for and entertained by family and friends while I am away at the BMT. After that I plan on using any left over funds as seed money for LoCo Care.

I have written about LoCo Care before. My vision for LoCo Care is a community assistance organization designed to help out folks in the extended Lotus Coloma Community that suffer from catastrophic events.

If you are interested in getting a Jersey I would greatly appreciate it if you could email Matt Barnes. I am going to spell out his email address so you that the spamers wont pick it up. You will have to add the @ symbol instead of the word "at" and make it all one word like a proper emaill address here it is:
barnesmatthewf at yahoo dot com.
Get it?
This is not a commitment we are just trying to get an idea of how many folks will want to get a jersey so that we order appropriate quantities. Please tell him if you want a women's or a men's jersey and what size you want. Again they fit snug so whatever size jersey you regularly buy is the size you'll probably want to get. Please realize this is not a final order this is just us trying to get an idea of how many people want the jerseys. We will set up a real order form with paypal in the near future. If you just want to donate money to the cause there will be a way to do that without buying a jersey please check back in about that.

OK that is enough for now. thanks for reading.


Last mintue news. The doc fromm Stanford just called. We are looking at starting the BMT in early July! Not as soon as we had hoped for but now we have something to schedule around.

Stuff Items and Things

In our house there are jobs that I do, and jobs that the Chickenhawk does. We call them pink jobs and blue jobs. Before you think too hard about who does what, you have to remember that she is a chickenhawk and I am a puddin'. So if it involves tools, it is not necessarily a blue job. I take care of the bikes and the cars. I do some of the home maintenance, but the chickenhawk does most of it. The kid's bedroom door was coming apart at the seams, so Randy came over last night and hung the replacement door that we ordered a few weeks back. That was a pink job: thanks Randy for helping my wife. You are a real man!

Father in law Charlie is right now working on (what I think will eventually be a blue job) managing the chemicals on the newly installed hot tub. Thanks to Eric, Curtis, and electrician Manny for getting that going. Hot water soaks are key for managing my pain but our bathtub is too small; I can either get my legs in it or my body, but not both, and it is very very uncomfortable at this point. So I am really looking forward to the hot tub. Another example of a blue job in our family is cleaning up from dinner. The chickenhawk is a great cook -and I can burn water- so cooking is pink; cleaning dishes blue. Thanks to Nana for doing the blue dish job as of late.

Point is, there are no jobs: blue or pink, that I can do right now. My job is to be a cancer patient. Also, it doesn't pose too much of a problem to sit at the pooter and blog. I can also hold down the couch and watch the Tour of CA but that's about it. I can see a real bright side to that, like, I don't have to do sh#+!$?!?&?!

It really boggles my mind that there are dudes out there who aspire to that. What a ridiculous waste of potential. I'd easily trade with somebody. I could take some fat bastard's body, give him my pain, and then work his fat ass into shape for him, just to get my butt out there. Any of you wanna trade? Bargaining... that's one of the stages of grief isn't it?

Well, that is what I've got for today, other than to say hey to Gretchen, she gave me an awesome massage today. Very different technique, I forget now what it is called, but it is very mellow laying on of the hands. It actually got me out of my body and having full-on muscle memory experiences. I felt myself skateboarding, surfing, sailing, climbing and kayaking. I also felt myself descending a nice smooth single track mountain bike trail. My cancer body was laying on the table twitching with the memories and I would jump back into reality with the big twitches. So thanks Jane for gifting me the massage, and thanks Gretchen for taking such good care of me. It felt good to remember how I used to be.

