Steve's Racing? Training?

August 31

First Rehab session today. The therapist asked me if I knew how to make the tear drop muscle in my quads. She poo pooed my fitness and then did a strength test. I could tell she was surprised when I was able to keep her from moving my leg. (Not supposed to happen after surgery, but then she has never been around a BWR rider before.) I also found out I have been violating the recovery protocal. She is just going to have to get used to that. As the swelling drops and nerves begin to fire back up the pain levels are getting higher, but we will continue forward.

August 27


Surgery is over and I am floating in my recliner courtesy of some fine pain meds. Everything went well except they found a small tear in the meniscus, but even that was not too unexpected given the ACL rupture. The next 24 hours is about pain management and then it's back to work on fitness and rehabilitation. Thanks for all of the well wishes.


August 23

Made my day seeing the BWR guys returning from a ride! Still walking for fitness and waiting for surgery this Thursday.

August 15


More walking and icing. I have also added sit ups, push ups and other random exercises to the routine in the faint hope of maintaining some fitness. Keep blogging about your rides and training. It helps tremendously to know the BWR crew is still working even at a reduced post season rate.




August 13


After a two mile "walk" on the beach my reward was an icy cold beer and an ice pack on each knee. The pain stayed in the manageable range for most of the walk. It is a strange sensation not to be training. What an odd day it is that does not include a bike ride. Even more strange is looking around and not having any cycling gear lying about waiting. Two long weeks until surgery and the start of rehab. I can't wait to "git 'er done".


August 11


With a brace I am able to move around without crutches or cane. Not very fast, but ambulatory. My exercise routine is to walk on the beach. The sandy footing requires focus and works more muscle groups. At the end of the walk my reward is a nice ice pack on the knee. By the way it is as hot here as anywhere (101). My next goal is to have the confidence to go into the water.


August 8


If there is good news to be had it is that "only" my ACL is damaged. Dr. Brian McDermott good friend and great orthopedic surgeon was surprised to see that my 51 year old knee was in such good shape. Based on the left knee we were expecting to see arthritis and other random damage, but it was clean. So what does that mean? It means surgery in a couple of weeks and six months of rehab. I'm sure the rehab will include a number of miles on the bike! So all is as good as it can get.


August 7


First the important information. My daughter Colleen, the smallest girl on the field, won MVP at her lacrosse camp on Friday. GO COLLEEN! Norairs wake up in the morning and piss excellence! Of course I now have to use crutches to accomplish that. I blew out my "good" knee in the end of camp scrimmage. I will know more tomorrow, but I am pretty sure from earlier experience that this is a torn ACL with a hint of MCL thrown in for grins and giggles. Just call me Sysephus, get the rock near the top just to have to start all over again. Bill, this is going to be an interesting training plan!


August 4&6

I did virtually the same thing both days. After warming up I did ten minutes of tempo followed by random sprints and standing efforts on any type of hill. Part of this work was back up in Artillery Ridge on the hills. The point of this work was not to gain fitness (too late for that) but to get the legs used to standing and driving the bike forward as if in a crit. The legs felt good. Saturday is the 540 cycling event, just to get some racing under the belt prior to next week. Good luck to those going out to Page Valley.

August 2

Age Graded State TT. First let's put the credit where credit is due. That would be to friend teammate and coach, Bill. Without The Plan I would still be floundering for fitness. As Bill posted the wind was a real problem because it never seemed to pick a direction except to never be a tail wind. As a result I rode more of the course at a higher cadence than planned to cope with the ever changing conditions. It must have worked because my official time of 50:45 was a personal best and indeed made me the fastest 50-55 year old of the day and a State TT Champion. (Bernie Sanders was in the 55-60 group and again smoked the course in his usual 49:52.) I was the second fastest in the whole 50 age group by over two minutes, so, yes, today I am pleased. However, two of the fast guys were out with injuries and next year Roger "not my" Friend moves into the fifty plus group. Either it's time to retire or time to start training. Again to echo Bill's post, all of the BikeWorks Racing Time Trialers were impressive this year, Jordan and Bill are still the beasts, but they better keep working because the pack is on their heels. On to the Crits!