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.

Maybe one day...

...when this city/country finally gets its head out of its ass, things will change.  Maybe.

Hmm...all we need is an oil crisis, a protest, and the will to change.  Oh, and the realization that human life is more important than the automobile.  Sadly, we have a long way to go as it seems we are headed in the complete opposite direction.

Rebuilding

This past Friday marks the start of the road back to the bike with my first "ride" since I was hit.  I was cleared by the doctor to start spinning as my ankle allows so I attempted my first "workout" on a spin bike.  After an easy and lengthy warm up, I added a little resistance to see how things felt.  I made it 15 minutes before I started having pain in the front of my ankle, forcing me to back the resistance down.  Despite only being able to ride 45 minutes, it was nice to be doing something again...moving forward so to speak.  Unfortunately the spin bike wasn't completely comfortable due to my other injury, my left collar bone/sternum.  I was forced to support myself mostly with my right arm or ride sitting up.  I'm a long way from being back and I can't even imagine riding a real bike until my collar bone/sternum are in better shape.  I can imagine the pain the first time I hit a bump.  Two more weeks of physical therapy before the doctor decides to move into more aggressive treatment.  I'd be ecstatic to not need any additional treatment however progress seems to have stopped with the collar bone/sternum.  At least the ankle seems to be healing so I have the spin bike to keep me entertained in the meantime.  I guess the up side is that I'm on the Vince Clune training timeline now.  I should be ripping by August/September haha!

Why Tour of the Battenkill is so awesome...

For two years now I have repeatedly blogged about riding in the Battenkill valley, racing the Tour of the Battenkill, and Cambridge NY in general.  Unfortunately it probably isn't something you can put into words, you really have to experience the roads first hand.  Having ridden a fair amount in Europe and the eastern US, the Battenkill valley is one of my most favorite places to ride, and the Tour of the Battenkill is definitely my favorite race by a long shot.  After a strong finish last year, I had high hopes for this years race.  The new course was good with a punishing final 18 miles and I was closing in on my best form in quite some time.  Unfortunately it wasn't to be, the universe had other plans for me.  None the less, my wife and I still headed up to Cambridge for the weekend to support my teammates, much better than sitting on the couch being depressed.  For me, it was a very tiring weekend physically.  Although I am making significant progress healing up, I am still nursing injuries and this was the first real venture out of any significance. 

The amateur races were held on Saturday and our boys did the team proud.  Ben won the cat 4 race and Jimmy finished 5th in the cat 3 field.  I knew Jimmy was going to be strong when we reconned the new course a few weeks earlier and he was climbing really strong when we hit the last kick in the groin, aka Stage Rd.

FGX Racing Cat 4 Tour of the Battenkill crew (Ben holding the winner's chocolate milk)

Sunday brought the UCI 1.2 Tour of the Battenkill professional race.  Since I know the roads rather well from all my trips up to Cambridge, we hopped in the Jeep and headed out on the course for a better view.  Wow were we in for a treat.  Upstate had not had rain for two weeks and this was the driest I have ever seen the course which meant one thing...dust, and lots of it!  Our first stop was at the top of the first Meeting House Rd. climb some 45ish miles into the race.  What a sight, that's all I can say.  It was good to see the pros working just as hard as us wannabes.  The race and its caravan was impressive, very cool to see a professional race on the same roads I ride and race.  Our second stop was on the opposite side of the course, a serious kicker of a climb (somewhere around 20%...on dirt!) known as Juniper Swamp.  No racer refers to it as "Juniper Swamp Rd." but rather simply Juniper Swamp, the infamous climb that has been walked up in races similarly to the Koppenberg in the Tour of Flanders.  We just barely beat the peleton there and hung out as the long dropped riders came through.  Once the race was through, I decided to drive Juniper Swamp to head back to Cambridge for the finish. Two dropped pro riders were struggling up the base of the climb as we were heading up and when they moved over I pulled along side and put both front windows down and offered a ride.  It was funny to see their white teeth shining through their dirt covered smiling faces as they latched on, one on each side.  We talked on the way up and unfortunately they both had bad luck some 20 miles back.  They were likely cutting the course back into town since there was no way they were finishing, they didn't want to make their teams wait.  When we reached the top, they thanked me over and over and I wished them well.  Unfortunately I didn't think to offer them a ride back to town until we were well on our way.  I was more focused on getting them safely up the climb.  Hopefully their ride back was as comfortable as possible.  Once we were back in town, we watched the finish and called it a day.  While I kept the walking and physical activity to a bare minimum, it was an exhausting few hours for me since my body was still recovering.  We retired to the hotel for burgers and drinks.  Amazingly, the hardest day for me to watch was Sunday, the pro race.  The beauty of the sport definitely struck a chord that day.

It's not everyday...

...that Francesco Moser shows up to compete in one of your local races!

http://nyvelocity.com/content/gallery/race-photos/2012/moser-goes-new-york

A little behind...

Thomas Eddison Films, 1899???  It looks like those fixed grear hipsters were a little behind the times haha!  What a piece of history.

In the blink of an eye...

It was over in a matter of a few seconds. The shock however lingered for weeks. In what seemed like the blink of an eye, the great start to my 2012 season was over. My form that was approaching and likely to eclipse my best season ever (2008) was gone, over. The never ending legs that I could simply ask for more no longer mattered. Suddenly the things that seemed so critical were no longer important.

On Friday, 30 March, I set out for a training ride much like any other day. Except on that beautiful day, I took off work early to get a long hard ride in on the other side of the Hudson River. All I wanted to do was suffer through some hill repeats and enjoy the beauty that is Henry Hudson Drive and the Palisades Park. Unfortunately I never made it there. I came to an intersection, the light was green and the intersection was clear so I proceeded straight through the intersection...except I never made it to the other side.  Instead, a full size work van traveling the opposite direction made a left turn and sped across the intersection hitting me on my left side, what cyclists know as a "left cross."  Moments before the impact, I saw the van speeding toward me however there was no escaping the inattentive driver this time, he was simply going too fast to give me any option other than a direct hit.  And a direct hit it was, throwing me well clear of the accident up the side street.  Weeks later, it is a memory I have yet to shake.  To add insult to injury, I was also a victim of the "I never saw you" excuse...except that I was right there in plain sight in broad daylight for all to see in a bright white jersey.  "I never saw you" is an admission of negligence, not that that amounts to anything in this country.  Miraculously, I suffered no life threatening injuries.  I have suffered injuries however this is not the place nor the time to go into it, I'll let the doctors and lawyers deal with that.  I'm lucky, it could have been so much worse.

Since the accident, every day has presented its own set of challenges.  Initially it was the constant physical pain, then the mental toll had to be dealt with once everything settled in.  Now I am left with the lingering after effects.  Unhealed injuries, doctors, physical therapy, lawyers, missed work, and on and on.  The disappointment has been overwhelming at times on so many different levels.  The lack of rights a victim has as a result of "the system" is staggering, sickening.  And in the end it almost equates to more punishment for the victim.  Maybe one day I'll go into the full story because it is an eye-opener, but for now I'm simply trying to move on.  I'm thankful every moment of every day that I'm still here and in one piece.  And the craziest thing of all is why I am even in this situation in the first place...because one careless person was in a big ass hurry to get to where, the next red light a few hundred feet up the road?  Yep, that's what it amounts to.
Be safe out there.