Rolling With The Punches

I love to suffer on the bike.  You know, that kind of eye-ball popping, lung-busting, leg-burning pain as you push yourself to the limits.  This type of pain is an endorphin-releasing monster that I welcome with open arms.  It is one of the many reasons why we endurance junkies race.

However, in the last few months, that "fun" kind of suffering has been replaced with a burning, stabbing, and sometimes even an electrical searing pain.  With each step or pedal stroke, I am constantly reminded that my neurological system is full functioning, albeit in a negative way.  If I am lucky enough, the pain is eventually replaced by numbness.

The pain is most definitely worse off the bike.  It hurts to stand, period, and walking barefoot is almost impossible on hard surfaces.  The only respite is when I sit, swim, or sleep.  Weightlessness is my friend, gravity my foe.

On January 15, 2012 when I registered for the New Hampshire 100, I was super excited to be headed to a new race.  LW had my plan dialed for me to peak for this one.  I was salivating at the thought of a 100 mile sufferfest and competing against some of the best endurance ladies in the US.

Fast forward to today.  I am headed to New Hampshire to race, but LW and I have re-set my goals.  As she so eloquently put it, "Setbacks that occur as your race career progresses are called insults.  Always frustrating and demoralizing.  When you have a series of setbacks holding you back from where you know you can be, the best course of action is to place a higher focus on the joy of riding/racing and less on the suffer part."

I have always placed the fun factor of racing first, closely followed by safety and seeking that top podium spot.  So I have decided to race the 100K.  At this distance I feel I can still have the "euphoric" level of suffering, yet not be hindered/frustrated/demoralized by the pain.  And at this distance, I will be able to enjoy 2 days of riding the Kingdom Trails afterwards.

In the meantime, I am following my doc's recommendation of using a trans dermal cream to help placate the nerves in my feet.  Two days ago I visited Choice Orthotics to get fitted for a pair of custom insoles.  Richie told me that my arch is super high and my metatarsal fat pad is non existent.  The insoles will help displace my weight more evenly along the entire foot.  I will get a properly placed metatarsal button and there will be a gel pad to help cushion the metatarsal heads.

They can also fit Ossur Cheetah carbon fiber foot prosthetics.

Right now the forecast looks pretty good for the race.  The 6:45am start will be a little nippy in the low 50's.  Zeke will be racing his Niner A9C single speed and I will be on my Niner Jet 9 RDO.  The legs are tuned and the GI is happy so hoping the rest of the body follows suit.

At least there is no target on my back!

I Can Ride Better Than I Can Walk

It is now 9 days post-op and I went out for my second road ride since surgery.  Kitting up took a bit longer as I gingerly put my left foot into my cycling shoe and adjusted the straps so that there was no tension across the top of my foot.  I hobbled over to my bike, pushed it out the garage door, and stepped aboard.  The most painful part was clipping in as it takes quite some pressure to engage the pedal.

But once in, a transformation happened.  No longer was I a cripple; the bike freed me from the pain of walking.  Pedaling was effortless and pain free; I only felt pressure at the surgery site during the down stroke.  My trusty steed carried me away from the doldrums of the past week and allowed me 100 minutes of pure bliss!

Upon returning from the ride, I unclipped and hobbled up the stairs to stretch and take a shower; oh well, it was fantastic while it lasted.  And it should only get better from here.

6 Days Post Op

My podiatrist said that the neuroma was 1.6 cm long and 0.4 cm wide.  Pretty average for a Morton's neuroma, he commented, but that the widest part of the "little bastard" was right where my 3rd and 4th metatarsal heads touched.  From his description, I imagine it probable looked like a Mezcal worm, you know, that icky little creature in the bottom of certain bottles of Tequila.

My "little bastard."

The hardest part of the healing process is not going hard on the bike.  I have energy to burn and want to stand and hammer.  But I am following doctor's orders ... there will be plenty of single speed sessions soon enough.  As luck would have it, I sustained a mild right hamstring injury at the Berryman Epic.  This has helped to keep a governor on my engine.

At this point, I am not sure if I will have surgery on my right foot.  I will just see how the left goes, get a lot of training under my belt for next year, do a few races, and then make a decision.

Frustrated

The SERC XC series is at the Whitewater Center this weekend ... my home stomping grounds.  But I won't be racing.  I am currently nursing an IT band injury that I caused, not by overuse, not by lack of stretching, but by my own stupidity and carelessness.  You see, this happened 2 1/2 years ago.  The cause:  worn out cleats.  Back then, I changed my cleats upon my Coach's advice and voila!  The IT band issue went away in 3 days.  The worn out cleats caused a considerable amount of play in the pedal/shoe interface and this placed a large amount of stress upon my knees and surrounding tissues.

I am invoking this day as National Check Your Cleats Day!

Fast forward to my PMBAR recon on April 22-23.  Wearing the same shoes as two years ago and more than likely having not changed the cleats since then (I have no records to prove otherwise), after 6 hours in the saddle, my IT bands flared up.  I rode through it the next day, raced SS on May 1, and the following week felt not pain, but a considerable amount of tightness along the outside of my knee close to where the kneecap tracks in the femoral groove.  Not being painful, more like a "pebble under your foot" kind of nuisance, I raced PMBAR on May 7.  I was surprised that after 68 miles and 10,000+ feet of climbing, my knees felt no worse, but no better.

