More of the same....

Ride, stretch, rinse, repeat.  Doing our best to get out there several times per week, and trying to mix up what we're doing.  Saturday was a long(er) ride.  74 miles total for me (Den was shorter because we started by driving to Boulder in the car, and I decided to ride home instead of drive).  We climbed up to a tiny little place called Raymond.  Besides a few houses, the only thing there was a tiny general store.  If it weren't for cyclists, I'm not sure it would even be in business.  The amount of cyclists there using this as a refueling stop was hilarious!

Unfortunately, this only captured just under half of the cyclists....but you get the idea.  The store was only about the size of my walk in closet!

Similar to our previous climbing rides, this one was basically all gradual climbing up.  The grade varied from about a 4% to an 8%.  Den put a new cassette (I think?  I'm a bike knowledge loser.....I could have that wrong) on my bike, which gave me an extra 'easy' gear that I've never had before.  I appreciated it-it made riding up so much easier! (He would argue that I didn't use it, but I think I did?! LOL).  Anyway, as always, the ride DOWN the hill was pretty great.  We didn't coast though, we hooked up with another random rider and pushed ourselves to the limit, pedaling our butts off the whole time.  It was FUN!

We rode again Monday, and Tuesday too.  In the last 4 days, we put in 129 miles.

They should come in handy this weekend when we tackle a century ride called E-Rock (Elephant Rock) down in Castle Rock, CO.  We're trying to round up a few other riders to ride together with us to 'share the load', but we may end up on our own.  This will probably be our longest training ride before Ride2Survive.  It'll give us 160 km's, which is short of the 200km training ride that the Ride2Survive team will do......but we figure since we're pretty much doing it on our own instead of in a pack, it's close.  It's nice that we get to use it as a training ride and have it be supported too.  Non supported long training rides are a total pain.....always thinking about where you can refuel or use the washroom, or having to carry all of your own supplies.

Two weeks from today we'll be on the road to Vancouver already.  We leave June 12th for the two day drive.  We bumped it up so that we can get a bit more time in Vancouver, and do at least one training ride with the team.  On Saturday, June 15th, the team has a police escorted ride that we hope to join them on.  The police close off the street to let us sail through the lights.  It's supposed to be pretty fun.  I've never done it and am looking forward to it!

As the the knee.....I'm doing OK.  Still going to Physiotherapy twice a week, and it's making a difference (that, and the icing, stretching, and brace I'm wearing). I'm hopeful that I'm going to be OK for ride day.  This Sunday's century ride will be the real test.

There's talk of a new bike coming my way too.  I sent Den a picture of a bike I liked, and in typical Den fashion, he's obsessed with researching and finding me a bike.  Kind of hilarious actually.  He gets something in his head and he has a single track mind!!!  Don't be surprised if I'm riding a new bike within days.........

Some pictures from our gorgeous ride up St. Vrain on Saturday.  We had a perfect hot day, and were surrounded by this all day long.  LOVED it!

Feeling so happy, things are looking up!

So the last 2 weeks have been really low key. (aka: done not much of anything training wise).  After a 12 day break, I went for a short 21 mile ride with a friend.  It was low key, not at all fast, not much climbing, and not very long.  A great way to test out the knee.  Unfortunately, even though I rode it with the brace on, my knee started hurting about 1/2 way through.

Friday I went to see my new Physiotherapist for the first time.  She was GREAT!  She asked me a ton of questions, did an assessment, and asked me all about my goals.  Or in this case: goal-singular.  For me, this is all about Ride2Survive, and getting through it.  I really don't care much about anything else at this point.

She did some pointed laser therapy on the spot that is causing me problems, and along with some other things-put an Iomed bandage on it (http://www.amazon.com/Iomed-Iontophoresis-Electrodes-Companion-80/dp/B000U64W2G) with steroids under the bandage.  She reassured me that I have tendonitis, not tendonosis.  One is acute.  One is chronic.  It takes a lot longer than a few months to develop the chronic tendonosis.  She told me that I can continue to train, and let the pain be my guide.  If it's excruciating, it's giving me a message to stop.  If I can tolerate it, I'm fine to continue........as long as I promise that after the ride I am to take a good long break from cycling and give it time to fully heal.  DEAL!

