Bah, humbug. I am feeling unseasonably grouchy lately, even for me. Maybe its the fact that physical therapy is actually making more things HURT now... or maybe its the fact that since western cultures discovered the soy bean... they now insist on putting a product called "soybean oil" into >75% of all foods. Virtually non-existent in my youth, this additive now renders everything from breads, sauces, salad dressings, icecream... completely inedible to me. This week, I've had my last Cold Stone Creamery ice cream, and my last Mrs. Fields cookie... and am paying for such transgressions with a plethora of painful/uncomfortable physical reactions.
At any rate, for some reason I feel above averagely irate and critical and easily disgruntled... I realized that a lot of these things aren't a big deal/do not necessitate irritation... but, simply put, they offend my sensibilities. I don't really know how else to explain it, but do know I'm a LOT more likely to become incensed about them if there's some baseline thing that I'm already upset about. Here are some examples:
1) The final stage of the TdF... its like, yeah, fine, I get it... its a tradition, it should be respected, blahdy blahdy blahdy. Its just the concept of something being formally recognized as a "race" and where one isn't fully allowed to compete is just something that doesn't sit well with me, period.
2) In the Pasadena area "Bermuda Square" encompassing the Raymond-Glenarm-California-Fair Oaks geographical area, there are a few intersections where there exist long periods of time when ALL DIRECTIONS OF TRAFFIC including protected arrows ARE RED AT THE SAME TIME. WTF? We all have places to be people, seriously, such inefficiencies are totally not right.
Bah, humbug.
Sunday 07/15: 41.6 miles, 2:53, 14.3 mph average. Woo hoo! TWO real rides (as defined by > 2 hours and > 35 miles) on back to back days! Rode out to the base of the 2 again, and did 2 circuits of the Verdugo/Chevy Chase loops--one down Verdugo, up CC, then the second one down CC and up Verdugo. Decided that the former was preferable, both from a quality of climb/safety perspective.
Nearly flattened into a pancake on one turn down Chevy Chase... I'm really incompetent at turning, and veered wildly into the opposing lane of traffic, much to the dismay of some cars that were coming up that bend... Got in a good few miles of climbing, then did some other random circuits up any uphill side streets I could find. I think I'm ready for Clear Creek!
Monday 07/16: Went to last PT. Decided much better to follow Peter's plan on my own. Body, mainly knees a bit worse for the wear due to almost 80 miles in two days (vs. 130 miles per week lately)... so decided to take a rest day. A bit weary of the dangers of taking the rest day early in the week, but prefer to err on the side of getting in some more quality rides, than just piddling through 20-25 mile long rides every day.
Tuesday 07/17: 30 miles, 1:42:04, 17.6 mph average. Movin' on up. 7 laps of the RB, fastest since the break. Arrived at 7 pm thinking I'd cleverly dodged the RB ride, but managed to get flattened by the last lap 2 minutes later... GAH. Started off really trying to stick to a chill ride 140-150 bpm... but after a few laps, I realized that I didn't feel terrible for once, so it gradually became more uptempo. Felt pretty good about the pace, but wished for a lower HR towards the end.
Two notes on the day: Firstly, the last PT left me with a parting gift of sharp stabbing pain along the tibial side of my ankle, and a lot of soreness in the arch. Worse than ever, felt really irked about this. Wondered if I could even ride today, but thankfully it held up really well on the ride, like the gentle dorsal flexion helped stretch out and calm the pain a little bit. Lets hope for continued improvement...
Secondly, while everyone rants about how cars are obnoxious to cyclists... I have to say obnoxious people come in all forms. Some cyclists are assholes too. A bunch of them were warming down after the RB ride, in a pack, going like 10 mph... spread out pretty much across the ENTIRE width of the street. A car comes up behind them and patiently waits to pass, but this group of cyclists refuses to move over to the side of the street, even a LITTLE bit... making it really infeasible to get by. They kept looking back too, so it wasn't as if they didn't KNOW that the car was there! I really dislike people who are inconsiderate, be they motorists, cyclists or runners. Period. Totally uncool.
So now, the car is stuck behind this pack, and I am stuck behind this car, and this is on the downhill portion, so like a whole stretch at 10 mph is *seriously* going to kill my lap time. Desperate measures were in order. I shifted up, and cranked on past the car, past the pack and back across both lanes of traffic, just hoping that a car wasn't coming the OTHER direction to run me entirely off of the road.
