Back in the saddle

Well, I'm back. Thank god for that because I was going NUTS! I think I was driving everyone else nuts too! Forced myself to take it easy, did my rehab exercises, treated myself at the clinic and I think I licked the knee issue. Basically what happened is I sat on my butt for too long, trudged around in boots with no arch support and then went to the bouldering gym and kept jumping down the problems instead of down climbing them. I am a huge pronator, so the knees were already angry from spending so much time in shoes with no support and the jumping gave me an acute case of jumpers knee, in BOTH knees. I treated them with massage, muscle stim, ultra sound and kinesio tape. Oh, and LOTS of hot baths in epson salt. Went for a ride Thursday, the IT band was a bit tight so I felt a little pain on the outside of my knee, but the problem area (pes anserine bursa) felt good on both knees. Yea! Did some inverted bicycles when I got home to pump out any inflamation and put stim on both knees when I got to the clinic. Kinesio tape to allow the tissue to drain from any residual inflamation. And now, they are BACK! I also ordered some orthotics. Two reasons, one to stop the pronation when I walk, and two becasue studies have shown that people who cycle and pronate actually put out more power per stroke if they have orthotics in their bike shoes. So, going on a group ride today and I am pretty confident that I can FINALLY start my training for the year.

NOOOOOOO!!!!!

Dangit dangit dangit! My damn knees are hurting again. I thought maybe, just maybe that I would get off easy with this one. Nope.. After my ride on Tuesday they were a little achey, and then yesterday they were definetely worse. So, I guess the now I will just have to suck it up and rest until they are totally 100% so I don't have to deal with this issue all season long. Sucks tho because I see everyone else out there training and I'm just sitting on the couch playing the stupid xbox wishing I could be out riding. Sooo frustrating! I've been treating myself in the clinic every other day and that is helping, I will start doing some re-hab strengthening exercises next week and hopefully (HOPEFULLY) I will be back on the bike in two weeks. Some serious cabin fever here....

First training ride!

Did the first "base" training ride of the year today. I forgot how boring it is keeping your heart rate low. I had a head wind right off the get-go and had to peddle sloooooowly...painfully sloooooooow. I really had to stay focused to keep the pace in my base training range, especially after training at such high intensity for cross. Felt pretty good tho. Did about and hour and a half on the bike and will be doing some hot yoga tonight. The knee didn't trouble me too much. I noticed if I really focus on my peddle stroke and don't get sloppy I feel less pain under the knee cap. The yoga tonight will really help the knee too. Last year I ended up building up some scar tissue and just got "tight" all over. My goal this year is to do Yoga at least 2x per week to really keep limber. I was off the bike for a couple months really focusing on getting my range of motion back in my hips and shoulders.

Training starts today: Updates to follow.

Going out for my first training ride in, oh I'd say at least 1 and a half months. Probably the longest "rest" I've ever taken between seasons. I sure needed it though. With cross this year, it was a long season for me. The typical downhill season is June through September. I raced from early March to November this year. I came to the point where I didn't even want to ride my bike. I had to "ground" myself from the bike until I actually wanted to ride it again. Well, today is crappy and dark and I could have slept in, but instead I am tuning up the training bike and going for a ride.