the tao of cycling: ow

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

ow

yesterday's power camp class was a "time trial." what this means in the real cycling world is go fast and hard and try to win. what it means in power camp is high heart rate for extended time and plan on hurting.
we joke all the time in class about drafting each other, never being able to pull ahead of anyone, not getting there (wherever there might be) any faster than anyone else, and the headwinds/tailwinds provided by the fans in the room.
the only way to win a power camp time trial is to assign yourself a personal victory for spinning through it in whatever way you prescribed for yourself.
I just like to end without ever having experienced the I Am Going To Die sensation.

which is what I did, so I labeled myself victorious.
however, I did experience something else, which was the I Think I Hurt My Hamstring sensation.
this is new for me.
I've had knee issues throughout my cycling life ~ these issues come and go, and usually time, ice and bike adjustments end up solving the problems ~ I know knee pain. and I know cramps: I've not had many, but I've had a few over the years. but this muscle thing I experienced yesterday is new.
not good new, like yippee! I'm having a new experience! wow, this is cool!
new in the unknown sense, in the I never wanted to be here sense.

what happened is that about an hour into the class I suddenly felt a sharp, stabbing-type pain in the lower middle portion of my left hamstring. it moved along the muscle, in a way that made me think of a tear zipping through a piece of canvas. electric, painful, jolting me from my little zone and sending a loud message up to my brain and back down to my right leg: STOP !!

I don't need to go on and on; suffice to say I have a slight issue that I am working on.
a little ice, and a plan to apply heat on the way to class in the morning, plenty gentle stretching and some small amount of rest. I plan to be very careful, as the thought of really being injured is almost more than I can bear. I will be gentle, and give more work to my quads, and listen to my body. all the right things.

this morning's class was a combination of slow, heavy resistance work, and fast, light resistance spinning. what I learned is that my little injured hamstring doesn't like to spin around really quickly; funny, the rest of me (including the mental piece) doesn't like that part either!
perhaps I willed this upon myself . . .

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the Male Ego

The other day I was coming down a canyon in my drop bars (two years ago I would have said, 'what's a drop bar?'), working hard, when I came up on two guys who were also heading downhill but at a more leisurely pace. I passed them, said hello as I did so, and pulled back into the bike lane. a few minutes later they went flying past me, faces looking dead ahead, not a single bit of acknowledgment that I even existed on this planet let alone was involved in and enjoying the same sport they were.
I have to attribute this to the male ego. what else can it be? now I know we all have egos, myself included. and mine even shows its ridiculous little head once in a while, or perhaps more often. but the difference between mine and say, those of certain men on bicycles, is that I KNOW mine exists and I can LAUGH at mine. I know my ego was quite excited to pass those guys, and I could also smile because I knew if the men had really been working like I was, they would have kicked my butt down the hill.
I think I pissed them off.
and I'm sure I will be sharing with you much more of my thoughts about the male ego . . .

a little history

I was married, and I had a mountain bike which I rarely rode. we separated, I moved out, and four months later someone stole my bike. the next spring, 2005, I bought myself a new mountain bike. I rode occasionally, and in april 2006 I rode in my first century, the Cactus Hugger in St. George, Utah. I made it 54 miles on that mountain bike, and it took me about 6 hours. I think that included the rest stops where I prayed that someone would steal my bike again . . .
in june 2006 I started riding my mountain bike five mornings a week, a 45-55 minute loop that was intended to be all about exercise. and what I found was that I loved the quiet, peaceful morning full of bird chatter and barely breaking sunrises. by that fall I was hooked, and began considering the purchase of a road bike. I rode up emigration canyon for the first time that Labor Day of 2006, panting and plowing along on my trusty (heavy) bike, and a month later I was the proud owner of my own road bike: I had become a two-bike girl!
a 17-week-long "power camp" over the winter and a handful of new friends kept bicycling front and center in my life, and when spring of 2007 rolled around I was ready to hit the pavement. I rode my first century the end of april, when I again went to St. George and completed that Cactus Hugger. it took me about 7 hours, but this time I rode the entire 100 miles with about 9300 feet of vertical gain. woo hoo!
I started riding canyons around our area, emigration and millcreek, city creek, big cottonwood, little mountain and big mountain, and once--yes, only once--little cottonwood.
then in september of 2007, I rode from Logan, Utah, to Jackson, Wyoming, in the slightly infamous LOTOJA race. I rode, I did not race. and I completed the thing, crediting my good training buddies, the incredibly perfect weather, my support team, and an amazing convergence of all things positive in the universe.
I put in about 3500 miles last season, and as of today, july 19, 2008, I have about 1700 in, adding to it every day.
I have again signed on to ride the LOTOJA race, and my goal is to have just somewhere near as great a ride as I did last year. oh, and to have someone fun to talk with along the way as I got incredibly bored last year . . . star valley is still a nightmare scene in my biking memories . . .
and here is a picture of the machine that has helped me reclaim my life.