Wednesday 07/18: 29.5 miles, 1:51 ride time, 15.8 mph average. Moderately unsatisfying, out of sorts sort of ride. Didn't have enough time to do anything fun, so left the house in a hurry with no plan in mind. Rode a slovenly pace to the RB, figuring I was due for a real easy day. Didn't feel great, but in the end, couldn't control my emotions... got into this cold war armament race with a fat guy, and ended up cranking out my first lap wayyy faster than I would have liked. Rode up to the base of the 2 just to avoid other cyclists, then back for a couple of laps.
Did a bunch of stupid stuff cuz I was angry and frustrated, like running red lights and staying out long past dark. At week 3, I totally feel like I've made minimal progress... or at least, unsatisfactory progress. I'm in a weird transitional phase where the emotions of the wounded and the hunted mix with the return of my predatory instincts. There are some days now where I don't feel like utter crap, and when those days happen, I feel the call of the wild, the urge to hunt and attack, to get up out of the saddle and hammer as hard as I can. But I'm still cognisant of my diminished abilities, and self conscious about the weakened state, and it all makes me defensive and bristle easily. Not good. Meanwhile ankle still feels pretty bad. Better than yesterday, but that's not saying much. Sucky week continues...
Thursday 07/19: 31 miles, 1:58:30, 15.6 mph average. Highly satisfactory ride. This is what I should have done yesterday... a good, orderly, easy ride. To the park by the River Trails and back, kept HR mostly in the 130's and 140's, felt really good about having the discipline to keep it nice and easy. Avg speed wasn't even as horrendous as I had expected, or really if you put it in perspective of having only gone 0.2 mph faster yesterday feeling pretty shitty, this is good! Ankle also feels loads better. Hoping everything will stabilize soon.
Friday 07/20: Woohoo! The world is almost normal again, cuz I can ride the Angeles Crest! 36.4 miles, 2:42:49, 13.4 mph average, up to Clear Creek. Pathetically slow, but managed it with minimal huffing. Was more than a little bit concerned that I wouldn't make it to the top, so I allotted 3 hours for the undertaking, and started off at a slovenly pace. First steeper mile was a bit tough, and then for some reason huffing and puffing set in with like 800m to go at the very top, but otherwise, it wasn't so bad. HR ridiculously high... like 170. Normally I can climb the 2 at like 150, but hey, you gotta start somewhere.
Hmmmm... in other news, I am already at ~11 hours of riding and 168.5 miles, up from 9 hours and 135 miles last week... does this necessitate an off day tomorrow?
Saturday 07/21: Woke up in the morning with a familiar dull ache in my forefoot. Upon further inspection, it was not coming from my second metatarsal, but perhaps more alarmingly, from my first metatarsal. Trying to stem a swelling tide of panic and horror, I immediately iced it and took a bunch of drugs and enzymes...
Coincidentally ran into a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows while on errand to the grocery store, and that sealed the deal on not riding today. Managed to pry myself away from the book to tinker with my bike, shoes and cleats though for a while, trying to puzzle out the source of the new toe pain. Eventually ended up realizing that somehow, user error had caused my left cleat fo slide way out of alignment on the right side and down to the middle of the shoe, which may have put unusual pressures on my already not 100% left foot during my climb. ARGHHHHHH.
Ended up changing the angle of my seat, realigning all 4 of my cleats (on two pairs of shoes) before pedaling up and down my very short street, trying to find the optimal settings, then struck by a pang of desire to go riding... but abandoned the prospect as it was already nearing dusk.... *sigh*.
10 comments:
So I take it from the Tour de France comment that you'd also be upset at the pee breaks they sometimes take... I mean, if your opponents got to pee, why not take advantage of that instead?!?!?
you know, a lot of things about bike racing don't entirely compute with me... but i'm open to things within the limits of reason. like sure, fine, everyone has to pee, so there has to be something to manage how to deal with this situation... if your bike breaks, thats not your fault, so there's got to be something to manage that situation... but just like saying flat out that you're obliged to ride 100 miles without making any competitive efforts is crossing the line.
i mean, if you have to pee in the middle of a marathon, its not as if the pack will wait for you to emerge from the porta potty to begin racing again... like sometimes its just too bad.
