Home again, Home again, Jiggity Jig

Well, no fat pig purchased (cf old nursery rhyme) but we're home. As planned, we stocked the car with water and sandwiches and drove straight through with only gas stops. Left at a few minutes before 06:00 and got home a few minutes before 02:00 the next day.

Naturally, I was keyed up the night before so only got a few hours sleep before leaving so it was tough on very little sleep but ironically, it was just like doing a 1200K! I typically don't sleep well before a brevet and ride the first day, which is generally 400K, on a sleep deficit. The only difference here is you're not physically active so boredom contributes.

Marcia slept while I drove until a little after 12:00 then she took over and I slept in the car for a few hours then I resumed driving. No issues with the nods or alertness. Eyes very dry and tired this morning though from staring at the road.

Unlike last year when we had torrential downpours on the drive back, the weather was beautiful the whole way which made the trip a lot easier. Did hit one traffic jam due to an accident and in general it seemed like there were fewer cars on the road do to the coronavirus.

The house was freezing when we got home! Air temperature outside was 22 and we keep the thermostat on 55 when we're gone for extended periods (electric bill was $31 dollars, thank you very much!) and it really takes a long time to heat up. First order of business was firing up the furnace, turning the water back on and starting the hot water heater.

Also, every smoke alarm in the house is chirping. A good reminder that it's time for a battery change.

Good to be home, now to unpack.

Life goes on

Like probably everyone else on the planet, I've been following the news about the Covid-19 Coronavirus pretty avidly. I've been pondering how this affects me and how the decisions I make affect others.

We're still in our winter sojourn in Fredericksburg. Our plan was to stay through the end of March then start heading home, perhaps with a stop on the way to ride the HCR 1000K (more on that later) which would have us home some time in the first 10 days of April.

As things have gotten more serious here in the U.S., or more accurately, as the U.S. has started to take it more seriously, we've started rethinking our plan. Will there be travel restrictions? How serious might those be? What about restaurants and hotels on the return trip?

Normally, we take several days to drive back with at least two overnights. This time we're thinking we'll pack the car with everything we need to eat and drink for the trip and drive straight through.

It's spring break time here in Fredericksburg and as nearly as I can tell, life goes on. Restaurants are open, town looks crowded. Weird really.

I've got several events coming up for my region in April. I've thought a lot about what we should do both as good citizens of the community and also to safeguard our health and the health of our friends and families. For the moment, the rides go on with options for proof of passage, riding separately, etc., to accommodate the current reality.

In ongoing news, I did a "long ride" yesterday - 53 miles - and a shorter ride of 15 miles today. The good news is the Soleus seems pretty good. General soreness but no worse than the rest of my legs due to the lack of longer or harder rides for a couple of months. Weather permitting, I'll ride 40 miles or so tomorrow.

I have decided to give the HCR 1000K a miss. Just seems like too much, too soon. Disappointed but the right thing to do, I think. Current plan is to do a brevet series in April/May plus a fleche then the NoVa 1200K in early June. All are subject to cancellation at this point so who knows?

Stay tuned!

Dissed by an algorithm

I've been taking the recovery slowly. After failing the "readiness test" of back-to-back "long" rides on the first two days of the month, I took two days off, did a couple of short rides (12 and 21 miles) then took another three days off. I then rode the exact same 26 mile ride yesterday and today.

For those who don't use Strava, when you upload a ride it gives a "relative effort" score that compares that ride to your other more recent rides. This is a number that as nearly as I can tell ranges from one to three digits and the higher the number, the harder this ride was relative to your other recent rides. If you click on the number, it shows a line graph that plots the relative effort score for the last week. It also gives some kind of "encouraging" phrase. For the past couple of weeks mine has been "great job managing your effort".

I've got an algorithm throwing shade.

The good news is that the soleus/calf/achilles feels pretty good. I've not done anything remotely near a hard effort, my focus now is to try and increase the distance and see how it responds. I'm set to do my loop around Fredericksburg tomorrow with Rob W. Hopefully there won't be any setbacks.

I sure would like to get back to writing more about riding than not riding!

I'm still hoping that I can do the HCR 1000K in early April. I've never been a big believer that I need to do mega-miles before doing a long ride but I'll be pushing the "residual fitness" concept to the breaking point. I'm hoping to be able to do a few 75-100 miles in the three weeks between now and then and if I'm able to do that I'll consider myself more or less good to go.

Stay tuned!

