At a crossroads

 I didn't finish the West Union 400K yesterday. To recap the past month's brevets:

• On May 11, I DNF'd a 300K pre-ride. Back sore.
• On May 15, I was planning on doing the 300K but decided to do the Fennimore 200K instead. I finished that.
• On May 22, I pre-rode the West Union 200K. I finished that.
• On May 26, I rode the West Union 300K. I finished that.
• On May 29, I DNF'd the West Union 400K. Back really hurt.

On the aborted May 29 400K, my back was still sore from riding the 300K three days prior. Experience (and lots of it) suggests that when I start a ride with a sore back it doesn't end well and that was the case here. It started to hurt at about 15 miles but I was determined to keep going. 

My back got progressively worse over the course of the day and I was riding slow AF on the climbs to avoid overtaxing it too much. My moving average for the ride was 12.7 MPH as opposed to 14.1 MPH the last time I did the same route.  

When I got to a photo control at 135 miles it was at a point in the route where I could just drop down the hill, coast 5 miles and I'd be home. I was determined I wasn't going to quit there - just too easy. I rode another 13 miles then pulled over and took stock.

Here's what I pondered:

• my back really hurt but based on previous experience I felt like I could finish without doing permanent damage. This probably seems a rather bizarre criterion for making a decision (sort of like "well, I won't die") but there you go. Having said that, I have a demonstrated ability to "push through the pain" with catastrophic results so I didn't have anything to prove to myself on that front and wanted to avoid it again.
• I was looking at a very late finish, likely 04:00-05:00
• I felt very fatigued overall. I'd eaten a PB&J at the mile 135 control since I know that if I'm calorie depleted it usually manifests itself as general tiredness.

But the bottom line really is that although I'd make the time cutoff of 09:00 I just didn't want to. 

So I decided to quit and rode home, 156 miles total with just under 10K feet of climbing. I'll add that I couldn't sleep despite feeling very tired because my back was hurting.

People of my vintage occasionally discuss when they'll stop randonneuring. Obviously if they lose interest or are physically unable that's a decision that makes itself but what about if the desire is there and they're more or less still physically able? For me the answer is simple and invariable: when I'm slow enough that I'm having a hard time making control close times or am not able to get 4 hours sleep per night on a multi-day ride that means I'm done.

I've seen a number of people that do an entire 1200K on 4 hours sleep total. While I admire the perseverance and determination I never want to be that person - ever.

So where does that leave me? 

Well, I need to regain lost speed. I've not been doing any hard, "slobber on the top tube" kind of training mostly because I didn't want to push my back too much and have been focused more on building a good base of long distance rides. It's time to dial back the distance and dial up the speed work. It remains to be seen how well my back will tolerate it. I'm going to start off relatively conservatively and see how it goes.

But it might just be that I'm done with riding long brevets. This would be very disappointing to me as I would miss both the challenge and camaraderie of the longer rides. 

Alternatively, it might just be that 2021 is a "rebuilding" year and I just haven't regained enough strength and consequent fitness to be able to do a longer ride at the pace I'm accustomed to. While better than the first alternative, this would also be a disappointment as longer rides are "coming online" here in the States (international is another story) and I've plans to do several and have been looking forward to them. The clock is ticking though and they're drawing closer without me having the requisite speed and fitness to do them in the manner I'd like.

And to end on a more positive note. 

Normally when I go ride I start out with an idea of where I'm going to go. My wife's last question before I go out the door is "where are you headed" and I'll respond with some specifics. A few weeks ago, I rode a bike I've not ridden for a while and when she asked I answered "I don't know".

I headed out with no specific plan, rode on some roads I'd not been on in a very long time. No controls, no brevet card, no hurry, just enjoying the day. I ended up riding a little over 60 miles and it was probably the best ride I've had this year.

So if I can still do that, I'm OK and consider myself lucky.

Stay tuned!

Do you want the good news or the bad news?

Things were going pretty well but then my world came crashing down...

Admittedly, this post is off to a melodramatic start but it's true.

Riding had been going very well. I've been ramping up the mileage very gradually, interspersing a block of harder/longer weeks with an easy week or weeks:

Miles per day is perhaps a little more informative:

Note that the week of Feb 20 is when we were caught in "snowmageddon" in Central Texas then the drive home. On the riding front, I'd also done my longest ride in two years during the Audax KC flèche during which I rode 225 miles with 16K feet of climbing with no negative after effects. Sure, my back was sore but the soreness was proportional to that in my legs and elsewhere and I recovered well.

So I was very encouraged.

As noted in my previous two blog posts, I've also been dieting. I've followed the strategy outlined there and have been eating somewhere in the range of 1400 calories per day. This combined with the increased riding has had the expected positive effect on my weight:

Pretty good huh? I went from 200 pounds (90.7 kilos) on Feb 20 to 174.5 pounds (79.1 kilos) this morning. Coincidentally, I hit my highest weight this year during the week long layoff from riding during snowmageddon - funny how that works!

Dieting has been hard - really hard - and I'm approaching the limits of my willpower. I'm not quite at the "ideal" weight I gave in my last blog post but I am at the "a little heavier than I'd like, but I can live with it" weight. My plan was to stick it out until I'd gotten below 170 lbs (77 kilos).

But then everything went to hell.

A couple of days ago my left hamstring started hurting. Started with what I'd characterize as a muscle strain. Gradually got worse. Yesterday it spread to my calf and my toes were tingling more than usual. I was planning on pre-riding a 300K this morning so I went for a short (14 mile) ride yesterday. I could feel the leg during the ride but nothing debilitating and it didn't seem any worse afterwards so I planned to go ahead with the pre-ride.

Got up in the middle of the night and my whole left leg from my butt down to my toes *really* hurt, to the point that I nearly fell and could barely hobble to the bathroom. I decided right then the 300K wasn't a good idea and turned off the alarm. I slept fitfully for the rest of the night.

On waking this morning, I can barely walk. Leg hurts all the way down.

So now the questioning begins. Simple muscle strain or sciatica? I know that I've been fooled in the past. Recall my post from last year where I thought I had "severe soleus strain" that turned out to be my back? I also recall a number of times pre-surgery where one or more of my hamstring, back, butt or calf hurt really badly and this turned out to be sciatica.

I've been doing more both on and off the bike. Was there a specific activity or ride that caused it? Cumulative effect? As noted above, I did my longest ride in 2 years 11 days ago. Since then I've:

• brush cut for a few hours on the farmette. A lot of this was side-hill which causes me to use my legs to brace myself against the hill and obviously I'm bouncing around a lot while bent sideways.
• worked on a bike for several hours (SRAM gripshift sucks!). Most of this was seated on a low mechanics stool reaching forward to work on the bike.
• did a 100K on a really windy day (gusts over 40 MPH/64 KPH) 4 days ago, my back was sore after.

All of the above? Some of the above? A specific event? Who knows? 

And in some sense, other than possibly avoiding a recurrence the cause isn't important. The more important question is exactly what's going on. Simple muscle soreness from overuse? Sciatica? Both?

As noted above, I'm nearing the end of my willpower on the diet front but what has kept me going is I'm still making progress via the combination of diet and exercise. I have my doubts about how long I can continue on diet alone with little to no progress.

So obviously I'm hoping this is simple muscle strain and will resolve itself in a few days. I've got a 200K/300K brevet scheduled for 3 days from now which is looking doubtful at this point.

I'm very depressed. By nature, I'm an optimist and am generally fairly upbeat. This will pass, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Stay tuned!