Gratitude
Nana and Papa
Granny
The girls who could do anything they wanted for 1/2 hour today
Adam
Adrienne
Comments
My amazingly awesome community
morphine
green bud

HTFU

I came to recognize a couple few years ago that I am an athlete. I never thought of myself as one growing up . I always had a sport I was into but I never thought of myself as an athlete until I started road biking back in 2000. As a road biker I have learned to embrace suffering. Frankly, I started liking pushing myself to the edge of the is mentally and physical limit back in '89 when I was a firefighter with the USFS and was at the fires of '88 in Yellowstone. We worked as much as 29 hours in a shift and hiked, god knows how many miles in a day ,while eating hardly anything and digging "cutting" fireline. It was hard work. I got in shape for it by riding my bike all winter. I liked the work and the challenge but I could not stand the tweakers I was working with.
After that I got into whitewater kayaking and raft guiding. That is what lead me to the Coloma Valley. If you are a serious river runner you will eventually end up here. Maybe for a day or two maybe you will get stuck here. Coloma is to North American whitewater what Roubiax is to European cycling. To me and most of my best friends it is home. Temperate climates, it hardly ever snows and is warm during the summer. It is perfect in the summer for whitewater sports. It is a bit hot in the summer for road riding. But we are at the foot of the Sierras and all you have to do is start climbing and it'll cool off.
Whitewater is great. I'll always be a river runner. There is no where I'd rather be than nankoweap. But whitewater is not the best sport for me as the father of two girls. No matter how you slice it. You are going to be gone most of the day to go paddling and that does not work when you want to have a relationship with your kids.
So when we started having kids, I found my way back to the bike. An hour out the front door and I can get in a great work out. Two hours and I am on a good small adventure. Any more than that is gravy.
As I rode I wanted more and more from myself. Pretty quickly finishing the Death Ride became a goal. Then cutting my time down. And cutting my time down again. I never have been a good climber. I am almost always the last to the top of the climb. Nevertheless I choose a 130 mile 16,000 ft climb fest for my annual challenge. It is the suffering and the challenge that I crave. That and being out there with my friends in such a beautiful place doing something so significant yet silly.
The doctor called with the results of the Bone Scan. My bones are changing. He was really concerned with getting me in for an MRI right away. He told me, "Let me be frank with you Mr. Sorelegs, we are trying to rule out cancer." I hope you, dear reader, never have this conversation with your doctor. My MRI is scheduled for next Thursday the 31st. My plan is to call daily for cancellations. It has worked in the past. The next step after that is a bone biopsy under a CT scan so they can hit the right spot.
I am ready. Bring it on. I know how to suffer. I know how to dig deeper and I will fight. With everything I have. Others have come before me. If they can do it I can do it.
This blog was meant to be about bike riding in the place that I consider to be the most perfect place in the world. Maybe that is still what it is going to be about. For now it is about the harsh realities of an otherwise charmed and perfect life. Sit in, I'll pull.
Gratitude:

• My Life So Far
• The next steps
• My girls
• The chickenhawk
• My family
• My community
• Doctor KT

More Tests??

Went to the old HMO today. The Orthopedeist looked at both the hip and clavicle. I've been on steroids for 12 days and off the bike for 3 weeks and the hip pain is subsiding. He thinks it bursitis as well and is going to send me for a MRI. With the collar bone he got a bit tripped out. He ordered a Xray right away. It showed poor bone density at the end of the bone and a big old hump in the middle where break healed over. I've got to go for a bone scan soon. Yikes.

The good news is that the hip is healing nicely.

Work is super busy. Interest rates are down. The yield on the 10 year bond closed at 3.62% lowest I've seen in over a year. Go refi your house if you have any equity left. You should be able to get 5.625% or so.

The chickenhawk and I made a date to got to Harbin Hot Springs next month. Looks sweet. Now I've got something to look forward to... That and a bone scan. All I can think about is going here. I haven't so much as looked at my bikes in two weeks. Imagine that.

Today I am grateful for: The fact that I have money to deal with this. The Chickenhawk and her support. The team of healthcare PROs that are working with me. My family and friends.

Three Steps Backward

Whoa what a ride! Wednesday night I was feeling good. Doing a very low weight shoulder and chest work out when I tripped on a dumbbell and fell on my left knee and left hand. BAM the impact shoved the left femur head up into the hip socket. With the left hip already completely dodgy that impact sent the pain level up to 11.

I woke up Thursday AM in a ton of pain and toughed out a trip to the office for a client meeting. After the meeting went home and ate a vicodin and passed out.