It's all connected - a retrospective

Toe bone connected to the foot bone
Foot bone connected to the heel bone
Heel bone connected to the ankle bone
Ankle bone connected to the shin bone
Shin bone connected to the knee bone
Knee bone connected to the thigh bone
Thigh bone connected to the hip bone
Hip bone connected to the back bone
Back bone connected to the shoulder bone
Shoulder bone connected to the neck bone
Neck bone connected to the head bone
"Dem Bones" J&J Johnson

I was mulling over the sequence of events that lead to my current state. It goes like this:

• I broke my neck (c2/c3 fracture) with associated trauma in 2007
• At PBP in 2019 I rode a significant amount of time with my forearms resting on the handlebars (no aero bars). I'm not sure why I did this as I was riding a bike (the Hampsten) I've done a number of long brevets on without doing it. For some reason, it just felt more comfortable at the time.
• This caused me to be bent down significantly lower than normal riding position which in turn required me to tilt my head much further upward in order to be able to see.
• This pinched a nerve in my neck resulting in significant pain in both hands (the sensation was that they'd been crushed) that lasted through the rest of 2019.
• In order to continue riding and give my hands a break, I bought a recumbent (a Cruzbike).
• In December, just prior to coming to Texas for the winter, I sent the Hampsten off to have a 3rd bottle cage installed.
• From 22 December - 24 January I rode the Cruzbike exclusively. I was surprised how quickly my legs got tired/sore riding the Cruzbike when I first started riding it but slowly acclimated. I rode just under 600 miles on it during that period.
• I got the Hampsten back and rode it for a couple of days. These were shorter rides (38 and 28 miles). I was really pleased with how good my legs felt.
• Based on that, I went out and did a hard 200K with a few really hard efforts on climbs. During that ride my left leg started to really hurt. I stopped and stretched a few times but it didn't really help.
• The next day I was in severe pain. It turned out I'd badly strained the Soleus with the longer and harder ride.
• I've been nursing it ever since. As previously noted, in the last several days I gradually increased the length of my rides at a fairly low intensity. Yesterday it hurt badly enough to wake me up and was really sore through the day.

Conclusion is the biomechanical differences between riding the Cruzbike and Hampsten were enough that although I was in pretty good aerobic shape as a result of riding the Cruzbike, I was using my leg muscles differently so I was no longer acclimated to the position of riding the Hampsten.

With benefit of hindsight, I should have done a week or more of easier rides on the Hampsten and gradually increased the distance before doing any kind of long/hard effort.

It's all connected...

A failed experiment

As noted previously,  my Soleus/Achilles/calf strain has been slowly getting better. I decided that I would slowly increase the distances I rode but not increase the intensity. Not quite soft pedaling but no hard efforts.

It didn't go well...

Here are my rides for the last few days:

• Feb 27 - 23 miles, 587 feet of climbing at a 12.6 MPH average
• Feb 28 - 57 miles, 2648 feet of climbing at a 14.8 MPH average
• Feb 29 - day off
• Mar 1 - 42 miles, 1995 feet of climbing at a 13.8 MPH average
• Mar 2 - 53 miles, 2525 feet of climbing at a 13.9 MPH average

This morning my leg hurt badly enough that it woke me up and I'm hobbling about. I've got it elevated and on ice as I write this.

So a smart man would probably take an extended period of time off (like two weeks to a month), continue the RICE protocol, maybe add massage or acupuncture or both and let it fully heal. That would mean pulling the plug on the Australia trip.

Regular readers will recall I was all set to go to Oz for the Geelong 1200K last year, hurt my back and decided not to go on the morning I was due to drive to the airport. I'd been looking forward to the trip and seeing my Aussie friends for months and was really disappointed not to go.

So I'm going.

I'll let the leg rest for the next 3 days then do another couple of rides. I hope that rather than continuing to keep it inflamed I'll be helping it (active recovery) by doing easier rides. I'll do another easy ride when I get to Australia then start the 1200K and ride it at an easy pace. If I'm not able to continue I'll turn into an additional support person.

I've never been accused of being smart when it comes to dealing with an injury.

Stay tuned.

Update: it's been a pretty bad day. As it's progressed the Soleus has gotten worse, to the point that I can barely walk even with a pronounced limp. Not sure what I'm going to do.

Sigh.

And so it begins...

Well, I no sooner publish my ride plan than it starts to go to hell. This was posted on the Okayama web site a few days ago:

Due to a novel coronavirus problem, we have directly contacted by the local government that supported our event requested us self-restraint of the event. Also, the Japanese government has requested citizens to suspend, postpone or scale down sporting events for two weeks on the 26th. Now we are considering the possibility of holding the event but have to make a decision. We will inform about this around Friday, March 13. Sincerely. (2020/2/29)

It doesn't really make any sense that they reschedule the Okayama for 1-2 weeks later so my guess is that if they move it it'll be held several months later. Given that my dance card is pretty full, that probably means I'm not going to be able to go.

At this point, I don't really have a plan B for April. It's likely I'll just add a couple of RUSA brevets to my calendar and stay home.

Life in the middle of a pandemic.