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...