Friday the valley was shaking with a big old winter storm. I was worrying about one of the big oaks in our yard falling on the house with all the wind. The Chickenhawk took me to a series of appointments starting with PT Dirk. I could barley make it up the five steps to his office. He was able to help me get a bit of the spasm out of my hip flexor and do a slight pelvis adjustment. I was waaay out of alignment.

From there I went to a Chiropractor that was a complete quack! I was there for three hours and got nothing out of it except a $300 dollar bill! It was an adventure in medicine that I will not forget. I'll write the story about it when I am a little more done being pissed off.

After that off to Kaiser for an Xray recommended by doctor KT. Results for that show negative for arthritis or bone damage. KT says I have ilipectineal bursitis. All I know is it hurts like a mofo and I cant really walk all that well. I started taking perdnisone yesterday. Yeah now I am on Steroids... look the F out.

So we get back to the house on Friday night and the power is still out and the storm still raging. All day Saturday we waited for the power to come back on. At our house no power = no water and no heat (well and central heat). I desperately need to keep warm since cold induces those dreaded muscle spasms. I spent the day under a down comforter in pile jacket and pants. It was a blur. Finally at 4:00 we bailed to warmer more comfortable digs. Best $100 I've spent in my life. Back in the day I would have toughed it out but now, I am a puddin'.

It looks like I'll be on the bench for a while. It is a real pain in the ass. Cycling is my mental outlet. It is the thing that reaffirms my humanity after the week's BS beats me down. I don't know how long I am going to be out. Right now my guess is that I might be able to do some miles in March. My big goal for the year is to race cross in the fall with a good strong run instead of a hobble.
Thanks for reading.

My injury and recovery Epic

The purpose of this post is for me to acknowledge the shit that I am in right now. If you don't want to read my bitching about my body then skip this, it 'aint for you. its for me.


It has been hard for me to write about this. It is hard to fully acknowledged it for some time. I am resistant to put it into words because acknowledging it might mean that is has more power over me. Fact is it is so affecting my life that everyone around me must realize it as much as I do so I might as well just acknowledge it. The amount of pain that I've been in has really started to take a toll on me.

It is not that I am in that much pain. I mostly don't have much pain at all when I sit still it is just when I move around. Getting up and walking take mental effort to prepare for. Sit straight, straighten the back. Find a place to put the hands. Thrust the chest forward. Rise. Put full weight on legs. Wait for a shot of pain. Bear the pain. Mentally calm down the spasming hip flexor or glute or whatever and get ready too take the first step while waiting for the next shot of pain to hit the hip flexor. After that I am pretty OK to keep moving... Walking. If you can call it that. I've got this stiff backed, straight legged hobble where I lead with might right foot and left hip respectively. Being like this for day and weeks has spread to other parts of my body. My back was all racked up two weeks ago when I went to Dirk the PT's office. My left middle back was all spasmed and my right side felt like I had been kicked in the ribs. He set me straight though. The mission that week was focus on stretching the side body and ab work focusing on the right side.


I went and saw Alice the massage therapist the next week. She said that the aches and pains and sore muscles are like a toothpaste tube. When we work on one spot, the inflammation will move to another part of my body. Push here bulge there. That is really true. Lately it has been my left hip flexor that is tight and sore. So I've stretched, heated massaged... The inflammation moves out and next it is my right glute that hurts. I am chasing it all around my body. I want to just move it out! I called the acupuncturist today to try for an appointment. They are closed this week. I am ready to go back to that. Perhaps I'll right about that experience in the future. Not now.



Since I've had this blog, I've had this shit going on. I haven't written much about how I got like this because I am not completely sure what all happened. Since my primary goal in life is to get through this stage of my life I might as well explore it here.



Last Spring, in early April I was going great. I was getting real fast on the bike with a bigger endurance base than I've ever had. I was strong in the core. I could drive hard across flats while in the drops for long stretches. My climbing was getting strong. I hit my PB time on Prospector (the most difficult local climb.) I was stretching regularly and doing lots of good core work. I was going great. Then one day my neck felt sore. Then it spread to my shoulder then my shoulder because so sore I went to the orthopedist to get a cortisone shot. That helped a little. But it kept on. Of course I kept training form my big ride in July the Death Ride.


