45 days

So the SUBJECT says it all. 45 days till I'm suppose to fly out to California and start my journey to ride across America. There are questions that I've been asking myself for the past two weeks and honestly I don't know if I have answers for them yet. I'm just going to go with it and speak out loud for a few minutes here. Six months ago I saw a challenge to do this ride especially since my right knee had been injured and I was getting over that. Finally I was able to get on the bike in late November and start my training and soon after injured my left knee. I then took a couple weeks off the bike and continued my training in December and on through January. Well somehow when I thought things were going great and I was starting to feel physically fit my knee starts bothering me. I go 2 weeks of riding dealing with this pain.. this pain that I can pinpoint with a pen tip. I went to get an MRI to only have several opinions throw me around in different directions. I just want to know what it is.. why can I run.. why can I go up stairs and down stairs without pain.. why can I swim 5000 yards and not feel anything besides the fire in my muscles.. is it muscle imbalance?? or is it really my ACL? why can I ride a recumbent bike for 15 minutes and push 200 watts and not be in pain... Although when I get approval to go ride this weekend.. EASY I only last 15 minutes before I turn around because IM IN PAIN.. I didn't push over 150 watts at any given time in that 15 minutes. I cant tell you how frustrated I am.. at some point in time I need to make a choice.. I plan on calling the company that I'm doing the ride through tomorrow and get their opinion on what I should do. I have to pay for the trip ASAP and I was supposed to pay for it February 1st. I cant convince myself that I wont be able to do this trip. I have to much hope and I feel like I'm supposed to do it. To many people are behind me. It has been 5 weeks of not riding now.. I have said this before I'm not worried that I cant ride 115+++ miles a day.. I'm now worried that will my body be able to keep up. I mentally feel ready for it. JUST someone PLEASE give me a straight forward answer!

 

Now on another note I'm not the only one confused.. My PT Meghan doesn't know what to think either. I went and saw her today and we worked on different things for 2 hours and I didn't feel any pain.. but felt a little about an hour after. However my 2 hour massage helped it out! It was brought up that maybe I should see someone else and get another set of eyes but I really don't want to. I feel if I go to someone else I have to start all over and I cant afford that right now. I trust Meghan and her knowledge that she can help me and get me better. So here I am today on the treadmill running backwards and side stepping both ways when she sparks a question.. whats that green thing in the seat of your car? and this is my thought process.. huh.. how can she see in my car then I realized I was parked right below the window that she was looking at and answered back with that's my nalgene bottle. Little did I know there would be another question.. Whats that red and white thing in your seat? I sat there and thought again.. red and white thing noo... its black and white what the heck is she talking about and how can she see that far to be pointing out things in my seat!?!? Then she says.. are those incense.. I mean honestly who would carry incense in their car?!?! lol.. NO THEY ARENT! Well come to find out she was right and I was right it was my knee tape that was upside down and the tape is black and white but the paper is red and white..okay.. so you had to be there to laugh at it. However the paper reads several motivational things like this:

 

"its not whether you get knocked down; its whether you get up."

"The harder you work the harder it is to SURRENDER."

"Discipline is remembering what you want."

"winning by a half wheel is tactics, winning by a half lap is fitness."

"pain is nothing compared to what it feels like to quit."

"the most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire"

"COURAGE is going from failure to failure without losing ENTHUSIASM"

"You will be able to do the ride across America" ( okay okay I threw that one in there)

 

So at the end of this I still have that one question.. What do I do? I'm really hoping we can get this figured out and get me on a bike soon. Wednesday I will be bringing my bike to PT for show and tell.. I can only hope I will be able to last more then 15 minutes or we finally figure out whats wrong! Now I'm off to ice GOOD NIGHT!