Sidlined for now

It's been a challenging time lately. Two weeks ago the MRI revealed that I have a partial tear in one of my tendons on my left knee(Partial tear of the deep fibers of the distal quadriceps tendon a the patellar insertion). Expected healing time: 6 weeks. In my exploration of options I discovered a relatively new medical procedure called 'Injectable Platelets & Growth Factors' which I underwent today. The process which comes out of Standford and has been used with a couple of Sea hawks players this year goes as follows: A small amount of blood is drawn. The blood is then placed in a centrifuge and spun to separate the platelets and growth factors from other blood component. The now 5 times concentrated growth factors are then injected into the injured area. The idea is to increase healing time by having a large concentration of growth factors in the injured area.

So far so good. The knee of course now hurts significantly more than before due to the injection. That is expected to get better over the new few days.

To add to it all: I overcompensated with my right leg and strained an abductor....so for now I am totally off the bike (and off the gym floor).

Over the last week I spent a lot of time thinking about my options and what decisions I need to make when. I want to handle my injuries both smartly and tenaciously. Smartly, in that I will not start RAAM injured. Nor will I start it without the proper training (i.e. not with significantly less than 5,000 miles since the beginning of the year). Tenaciously, in that I will move everything in my power to get this injury under control and still train properly for RAAM.

I will lay low and do virtually nothing for the next seven to ten days to give my body time to heal. I will then take it day by day.

At a high level, I have set two deadlines for making the go/no go decision. The first one is a soft one the second a hard go/no go decision.

The first one is a crew practice ride on April 10th. I want to be able to do this but will be OK with a bit of issues and pain. I however, will keep the option of starting RAAM open, even if I have to cancel the ride(although that would admittingly be difficult mentally). Second (and hard) deadline is the week of April 20th to 26th. I will need to be able to put in a huge week (800+ miles or so) with very little issues. If I won't be able to do that then I will pull the plug and not start RAAM.

It's all part of the journey. As everyone who is involved with RAAM knows: simply getting to the starting line is an accomplishment. Send me good karma :-)

nursing the knee

A two hours indoor spin today at the gym seems to have actually helped. I am feeling a bit better, even can walk with a minimal limp. The non-stop icing is maybe helping too. Lots of funny looks in the office as I am sitting there with my pants rolled up icing my knees. But hi: small price to pay for getting better.

x ray showed a small bone spur. Sucked it up today and went in for an MRI to check out the soft tissue. Will know more on Friday morning. For now: Stretching, self massage, some RAAM logistics and then shut eye. Just put Liam down, Catherine is negotiating the good night routine with Luc as I write this.

that knee again

can't believe it. Re-injured my knee today on.....the playground..

I was out with my two boys this morning and in attempt to rescue Luc from falling off the 'big-boy' swing (while holding Liam) I hurt it again. We don't seem to have much luck in the family this weekend. Catherine's back is worse again today. Sooo, let's go nice and easy for the next week or so. I tried riding indoors this afternoon and ended up with 5 hrs. The knee actually got slightly better during the ride. Standing hurts every time though..

So, this week is taking it easy on that leg so that I am ready for long days on Friday and Saturday.

All out efforst hurt. Even if they are only 20 sec long...

Another intense week at work but I made time for short intense training blocks. 1 hr of core on Monday, 2 hrs below threshold intensity Tuesday, single leg drills yesterday and the toughest of them all on Wednesday: 20 sec all out, 40 sec recovery. Do this for 5 min then recover for 5 min, 20 sec all out, 40 sec recovery for 5 min, 5 min recovery until the hour is up...Hardest training session so far this year. I have done so much base work that the high end intensity REAALlY hurt...

Hoping for no snow this Sunday for the start of the SIR brevet series: 100 km. I will extend it to a 6 hr ride. Should be goooood.

Not such a great ride..

This Saturday showed me again what I knew all along: Balancing my job, family and training is a real balancing act. Things don't always turn out the way they should. After a great 'stacking week' the week before I had to work late every single night last week. Not always being great at just switching off, I would often not fall asleep until way after midnight. Apparently our one year old Liam does not really care and 530 am is his normal getting up time no matter when his dad goes to bed :-) Result: totally overtired into the weekend. A relatively short ride (for a weekend) was on the program: 6 hours. I felt decent for the first 2 hours but then the lights went out. An 'deep in your bones' tiredness overcame me and I decided to cut the ride short to four hours and have a two hours nap. Fell into bed and did not wake up until dinner time.

Being a very structured (and I like to think organized ) person, this would have gotten into my head even a few years ago: I don't like not finishing what I have set out to do. I have learned though to listen to my body: I now am much better at distinguishing between the true need to rest and simply being a bit lazy. Yesterday was certainly the former..

A new week and my resolution is: NO LATE nights for work this week. Training will be relatively easy with about 12-14 hrs. Saturday is the SIR 100 km brever which I will extend to a century.

I am looking forward to our crew meeting this Tuesday. The RAAM crew of seven is coming together nicely. I will write more about these truly great people shortly here. Signing off for some shut eye now...