May and I was still getting stronger and doing lots of hill repeats. Then June I eased up and did easier but longer rides to consolidate my gains. I felt good but my shoulder was really really getting sore. Some where in there walking got really uncomfortable but I sucked it up and kept riding. I did yoga and got a foam roll, and started doing exercises that Dirk suggested. The shoulder started to ease up. I did death ride with my best time yet and taking 1hr of my previous best.



Then I redoubled my efforts away from training and back to healing. I went to acupuncture and PT and had massages and started to feel much better. In early August after it pretty easy, I did a 50 mile solo ride with an average speed of 19 MPH. I did a bunch of miles that week and was going great. Then in Mid August I started feeling sore. I can't actually remember how I started back then but i think it was my left hip flexor that was buggin' me.


So I went back to Dirk and he discovered that my pelvis was out of alignment. So we put it back in which is another thing I should write about separately. Then I discovered that my saddle, a WTB laser V was all collapsed on one side. I was riding around all cockeyed for god knows how long. I replaced the saddle and started doing the squats and lunges that Dirk prescribed. I started feeling better until early September when my buddy knocked me down on a dance floor. I felt my pelvis go out then and there. I went home in pain and tried to stretch my way out of it for a week before I went back to Dirk. I started on the path again... And had a series of stupid accidents that knocked me down and knocked my pelvis out again and again...


So now. My pelvis just goes out of alignment on its own with a good stretch. My challenge is to rebuild strength in my core to the point that it will hold together.



My goal now is to get pain free. To get to where I can walk normally and then, to get to where I can run. Then to race cross in the fall. Strong and fast. The hardest part right now is not knowing when I am going to be able to start real riding again.

Friday Jibberish

Well, Its been a busy week in Puddinville. The pain has been washing over the body from the hip flexors to the back and ribs to where from day to day I couldn't tell you which was worse. It was one of those steps backwards in the two steps forward and one step backward recovery that I have been running lately.

Went and saw PT Dirk yesterday and sure enough my pelvis was back out of joint again. I didn't have to crash off my bike or anything glorious for it to happen. My torso is so mushy right now I can pull the pelvis out by stretching too hard. Nice. I've been avoiding ab work because the ribs have been hurting. That is starting to improve; I did limited mobility ab work last night to isolate the rib cage away from the pain and it seemed to be OK. I feel better today. The left hip flexor is still painful and weird. I wonder if the pelvis has already pulled out of join since yesterday. I am so paranoid right now...

Lots going on in the world. Too much to comment on all of it. The Fed seems like it is hell bent on pushing the bubble off the cliff. Bush seems like he is still unwilling to take responsibility for anything he does. The Dems are still afraid to stand up to the Reps. And the whole world is in deep doo-doo.

I hope I can get on my bike this weekend and forget about it all for a while.

Link Dump:
Residential Wind Power: NY Times
Holyer than they: Times
Worth Listening or reading: Al Gore Nobel Laureate
Up to the moment: Cross Nats

Black Mood

Two weeks since the last time my pelvis went out of joint. I've still got a lot of pain today. I haven't walked normal for months.

I see a red door and I want it painted black
No colors anymore I want them to turn black
I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes
I have to turn my head until my darkness goes

I took yet another Alleve today. God knows what it is doing to my kidneys. Such a hard call, to try to move the inflammation out medically and speed the recovery or tough it out and wait for the pain to go. Life without pain is becoming more of a memory than a reality. I am believing in it less and less.

I see a line of cars and they're all painted black
With flowers and my love, both never to come back
I see people turn their heads and quickly look away
Like a newborn baby it just happens ev'ryday

Days of spending hours in the saddle sweating, rolling, pushing power into the pedals. It is like a distant hope. I'm trying to look forward to it. Trying to count my blessings. It is just hard. I feel like I am missing crucial part of my life by staying off the bike.

I look inside myself and see my heart is black
I see my red door and it has been painted black
Maybe then I'll fade away and not have to face the facts
It's not easy facing up when your whole world is black

My gut is starting to get fat. My legs are loosing their muscle and definition. My max heart rate is dropping by the day. Fitness is going away. I know I can get it back. I look forward to working on it. I just wish it could be now.

