Team McAlister

I wish I’d had my camera with me today. I rode SF2G’s Skyline route and it’s my new favorite ride. It was pretty brutal for a first-timer though, by the end of mile nine all I could think was “What have I gotten myself into?” Oh, and before I go on, I’d like to note that the link I posted is 100% accurate as far as I know. Cyclemeter performed admirably today.

Usually when I plan to ride I bring a change of clothes to work the day before, and leave my laptop there overnight. But I just decided yesterday afternoon to do this ride, so I had to bring everything with me on the bike today. It was a bad day to travel with an extra ten pounds. Very little of the route is flat, and I am not in climbing shape. At all.

The good thing about climbs is, they always pay off. I absolutely love a good descent. Nothing like grabbing the drops and getting some face time with the handlebars. Sawyer Camp Trail (approx. miles 15.6-21.8) is the perfect combination of twisty descents, awesomely fun sharp turns, and gorgeous scenery. It is COLD though. The kind of cold that numbs your face until you can’t make consonants. The kind of cold that forces you to ball up your fists to save your fingers. The kind of cold that turns your nose into a total snotfaucet. Worth it though. Imagine if the forest portion of the Arkansas River Trail were five miles long, mostly downhill, and next to much prettier water.

And now on to the griping portion of this post. I am having a knee problem. It feels like my right patella is seriously bruised. It’s not, obviously, or I would know why it hurts. It was fine for almost the whole ride, but about three miles from Google it started bothering me, and it’s gotten worse throughout the day to the point that when I got up for water a minute ago it was hard to straighten my leg. I can walk just fine, in fact I don’t even limp… but it feels like I kneed The Thing in the crotch.

I also need a new saddle. I thought I just needed to get used to the one I have, but it seems like it’s taking fewer and fewer miles each ride to develop some serious ABS (that’s Angry Balls Syndrome). I picked up a used Fizik Alliante for my CX bike (just completed, pics forthcoming!) so we’ll see how that works out. If it’s good I’ll have to find a white and black one to match my Orbea.

Tags: abs, cyclemeter, cycling, equipment, iphone, knee pain, sf2g, skyline

it’s a start of sorts.  Today, I jumped rope 6×100 on 30 seconds splits, then went out for a run/walk.  http://j.mp/cNzcCR So, that’s the run-only portion.  The walking added about another .75 miles for a total of about 1.6 miles.  Here’s the thing though: it was all PAIN FREE!  That’s right! For the FIRST time since early September, I’ve had a non-cycling workout without any knee pain.

After the run, the medial collateral ligament began to tighten and ache – as expected.  However, I’ve been sitting here with the massage ball working mainly on the vastus medialis muscle in the quadriceps and Mr. MCL is loosening up which makes the pain go away.  Further massage of the vastus lateralis, vastus intermedius, and the sartorius will complete the recovery.

This is really fine!  :-)

And, I used Cyclemeter on iPhone for the stats today.  Seems to have worked fine.

Tags: cyclemeter, cycling, knee pain, massage, Training

Getting old sucks!  And, having creaky, cranky joints sucks!  When you have both, it really sucks!  Back in September when I was in San Francisco hanging out with Colin and Schuyler, the medial collateral ligament (MCL) in my right knee started bugging me so badly that I could hardly walk.  I attributed this new-found pain to the also new running shoes and insoles that had been recently custom-fitted and carefully chosen to prevent injury.  Right….

The pain was nearly debilitating at times.  This “injury” had all the concomitant features – swelling, stiffness, loss of movement.  I could cycle about as much as I wanted without too many ill-effects, but running, swimming, walking were all crossed off my list of activities.  By December, when I couldn’t get over it, I plunged into despair and started considering giving up on the triathlon goal to settle for something more in line with what the elderly do, like a Scrabble tournament.

Sometimes though you just stumble into stuff.  Actually, if experience is any sort of guide, I usually just stumble into stuff.  First, I discovered that unclipping from my bike pedal in a certain way aggravated the problem.  Stopped doing that immediately.  Big help!  Second, I got an app for the iPhone called Muscle Trigger Points.  Massage therapists and physical therapists have taught me a thing or two about how body parts are connected and how a tight muscle here causes a pain over there.  A daily part of any and all of my not-really-routine exercise is to stretch and try to work on tight muscles.  That seems to be ultra-important as I age.

Anyway, about two weeks ago as I was going through my nightly stretching/massage program, I hit a spot in the Vastus Medialis (one of the muscles in the quadraceps group) that literally turned off the pain in the MCL.  It was like flipping a switch. No pain.  Zero.  I almost jumped up and took off running right then and there. Well, not really.

Next day – no pain.  So then, added some activities like jumping rope.  No pain – at least until I had jumped so much that lots of other stuff was hurting also.  Started the massage, hit the spot in Vastus Medialis and Bang!  no pain!  So that’s been going for several days now.

I’m now ready to begin the running conditioning process again.  Yay!  We’ll see if this MCL pain is something that can really be conquered.

More in due course….

Tags: iphone, knee pain, massage, MCL, running, triathlon