Tuesday, June 26, 2012

The long road back

I know, things have been quiet on this blog for a while now.  I've been focused on getting back to 100% mentally and physically and I'm getting close I think.  Physically I'm still fighting a painful strenoclavicular joint with some limited range of motion.  More stretching and exercises to hopefully restore things back to normal.  The partially torn ligament seems to be nearly better but maybe still a little weak.  Mentally thing have been much more challenging.  I'm back on the bike however it took weeks to get the gumption together to head out across the GWB on my own.  I spent nearly two weeks just riding in Central Park and was paranoid of every car that came near me and angry at every driver that got a little too close or zipped by a little too fast.  Not good when you ride in a city of over 8 million people.  Then I took a few rides across the GWB with teammates, strangely and coincidentally avoiding the intersection where I was hit every time.  Then I committed to a Tuesday evening ride last week and was meeting my teammates at the GWB at 4:30PM.  This meant I was riding to the bridge alone close to the time of day I was hit which usually means heavy traffic.  Shockingly traffic was light and I rode through the intersection for the first time.  Ironically I saw a white full size Ford work van parked on the side shortly before I came to the intersection.  Riding alone like this may not seem like a big deal to most people...unless you've actually been plowed over by some inattentive, rushed driver.  It's OK though because he didn't see me.  For me it was a small victory but I still have reservations about traffic.  Then my teammate Darius talked me into racing Thursday night in Rockleigh NJ which meant another late afternoon trip to the GWB to meet teammates at 4:45PM.  This time, there was quite a bit more traffic than Tuesday and I was running a few minutes behind.  While definitely having a heightened sense of the cars around me, I made my way to the GWB and hardly thought about that day at the end of March.  So I think I'm back on the mental side for the most part.

Speaking of this past Thursday night, I failed to mention that the race was 21 miles away and it was pushing 100F when I left.  I raced the 1/2/3 category and was hoping to simply hang onto the peloton given my lack of fitness and the heat.  The race was an hour long plus two laps on a mile course consisting of a road around a church and a retirement home.  At 6PM sharp, we lined up and were off.  The first 20 minutes were rough as attacks continually went off the front and the peloton surged to shut things down.  Eventually the pace settled into a more steady rhythm and I focused on getting more comfortable cornering again.  The heat was taking its toll as the race wore on and I was ready for it to be over.  Of course the pace picked back up for the last 3-4 laps as guys continually tried to get a gap.  I hung on at the tail of the peloton and finished near the back, my first race back was now in the books.  Not much to write about in all honesty...sitting at the back of the peloton for an hour.  None the less, it was a start.  After the race, four of us from FGX Racing headed back to the city to call it a day.  We stopped at a food market on the way and proceeded to drink as much as we could tolerate.  The heat was still brutal and only dropped to 92F by the time I returned home after 9PM.  The ride back into the city across the GWB and down Riverside Drive was nice as the city lights started to pierce the growing darkness as the twilight faded.  It was a nice, brief distraction from the heat but I immediately resumed counting down the miles until I was home.  I rolled in with 72.4 miles on the day and immediately proceeded to lay directly in front of the air conditioner for the first 15 minutes.  I was cooked from the heat but amazingly my legs tolerated the long day better than I had expected. 

This past Saturday, I rode with several teammates to Nyack via Clausland Mountain Road and Bradley Tweed Road to be sure we had enough climbing on the day.  For me it was a pretty tough ride since the guys held a spirited pace a good chunk of the way.  Unfortunately I don't think it was so hard for the boys though.  I see rare glimpses of what could be again and many, many reminders of where I actually am today.  It is amazing how much two months will set your training back.  Right now, my cumulative training load is approximately where I was in late January or early February...and I'm trying to compete with guys right in the thick of their season.  It is a frustrating time to make a comeback but the late season form will be nice when everyone is burnt.  Plus there are a couple of late season climbing intensive races that I'm shooting for.  I'm even going to have to dust off the TT bike!  Hopefully I can end this season on a high note.  But for now it is back to the job at hand, making the long road back just a little shorter.