Road Cycling

Yep - everyone who knows me probably wondered when I would get around to this topic. Well, maybe not, I'm a bit obsessive which tends to drive my friends crazy. But this was a passion of mine for what amounted to a "blink of the eye".

How do I tell this story quickly? Well have to think on that. Until I figure that out, here is the long winded version. HA HA, this is my blog, after all.

I bought a mountain bike in 2006 to ride in the park with Devin after he learned to ride without training wheels (that is an interesting look into Devin's mind and will have to write about that later). Anyway, back to the story - we rode through the park all June and I was having so much fun. I felt like a kid again. I decided to start riding out on the road for fitness - to replace running which I stopped due to back pain issues. Let me tell you, slogging a 34 lb mountain bike up slight hills is no easy task. But I loved it so kept at it. I started buying gear like gloves and computers etc because I really started getting into it. I would take the bike to the local rail trail and push myself to see how far and how fast I could go. I was ripping up that trail averaging speeds well over 15 mph - on a heavy mountain bike on crushed gravel.

I started thinking maybe I should buy a road bike; I used to ride my old 12-speed Schwinn for fitness many many years ago so why not give it a try again. I rented a Giant road bike while at the shore and fell in love with the speed and agility of the bike so came home and bought one.

I joined the local bike club after getting my feet wet on the road to make sure I could keep up with everyone. They told me to try a "D" pace ride first -that's for beginners. So that is what I did - I had to slow down to stay with the group so I wouldn't get lost. When the ride was done, the leader told me to try the "C" pace rides cuz I was too fast.

Next time out, I joined the "C" ride. The leader of that group told me to try some "B" rides cuz they would be more challenging for me. I started wondering, maybe I should train for some road races. I started riding in June and by September, I was averaging speeds of 16 mph on long rides that included hills. In November, I found a coach and by January, I was on a training program to begin racing in the Spring.

The workouts were tough! Like nothing I have ever done. I've never pushed myself so hard and felt so good about it. Ray, my coach, had me doing one leg spins, sprint intervals, power drills, mileage work. I was averaging around 150 miles per week trying to improve my leg strength and endurance. And the most amazing part of it all was my sprint speeds - I could hit 36 mph. And that wasn't even full out!

I loved it! I was ready to quit agility to focus on cycling full time. I did my first race in April of 2007. It was tough but I got through the race - I didn't finish last but I had a lot more work to do. I continued to push myself and entered another race, again - I didn't finish last but still had trouble keeping up with the group for the 45 minute race. Mostly, it was an endurance issue. I needed to be able to sustain the higher speeds for longer periods of time.

About the time I started to feel like I was breaking through the endurance piece, I started having pain in my right knee. It felt like someone took a knife and was stabbing me in my leg. It got to the point that I couldn't turn the pedals and had to call Greg to come get me. After doing some research on leg pain, I discovered I was having problems with my IT Band.

Off to therapy I went. They were convinced that running my dogs in agility was the cause of my IT Band problems. These issues are usually associated with running, not cycling. They told me to quit running while we worked out my problems. Cycling was included as part of the therapy - slow easy work indoors. After 3 months, I wasn't getting better so I stopped cycling too. I quit running and cycling in an effort to ease the pain. After a month off from both sports, I started to improve. I added a little jogging in (approved by my therapist) and I didn't have any pain. So we kept up that regiment for a bit. We tried to add cycling back in, the pain returned.

The end of the story goes like this - I have a structural problem in my right hip that causes my knee to rotate inward when I pedal. Therefore, I can no longer cycle without pain. I've tried so many options to fix it - bike fit, new pedals, new pedal extenders. The bottom line is that cycling hurts too much. After being off from agility for 6 months due to this problem, I made the decision to park the bikes (I was up to 3 bikes by this point) and focus on my dogs.

It was a very tough decision. My passion was no longer agility, I had moved on to cycling. But my body told me that it was the wrong decision. SIGH - but I had one great year on the bike and it taught me a ton about myself - how to persevere in spite of great odds. There is no feeling that can compare to making it to the top of the hill when your legs are burning, your lungs are hurting and you just want to stop. But you don't, you keep going, inch by inch until you reach the top and you celebrate and then you ride like the wind down the other side!