So this morning's plan was to head out with a group that we met last year, but found really quite fast.  Den contacted them, and then said they'd love to have us.  They were only going out for a couple of hours this morning, and originally both of us were going to go.  Parker (son) however, had different plans for us.  He was up through the night in our room with a high fever.  I have no idea where it came from-he went to bed healthy!  So there was no way I was going to leave him alone (Madison had plans this morning).  Den said that since he's gotten in several good training rides over the last 2 weeks, and I hadn't really done any, that he would volunteer to stay home with Parker.  I was happy because I was really curious what would happen with my knee.

The group of guys I met up with were great.  They said they often break out into two different groups/different speeds.  We started out and were going about 20 miles per hour for the first 1/2 hour.  Sounds fairly fast until you realize that tucked into a group it really isn't that fast at all.  I *may* have goaded them on by asking them if they were taking it easy for "the girl".  About 15-20 minutes later, the ride pace suddenly picked up! LOL.  So anyway, the good news is that we did about 32 miles, we at times rode pretty fast, and my knee was pretty darn good the whole time.  A few deep pangs at one point that had me concerned, but they went away (??).  I'm thrilled with whatever that physio girl did to me!  Can't wait to see how it continues to improve, as I'm scheduled to go see her twice a week for the next two weeks.

Hoping this trend of feeling pretty good continues!  I just have to take it easy and not push it too hard, either in distance or in climbing.

Rest, rest, and more rest

Today is day 8 of no activity.  :-(

Yesterday I went to see the specialists at Boulder Center for Sports Medicine.  They were very thorough, and even though I'm far from a Pro cyclist, they took my case seriously to try to help me get back to riding.

After the initial consult, and feeling around, she told me I have quadriceps tendonitis.  She followed it up with an ultrasound of the area to show me what's going on in there.  She took the time to show me a healthy tendon, and then the inflamed tendon of mine.  Very interesting!

So the good news is that I don't have any tears or anything serious (which I suspected because at that point, the week of no riding had significantly improved my pain level!).

Icing twice a day.  A brace to alleviate the pressure on the tendon running over my knee.  Instructions to do foam rolling for 10 minutes a day to stretch out my quads/hams/upper legs (they're tight and pulling on the tendon, causing the pain).  Physical therapy twice a week for the next while.  And orders to take it easy on the bike.  No more Flagstaff type climbs.  She said Left Hand Canyon is fine (the ride up to Jamestown).  Easy gears as much as possible, avoid the hard gears.

She seemed confident that this can be overcome and not get worse.  I'm thrilled with that!

In the meantime, Den's been training away.......did Flagstaff again, this time leaving from our house.  He also rode with a neighbour/friend out to Carter Lake to get in some more miles (80 miles).  He's going to leave me in the dust!

I'm afraid I won't be ready.  Den keeps telling me I'm ready to ride this thing tomorrow, but I honestly don't feel that way at all.  :-/

Training is hard on the body!

Got a new helmet as one of my Mother's day gifts.  It's so LIGHT!  Specialized Prevail helmet.  Den tells me the world champion wears the same one.  LOL!

Den's view on the way down the Flagstaff Climb

Knee pain

Over the last few weeks, my knees have been bothering me on the rides.  Some people said it was too much riding, too soon.  Some people suggested my seat was too low. Some said it was my cleat position.  Some said it was that I pushed too hard of a gear and needed to do light, fast spinning instead.

I wasn't too worried about it because there were a lot of potential contributing factors and I was trying to work through them all.

Sadly, despite trying to pay attention to ALL of those things (cleats and seat fixed, took time off from riding, and really focused on lighter gears), after Sunday's ride, my right knee is in extreme pain.  It's different than anything I've felt before, it actually concerns me that I've done some damage to it.  I'm icing it, taking ibuprofen and resting it, but it feels just as bad as when I got off the bike on Sunday.  I'm thinking I'll need to get a scan of some sort, or an expert to take a look at it.  The chances of it correcting itself seem really low, and I run the risk of permanently damaging something if I continue to ride (may have already done damage....who knows?).

I'm super bummed.  I'm proud of the training I've done.  Sunday I did some really fast training with a group, followed by a solo jaunt over to the Boulder foothills again, and then climbed the Flagstaff hill up to the Amphitheater, and rode all the way back home.  All in all, I did just over 76 miles that day (122kms).  The climb up to the Amphitheater was brutal.  Not really any breaks, and a fairly steep pitch.  It had our heart rates screaming the entire time.  A little bit more about it here: http://303cycling.com/flagstaff-hill-climb-boulder-colorado

View after the climb

Success.....and a red face!!!

This week's plan is to rest the knee....and ice the knee......and try to figure out what is going on with the knee.  I can't even do alternative exercise at the moment-it's that messed up. :-(