Bread!

Coming Back to Life

Legs feel remarkably good right now. The nice thing about coming back after a long layofff; progress happens fast! Every day the legs feel a little stronger. Almost bombproof. Tonights' ride challanges me. Two 20min threshold intervals, 30min at endurance pace with 10sec acceleration spinup at top of each minute, and for good measure three 5min max effort intervals. Topping it off, doing it in the rain.

Rain rides are always just a bit more satisfying. Perhaps because you start out with a valid excuse for not doing them, but do them anyway. Or maybe because you don't see anyone else out riding except for the occasional other crazy person.

Tonight's meal didn't go as planned. My plan was to grill some fish and shrimp. Shoulda checked the forecast, because it was raining. So, pan grilling the salmon and boiling the shrimp was plan B.

A tasty meal, served with sourdough bread and spinach. It was a bit intricate for this night. Prep too a long time and leaves me feeling a bit time crunched. Sleep calls!

Is March Too Late For...

...new year resolutions? Yeah it's March. But my training year is just beginning. Spent some time thinking of two things on a long drive. The second being... 2010 has the potential to be a transformational year.

What will it take to make a special year? What exactly and specifically should my goals be? What is attainable? These were questions that meandered through my mind as the Texas countryside flew by. The answers fell into place. Not in ephionic moments. Peice-by-peice, softly, gently a few ideas fell into place.

I thought about interim goals. Some of my goals are lofty. Having good short-term goals help. As the "big" goal will be reached by doing the "small" goals along the way. I've never broken down my goals before. I've been scared of having lofty goals. Because, big goals always seemed so far away or too unattainable. Broken into small peices it all seems much more... possible. Milestones help.

Open questions remain. Obviously... can I do it? Will I do it? Will I stay healthy? Will I get injured? Will I have the support of friends, fools and family?

What exactly are my goals? You'll have to ask me in person. I'll tell you if I like you. ;-) I'm not adding to the staring line smack talk and pack chatter for my races ;-). But as the season progresses... stand or fall... I'll chronical it all here.

Training Capsule

Base training isn't exactly exciting. It's boring. Reading about it is moreso! All that's going on right now... trying to put some miles back into the legs. I throw in some sprints here-and-there but none of them are planned. Just to keep the boredom away. *yawn* See told ya it's boring!

The elbow survived the week well! I think riding has helped. No soreness like last week. My ROM has improved more this week. Maybe it the constant vibration? I donno. One of my splints is a spring loaded affair that straightens out my arm. This week, several times I took it off, and compared to my left arm, matched the extension exactly! After an hour or so it's not as good. But with more use, and time with the splint it should get there. Looks like I'm going to get 100% of my original motion range back. Which is NOT common for this fracture.

Still have a way to go on strengthening. That's the limiter right now keeping me off the dirt. Not far away.

I have a bad habit of locking my elbows when I ride. Errr. had. One of the benefits I noticed this week... I can't lock out my right elbow! Atleast... not yet. HA!

MR2 Radio Deck and Speakers

The MR2 was built in 1986. Still has it's "vintage" radio.

Yes, that's a cassette. The last peice of equipment that I own that can play them. As you can see the display is weeping. The lights don't work. And no iPod interface. Time to replace it.

Luckily wiring isn't as difficult as it used to be. Now you get harnesses with plugs, as opposed to having to strip into the existing wiring loom like the "good ol'days".

Speakers aren't sounding too good these days either. Here's what comes out.

Twenty four year old paper, dual-cone speakers. Use your imagination. The replacement...

Cheep 4" two-ways. These aren't very good speakers. But it really doesn't matter. They are 4" speakers! They'll never sound very good without a sub. And there's no room for that in the tight cabin. These speakers fit. Barely, I mean JUST barely.

The replacement head unit...

The green matches the stock illumination perfectly. It's serviceable. An improvement for sure. With only 4" mains and the tweeters firing directly at the huge flat windshield.... the sound is quite tinny. Meh. It'll do.

A Full Week?

Question of the day. Will my elbow stand up to a full week? Probably. Yesterday's rest day was needed. No splint, no riding, and I tried not to do too much with 'bow.

Today's ride was just over 90min. No elbow pain for the ride. No pain after the ride. No pain after the crosstraining. No pain after my rehab exercises. All is go as of tonight.

Back to wearing my night splint overnight tonight, and my dynamic splint tomorrow. Barring any surprises... I'm back to a full training schedule!! It's atleast worth a try, right?!

