37 days and counting

Well the countdown continues and the PT is still going on! The past week has been a really good week. There was a breakthrough in my PT after Monday and things are really starting to click. I was able to ride 3 times on the trainer last week and swim 2 times. My trainer rides were short and effortless because I don't feel ready to push it yet. The first one was a 20 min ride at only 100 watts. To understand how easy that is.. well my easiest ride when I'm barely putting any effort out would be an average of 145-150 watts. Its so different on a trainer because its constant pressure on your legs vs. on the road when you have hills and descents and never stay in one area of watts. You could easily hit a hill and be putting out 400-600 watts with no problem however you could descend down that same hill and put out only 80. That is the reason why I am holding off on being on the road until I really feel ready to. The two other times were 30 and 45 minutes in PT and I pushed it a little harder.. not much only doing about 125 watts for 10 to 15 minutes. I did feel some knee pain with it but not a lot. The real big thing was the recovery.. which is where I would always feel the most pain.. well all three times I never felt any. My plans as of today are to do the ride. I'm really starting to feel better with my riding and PT. I'm going to continue to do PT this week and get a massage next week. The massages and stretching have helped a lot with relaxing the muscles around my knee and giving it time to heal and recover. This Friday is when I will be making up my mind and sending the check in for the ride.. the point of no return. I really am looking forward to flying out there about 5 days before my ride and do some traveling and riding out there. I will probably do a post later this week to let you know about how my riding goes since I really will start to push it before I mail the check out!

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!

PT.. PT.. and MORE PT!

So as I stated in the last post I was starting PT this past week. I'm working with a girl Meghan and funny story short I found out that she worked on my brother Eddie when he hurt his shoulder and we had a good time laughing about how he did it and how he is a big baby.. well thats what she said at least... She really feels that I should be on the bike by the end of this up coming week and I sure hope so. This week I went to PT on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and I also swam on Thursday and Saturday an hour each day. Needless to say come Saturday I was in some pain and wasn't really a happy camper because the pain just came right back. But I'm going to hold my head up high and keep on moving forward.. the good news is I enjoy swimming and it feels good to push myself and breath hard for once in the past 5 weeks. I have scheduled another 3 days of PT this week and also 3 days of swimming along with a massage today. I have been working pretty hard on stretching and rolling out my legs since that's what the professional PT of the year Meghan says is the issue. I do plan on getting a second opinion on my x-rays and on my MRI sometime this week I hope and just make sure everything really is secure and sound in my knee. Like I've said in the past post its fine while riding but the aftermath is horrible and my knee just gets inflamed. The way I am looking at it now is I am doing everything everyone has told me and I'm taking it easy, icing everyday, and doing the PT, so everything is bound to get better and I have to be getting better day by day! By the way.. I leave in 7 weeks.. just as a little side note!

So its been 2 weeks.. IM SORRY!

Its been two weeks since I've put a post on here... I haven't because well nothing has changed I'm not riding at all right now the knee is still injured blah blah blah.. However I am on the recovering part of my injury. MRI says a grade I tear of the ACL and PCL. I went to physical therapy today for the first time and my physical therapist Meghan thinks it has nothing to do with my ACL and PCL and she feels I will be on the bike in 2 weeks.. 2 MORE WEEKS! I can swim if I want to and in fact she is encouraging it. So I hope to get a month long membership at a gym somewhere that has a pool so I can get my lungs opened up a little bit. I'm really happy to hear the confidence in my PT and I am still hoping to get on the bike in just a few weeks. Being on the bike after next week which puts me at the end of February and beginning of March means I will have about 7 weeks to be read for the ride. I can do it! I have faith in myself and I know that I might be sore the first couple days but its not a race.. its a goal to complete this and I am going to complete it. I will do better once I am on a more positive side an I am riding with posting and keeping you up to date.

Fwd: Week 11 of Training

On Thursday I was able to get an appointment with the Pedal Right Fit Studio in Vickery Village. I got in with one of their top fitting specialist Eric and he spent about 3.5 hours with me changing my seat height, shorten my stem, moving my cleat, and videoing my pedal stroke until we got it to a area where we are happy with. Believe it or not on my new kestrel where I had the seat height was about 7 MM too low! that's 3 full CM. Now we have it all positioned that it matches my Fuji to the millimeter in all areas except we have my seat height about 3.5mm higher to get more leg extension. I've never been one to be picky with my bike; but with all of these measurement and the technology the Retul has with fitting I was really happy and impressed! If you haven't been fit yet I highly recommend it even if you are a CAT 5 racer or on the PRO level. A fitting like this and the service I got is well worth the money spent. I even have take home records of my fit so down the road when I purchase a new bike I'm able to compare and adjust as needed and Pedal Right has the records on file so I could just go there to get set up and have the same confidence knowing that I'm properly sized up on the new bike

So this week has been a tough week for me. I went and got an MRI done on Thursday to check out my knee since it has been bothering me a lot. The MRI results came and and apparently I somehow have torn the ACL and PCL in my left knee. The doctor said it could be from something as simple as running into a desk or hitting my knee on anything that caused it and its not from cycling. I look at it two ways... its stressing me out that  have to spend 2-4 weeks off the bike but on the other side I will be able to ride again and still do the ride. Its not "TENDINITIS" of some sort which tends to stay around longer but yes I will still have to baby the knee. I did a nice 60 mile ride on Monday and that's when I decided that I needed to get it check out. I'm hoping I can get back to riding on the 2 week side and not the 4 week. I may be out of shape going to this ride across America but I WILL complete it. I will be sure to keep everyone up to date with the issue. Well its back to the icing 3-4 times a day for the next couple weeks.. WISH ME LUCK!

Week 10 of Training

Another week in the books ladies and gentlemen. This week was great because it actually got above freezing and I was able to ride outside with only 2 layers on instead of 4. The only down side is more knee issues. I think from what I can remember is I smashed my knee on something and it feels like I have a bruise on the knee cap.. But when I don't ride a day it goes away and the next day I ride it slowly creeps back.. I'm HOPING its only a bruise and nothing more. Next week I am super excited because I'm going to get fit at Pedal Right in Vickery Village. After I get fit I will be able to start riding the Kestrel and putting the miles on that puppy and then my knee problems will go away.. right....

 

Monday- 1.5 hours on the rollers. 10 min at 150, 170, 190, 210, 190, 170, 150 then ILTS.

 

Tuesday- 1.5 hours on the rollers. pretty much the same thing as Monday

 

Wednesday- OFF

 

Thursday- 3 hours with Reality Bikes teammate Eric. We ended up riding out of the house and going up some new roads that we haven't been on yet and discovered that there is a lot of untouched areas that we hope to venture towards during our team training camp.

 

Friday- 1 hour on the Road. This is when the knee really started bothering me so I cut the ride short.

 

Saturday- OFF

 

Sunday- 1 Hour on the rollers at my parents house. Real easy keeping an eye on my knee making sure it isn't anything major.

 

Now is a time that I really cant risk doing any damage to my knee.. What ever injuries I do have I need to make sure they are gone and I'm good to go. I really cant afford to take a week or two weeks off in the next couple months of training. Its time I ramp my miles up since I'm able to ride outside and keep the intensity down. I do plan on racing the Greenville Classic which starts February 22nd and is 3 weekends after and hope to place well maybe win a race and Cat up to a 3 before I leave. I did get a Garmin and I will start uploading rides on here that I do throughout the week. Its crazy how much information that you get off of the cycling computer and I'm enjoying it so far!

Garmin Connect - Activity Details for New Ride

Garmin Connect - Activity Details for New Ride