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:
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:
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!