Elbow Update

Several have asked about my elbow. I didn't mention it in this weekend's entries. I'm wearing an elbow pad. Not so much to prevent another break, but the plate pokes through the skin pretty good. You can see it when I bend my elbow. My fear is falling and scraping it. Seems the sharp edge would just grate right thorough the skin. Something I need to ask Doc about on Friday.

No pain on Saturday. At all. I forgot my elbow pad. It was sunny. And I got a touch of sunburn on my arms, but burned pretty bad on the splotches where I had road rash. New skin burns easily.

On Sunday, there was a bit of dull pain while riding. Feeling like joint pain, more than tendonitis. I've been doing well with my strengthening, but the joint has not experienced any shock loading. By Sunday night... the 'bow was quite sore and stiff. My ROM was way down. I didn't wear my splints, to give a rest.

It's better today. Today's a rest day, so this fits in well. I hope to pickup a full-time training schedule this week. But given that 4-1/2 hours of riding left me this sore, I may limit my action. I'm monitoring carefully how it bounces back from this weekend.

Sunday's Ride

Today's plan similar to yesterday's. Easy pace 2h30min. Jumping on the MKT trail. This is a rail-to-trail line. It opened a few months ago, my first time.

Lots of folks out today. The trail is OK for rec riding. No good for training. Too many cross streets. Hard to imagine this being an active rail line through the middle of the neighborhood. This is just before the White Oak Trestle...

The trail then runs next to the Sawyer Heights Target, and continues eastward...

I thought the trail went all the way to downtown. It doesn't so I double back, head down Sawyer Street to Memorial Dr, then pickup the Buffalo Bayou trail there, at the Mazola Disc Golf Course...

This trail does go into downtown. I ride the west side of Buffalo Bayou all the way to University of Houstond Downtown, then double back.

Then double back and cross they bayou into the CBD...

This puts me right into the center of downtown.

Nice contrast between greenspace and metroscape today! I zip across downtown, and take a second to watch the boats at Discovery Green...

A pass by Enro*cough*Minute Maid Park...

I cross back via the Elysian Street Viaduct, and pick up the White Oak Trail, at Stude Park...

I haven't met my time goal at this point. Close enough. I turn for the house. I'm hungry!

Rehabbing The Base

One of the nice thing about living on the Gulf Coast is year round riding. You get to keep you fitness base. For the injured... the base must be rebuilt.

I'm taking this base period as part of rehab. It's not easy. I quickly bore doing long steady rides. But... this is what I must do right now. Controlling my stratospheric exuberance is my challange. Just as I started wwith only about 20° of movement on the elbow, I must start with really low intensity riding. This injury has improved my patience.

Today's plan is simple. Two hours at my L2 endurance power zone. Oh, and not falling! HAHA! The weather cannot be better. Truly a gift from doG.

I never would have expected it but I get a bit sunburned today. Hmm... My tan has weakened.

No doubt this base periodio is needed. The last 20min take a lot of effort. I return home, tank empty, and nap.

But my day is not yet done. This was on the car when I bought it.

Always hated it. My knuckles hit the turn signal and cruise stalks.

It cramped my knees. Blocked my view of the speedometer, positioned the wheel too far from my body. I could get the seat distance right for my legs or my arms, but never both.

Here's the replacement. Snagged this off of a 1987 MR2 in the junkyard. Despite the fact that my MR2 is an '86, (the differences are very minor), it fits perfectly and is in great shape.

The "new" wheel is just slightly larger in diameter. I presumed it would hit my knees worse than the old one. Nope. Since I sit 'knees high' setting the wheel back gives me a lot more clearance. Heel-and-toe shifting should be way easier now. Huge improvement all way 'round. Now I just need to get rid of that hideous shift knob!

118 Days

Today's the day. Unplanned. Unapproved by doc. But the weather was too good and I'm ready. My first real ride since November 4th 2009. 118 days to be exact, but who's counting?!

I'm a little fatter. Ok a lot. Had to add some air to the rear shock. Oh the shame. I'm a lot slower. A bit unsure of myself. The adage "You never forget, it's just like riding a bike" is true with regard to balancing and unconsciously countersteering against gyroscopic effect. But not true with regards to the legs... which have long forgotten how to pound out hours of pedal pumping power.

Does anyone doubt that core strength is important for cycling? They need to try it with one arm unable to field it's full load. I would NOT want to climb anything bigger than an anthill right now because I can't pull with full force. Until you can't, it's hard to realize how much you push/pull and twist your body between the arm-to-shoulder-to-hips-to-legs.

Not anywhere near 100%. But rehab now includes the bike. That makes me happy.

Final Preparations

Thinking I'll start out riding again on the mountain bike, on the street. In the almost four months since riding, the MTB tires have gone flat. I run tubeless. New Stans are the order of the day.