After talking to Coach, we agreed that I needed to look at the bigger picture (Lumberjack 100 and TNGA) and ditch the SERC at Tanasi.  I think I shed a tear, or two.  I needed to remind myself that I was not doing this race for me, but for us (Carly and I).  The goal of this series was to have fun, not to chase a championship.  So I will be fully supporting Carly's efforts tomorrow morning, bright and early at 8:30am.

A couple more things I have learned from this misadventure.  The two times I have had this IT band issue, I was also riding my '08 S-Works FS Stumpjumper.  And I have never been "fitted" on this bike; I have just transferred measurements.  So, I think it wise that I hook up with 55nine Performance and get Wobble-naught fitted to "Stumpy."  Afterall, this is the bike I am racing on for TNGA.

Secondly, I have been using the Shimano XTR 970 pedals on Stumpy and the 980's on my Era.  There is quite a noticeable difference in float between the two, the 980's having less.  As my knees don't like lateral movement, I will be upgrading Stumpy's pedals to the 980's as well as my single speed.

Shimano 970

The 980's also have more shoe to pedal contact which provides more stablity.

Shimano 980

Thirdly, I have now made a "cleat changing" chart, so that I will know when I need to put new ones on.

And finally, I have learned a lot of new stretches from my physical therapist.  I thought I had a good stretching program, but Celeste has showed me how to stretch in a lateral plane as opposed to the front/back type of stretches that I had been doing.  She calls it her 3D stretching program.

If any of you have any more suggestions for IT Band treatment, I am all ears.

So I will be on the sidelines this weekend.  A few days ago, when I was wallowing in my own misery, I actually thought of eating a whole loaf of French bread.  At least if I was "glutened," I would not feel like riding.  That is the hard part.  I really wanna RACE!  If all goes well, I will be on the Start line at Dauset!

Body Upgrade, Surgical Style!

As athletes, we tend to be very in tune with our bodies.  If I only learned one thing from this experience, it would be, "Listen to your body when it is trying to tell you something, damnit!"

It all began back in August.  My signs were all very non-specific:  fatigue, mild power loss, bloating, and mild abdominal discomfort.  I thought the tiredness was due to an unbelievable brutal TransRockies and the GI issues due to the Paleo diet.  Coach backed my training off and my doctor could not find anything wrong on physical exam and routine bloodwork.

Although I was well rested for SM100, my body just didn't feel good that day and the legs weren't zippy.  Even Danielle made the comment that my pace was a bit slow.

Fast forward to October and the Pisgah Stage Race.  Once again, I was well rested.  So well rested I was almost fearful of losing some fitness.  Days 1 and 2 were good.  However, my body just died on Days 3 and 4.  Both Coach and I were like, "WTF?!?"

Soon afterwards, my symptoms increased in intensity, I began having some bowel irregularity, and I gained about 5 pounds.  I began to resemble Buddha.  I began thinking about everything from pregnancy to ovarian cancer.  So I went back to the doctor for more tests.

Bloodwork nothing, ultrasound nothing.  Mind you, docs like to do one test at a time so this was agonizingly slow and my patience was wearing thin.  Also, my primary doctor (I feel) didn't seem too concerned about finding an answer quickly.  Finally, the CT scan showed mild sludging in the gall bladder. 

So the week before Christmas, I had a hida scan, which assesses gall bladder function.  Then I had to agonizingly wait through the holiday.  Well, yesterday I received the news.  Normal gallbladder ejection fraction = 80%.  Mine = 16%.  No gray zone there!

After 6 weeks worth of testing and waiting, I have an answer.  I almost wished I would have had the classical signs of gallbladder disease:  nausea, vomiting, and sharp pain.  I would have had a diagnosis much sooner.

Thinking positive about my situation, the good that has come from this is that I have lost the weight I gained initially and then some more.  Since the symptoms have intensified, I have not been able to eat much, and have been in a calorie deficit for 6 weeks.  I am now lighter than I have ever been.  I have also been doing more strength training than base training and I feel that I have maintained my strength.  But I will definitely have to work on my endurance after surgery.

Surgery is scheduled for next week.  I almost thought about asking my surgeon if he could remove a few unnecessary organs while he is in there; say, one ovary, uterus, and maybe one kidney.  You know, lighten the chassis even further.  As I know just about everyone at the Surgery Center, I will be in good hands.  My anesthesiologist is a roadie.  He told me last night that it will be a joy to work on me as a lot of his patients are >275 pounds and have cardiac/respiratory disease.

Doc says I will be off the bike for 3 weeks.  Translation:  3-4 days.  Any longer than that and he might have to prescribe Prozac!

I hate that I am going to miss the first two Snakes.   But I will just be glad to have a happy and healthy body again.

So, if you feel something is just not right with your body (no matter now small it may seem to be), be proactive and firm with your doctor about finding an answer. 

Luckily for me, I have several mountain bike friends that are also doctors so I was able to consult with them.  At one point, I actually had to tell my primary doctor that I wanted an abdominal CT scan and NOT an endoscopy/colonoscopy.  Thank God he listened to me or to this day, I might not have had an answer.

Time to get off the computer and get to training while I still can ...