Oh. I'm surprised you agree. I thought you would think everyone had to be as hardcore as Christophe Eugene. This guy was freaking hardcore:
Then a careless driver clipped him with a race vehicle, throwing Christophe across the road. He was unhurt, but his front fork had been snapped in two. As Christophe stood over his ruined machine, Thys sped away alone towards the stage win and overall victory.
Another man would have given up there and then. Not Christophe. He wept, but as he did so he picked up the pieces and set off on foot. Eight-and-a-half miles away, at Sainte-Marie-de-Campan, he found a forge. The race rules forbade outside assistance, but Christophe was a skilled mechanic and forged a new fork from 22mm steel. As Christophe gripped the frame in one hand and a hammer in the other, he allowed a seven-year-old boy to work the bellows that supplied air to the fire. For this assistance, the race marshal who policed the operation imposed a 10-minute time penalty. Then Christophe filled his pockets with bread and set off over two more mountains for the stage finish. He arrived three hours and 50 minutes after Thys. Remarkably little, all things considered, but the Tour had gone.
That's so badass, I'm not sure I even believe it.
I have started to notice obnoxious cyclists down here, too. The other day I was tooling home from work, clearly a Fred with my work bag and such. In other words, it's clear for the world to see I'm just biking home and not out on a deathride. I'm going along in the bike lane next to some pretty serious car traffic when this dickwad in a full matching team kit passes me on my left with literally like an inch to spare, and proceeds to sprint up the hill. He didn't even say anything like "excuse me" or "beep beep" or grunt or ANYTHING, he just sneaked by scaring the shit out of me because there were cars and bad pavement/gravel everywhere AND we were on a bridge. WTF, mate?
GRRRRRR, argh, yeah people like that suck. esp. cuz things can get dangerous with bikes and cars and the like.
also, if you're biking to work, you can't be a fred, unless you're wearing a matching team kit and riding a $5,000 bike while doing so.
also, i'm not sure how i feel about randoms wearing pro kits... its like if you have NO affiliation to the team, and no understanding of how much work goes into being an elite athlete, its kinda like... ehhh, really?
also, Kangway, yes in an ideal world it would be preferable if all athletic contests were conducted without compromising the nature of competition... but the thing with cycling is that the nature of it is that there are so many weird things that can happen that aren't really your fault, so it necessitates some reasonable compromise. but that's exactly what makes me feel a bit sketchy about the sport on the whole. i'm an old school purist--running is like the purest form of competition. i like that you don't need anything other than yourself. some people apparently don't even need shoes... or... clothes...
Just be patient, running will come back more easily than you expect. And once you are running again, you won't have to worry about those mofos who can buy their way to hotness. Besides, the Tour has rich people everywhere picking up their $7,000 colnagos they haven't touched since the last tour and going out, sprinting for 10 miles, and calling it a day. Those guys couldn't run 3 miles for shit either. Watch, in 2 or 3 weeks, you'll start running, and you'll start getting better and better, and you won't have to worry about any of those mofos anymore.
"Ankle also feels loads better."
ARE YOU ALSO GETTING READY FOR THE RELEASE OF HARRY POTTER 7 BY PRACTICING YOUR BRITISH TERMS? IT COMES OUT AT MIDNIGHT! GET READY!
garrett, thanks for the encouragement. despite what sladek says, i think i am a stronger runner than a cyclist... but i'm still pretty far out from being able to run again :(.
kangway, i went by the borders at midnight, there were all sorts of nutjobs that had been waiting for like days. crazy. the best costume was "Dobby" a girl who had stuck, or stapled as many socks to her body as possible.
If you feel tired, take a day off. Sometimes you just need to sleep in, or even just not even worry about it, which is pretty big. But if you feel pumped, go for it.
That's also really cool that you can ride the 2 again. Being in the mountains on the bike is soooo much better than flat land. No stop signs, intersections, just you and the road,...and what pretty much seems like a non stop train of full size Chevy pickup trucks flooring their 6 Liter V-8s as they hurtle up the pass. The mountains are also mandatory work. You can be a big sprinter and stay in the draft and never have to work hard and still win a bike race. In the mountains it becomes a running-like all out test of endurance.
Plus, the mountains are sooo much more aesthetically pleasing than like, Azusa. Its a several hour escape from the real world. Oh man some of the passes in the Alps on the Tour look so cool, especially those with snow. I really really want to ride up to the top of the 39 during the winter when snow is on the ground. You can actually see in google Earth that there is snow up there. Idk i think its really cool.
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