Ah... the infamous Stans Booger.

New Stans. If there's a product that improves the mountain biking experience more than Stans I don't know what it is.

The maintenance just began. Now it's onto a fork overhaul. Last time I used EnduroSeals...

They work well. My oil is noteable clean this time around. But... I'm going back with stock Fox seals this time. They work well too. Slide a little better, but don't seal as well.

No cartridge service this go round...so... it's quick work. A couple of hours, it's all back together and ready to ride. Then I make some CO2 cannister covers out of old inner tube. Keeps them from clanking in the seat bag. And prevents fingers from freezing to them, too. Busy day. Got a lot done. Next time... a ride.

Experimental Breakfast

Cooking breakfast with the Jetboil this morning.

I'm trying to work up a packable pancake recepie for camping. Testing the current version today. Tastes good. But needs some perfecting.

Afield or at home; no breakfast is complete without bacon...

Long Deferred Maintenance

Took care of some long deferred maintenance. Maintenance deferred out of fear it would make me itchy to ride. It has. I'm coping. When I had my fall, the RH brifter got moved on the bar. No damage, it just slipped around the bar. First operation... realign it. It got scratched up in the tumble. It works fine. Just scratched. Good thing my elbow took up most of the impact.

Moving the brifter around means new bar tape. Proud I was able to do this. It's a two handed job unpossible for me only a week or two ago. Progress.

My bar taping skills have definately improved. I replaced the seat post. At top is the stock Specialized seat post. It's a piece of junk. The single-bolt attachement is almost impossible to get tight enough to keep the seat from tipping up/down. Really, gotta crank the heck out of it. Making precise adjustments are nearly impossible, too.

At bottom is the Deda post I've replaced it with. The two bolt adjustment assembly makes precise adjustment a snap. And no tipping up/down as I ride. It's substantially stiffer than the Speshy piece as well.

The saddle also got scraped up in the crash. Not necessarily bad enough to warrant replacement. But... it was a carry over from my previous roadie bike, and was red in color. Didn't match this bikes color scheme. So.. I took opportunity to replace it.

Final step was refitting to the bike. I may have to make some more adjustments because of my arm inflexibility. May end up with a total barney setup with a riser stem for a while. Hard to tell without actually being on the road... I'm prepared for the "GO" from doc!

Overdue Cleaning

A long overdue bike cleaning today. How does one dirty up a bike on the trainer? Well... it was dirty when I got hurt. I'm just now getting around to it. If I remember right... I had a rainy ride just a day or two before "that" night. Lucky... it's a nice day to be out in the sunshine!

But the water from the hose is really cold. Brrr. One of my favorite cleaning tools. A cheeep paintbrush with the bristles cut down...

Works on chainrings too!

Another brush with bristles intact for nooks and crannies...

Don't forget the loob!

More maintenance on deck for tomorrow.

The Final Stretch

I'm nearing the end of elbow rehab. The final push for motion range is on. Tons of stretching, strengthening, and heat. Extension is still being stubburn. My threapist started me with a different type of splint last week. It's a spring loaded mechanism that keeps solid tension on the arm. That's the robo-arm thing I'm wearing in the pic. It seems to be helping. Some. I've got about 10° to go before I'd consider it full-use. Certainly I'm going to lose some range, but need more than I've got now.

I'm able to do most things now. Including wash the car. Haven't driven it since hurting my arm. Dusty! But it was a nice day to be outside and washing. Water was cold though!

I'm enjoying cooking. Baked chicken basted with a garlic and ginger extract. And served with spinach with feta and fresh slices of ginger.

Thus begins the final and perhaps most difficult part of injury recovery. Ditching those pounds gained while being on the couch.

Morning Pancakes

Plodding Along

Plodding along. Not only rehabbing the elbow, I'm rehabbing my cycling fitness too. The elbow continues to improve. When it's good it nears 100% range of motion in flexion. When it's bad it still has a few degrees to go. In extension (straightening) is being stubburn. My OT is setting me up with anther type of splint to open things up.

My cycling rehab is about where my elbow was six weeks ago. That is... just at the beginning. In some ways I've given up on reaching for long rides. I've only got a few more weeks until I'm riding outdoors. Just trying to prep the legs for that, rather than focusing on gaining specific fitness.

Tonight's meal...Spicy Red Pepper Pasta inspired by VeganYumYum.com. In this pot fettuccini:

In my way-too-big wok: broccoli, sun dried red tomatos, red pepper and some olive oil:

Cook both and combine. Add some lemon juice and zest:

Super simple. Super quick. Super tasty.