T-Pain? No, Knee Pain.

Training ride in Skillman leads to a pain no autotune can fix. The knife-in-knee feeling started to present itself the last few miles of climbing. Against my better judgement, I did a team ride with Cycles 54 the day after. The first 20 miles or so definitely had the Nancy Kerrigan kind of thing going on. But then all of a sudden it disappeared. I felt great and was able to ride without any discomfort. Monday? Felt great! No knee pain. Tuesday morning I awoke to that knife-in-knee feeling I talked about earlier. Joint was locked up and took about an hour to loosen it up enough to be able to stand up.

More pathetic than that? Today morning-ish at 3:30 AM the knee stabber struck again. But this time I had to get to the bathroom. It took about 30 minutes for me to be able to fall out of bed. I had to drag the bottom half of my body by grabbing onto the floor and pulling myself to the bathroom (think The Ring meets paraplegic puppy). It was sad, and slightly creepy if anybody watched somehow.

I will take a week or so off cycling to try to heal. This is an awful way to prepare for Battenkill (probably won't make it off the wait list anyway).

All your bases are belong to us

"UPDATE YOUR BLOG MOFO

YOUR READER IS RESTLESS"

Here's to you, reader.

While my last race was the infamous mechanical at Mercer Cup, my season went on till late December. Not competitively, but I kept my mileage up until the week after Christmas. I took a few weeks recovery period (plenty of cross training and core strengthening), and now am back to building that base for the coming road season.

I recently invested in The Cyclist's Training Bible (rave reviews on this piece of training lit), and have come up with a training plan for the year. Intend to peak once during the latter end of the road season and then once more during November in 'cross. Have found the book to be incredibly helpful and have taken a much more scientific approach to training. I'm excited for this year as I think I'll be able to embarrass myself a bit less.

That's pretty much it for cycling talk. I'm planning to do the Tour of Battenkill if I can manage to get off the wait list and into an actual category. I'll post about that some other time though. I spent the past weekend in Vermont and have some okay pictures. Lots of fun riding. Was excited for the chance to do glades.

Funny story about that... glades that is. My reader may remember the epic adventure of getting lost in the blizzard (MTB hazard life). While doing some back country riding, I veered a little too far from the beaten path. Dodging trees and breaking trail is fun and all until you fall in about 4' of snow. It was difficult to regain momentum (despite the incredible steepness of my chosen route). I ended up hiking about 30 minutes (15 minutes, then a required 5 minute breather, then another 15 minutes) to get to a rock that was ridden over that allowed me to strap in, regain my momentum, and continue down the mountain. I feared, just as in the MTB disaster, that I wouldn't be able to make it to safety before sunset. Luckily I found some space that allowed me to continue and the 30 minute hike wasn't extended to a day's journey to god knows where (maybe Canada? it was only a stones throw away).

Here are some pictures. I hope, reader, you are entertained.