No more will my green sea go turn a deeper blue
I could not forsee this thing happening to you
If I look hard enough into the setting sun
My love will laugh with me before the morning comes

I'd like to top out a big climb feeling strong and ready for a couple more. I'd like to take a sprint once in a while. I'd like to feel like the cookies I am eating were earned. I'd like to come back from a big training ride and eat the frickin kitchen.

I see a red door and I want it painted black
No colors anymore I want them to turn black
I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes
I have to turn my head until my darkness goes

Hmm, hmm, hmm...
I wanna see it painted black, painted black
Black as night, black as coal I wanna see the sun, blotted out from the sky
I wanna see it painted, painted, painted, painted black
Yeah

Staging a Comeback

I have done it several times. Like two years ago when I broke my arm and spent 6 weeks off the bike. Or last year when i went on an extended vacation and didn't get my hear rate over 100 the whole time. But this one feels a little bit bigger. The good news is I am back on my bike with only the regular, suffering thorugh a bike ride, pain.

I re joined my Sunday group ride for the first time in about two months. I was happier than a pig in shit. We rolled out down 49, thanks guys for going the least step way, and out to Cool. Then up 193 to Greenwood. Some of us went home from there but the rest went up past gtown to Wentworth springs rd. I've gotta check the mileage but it is 30 or 40. To do the loop with some pretty respectable climbing in there.

I was slow. I meann slower than usual. We rolled out slow and respectable. It was great sitting in the pack. Whenever the pace picked up, I went straight out the back. Fine with me. I did a lot of the ride at z4-5 and by myself. It just felt good to be out on a beautiful warm November morning. And even better to finish the ride and be able to walk normally. Huzzah!

I am really looking forward to spending the winter months regaining base and then working on a rebuild of power. Come April there is going to be a faster, stronger me that doesn't get injured from muscle imbalances because I've learned yet another hard lesson in the school of road biking fitness.

Two Steps Forward...

Yesterday went home feeling like a million bucks. I spent an hour during lunch at the gym doing squats, lunges and hip ab/aductors and a bunch of Yoga. I told the Chickenhawk that I was feeling the best I've felt in months. The next time I say that I wouldn't be surprised if I immediately fell on my ass and broke my leg or something. Note to self... Don't say that anymore!

So this morning David joins me for the regular lake ride. Coming into a corner we miscommunicated about which way we are going and he takes out my front wheel. I unclipped in time to put a foot down and landed on my right hip. I tell ya! that is the fourth time something like that has happened in as many months. It didn't really hurt at the moment and now 4 hours later i still feel OK but I suspect the pelvis is back out again. I'm going to see Dirk to get my body checked out yet again. Hopefully I'll move through this quickly and keep on with my low key training for now.

Of Note: After 7 years and god knows how many miles of road riding, this was my first time to touch the pavement on / from a road bike.

Well Awright

Did the standard loop this AM. Stayed in z2 the whole way. The hips are feeling better and not too sore afterwards. Damn it feels good to ride with out pain.

An employee gave notice today. She has been with me for 2 years and is a great member of the team. Not completley a bad thing rght now since we needed to cut costs with the market slow-down anyway. It doesn't stop me from feeling sad.

Pain: tolerable but not high.

I don’t want to start at the beginning because it is too long ago after all I am 40 years old. And that is a big part of the problem. My body is just plain not what it used to be. I could go on with the catalog of stuff that hurts for too long. I’d rather focus on the recovery and come back.

My goals for the winter are:
1. To be pain free.
2. To be able to run.
3. To go in to next year with good base fitness.

I got to this miserable place in part because I have been pushing through too much pain. So now I don’t trust myself to not go too hard.
My PT rocks! He really has helped me through these weird injuries I keep getting. I asked him yesterday how much pain I should allow myself to ride with. He says, “it is probably not a good idea to try to push through the pain but to keep it a tolerable (but not high) level.”
So I’ve got a mission. I’ve got to drive to ride for a while so I can ride flats. It is all climbing in my neck of the woods. So it is off to Lincoln on Sunday. I’ll see if I can get any of the veloloco boys to go with but I’m not holding my breath