Tracking?

Date: May 22
Mileage: 21.6
May Mileage: 102.7
Temperature upon departure: 57

Some time on the road today gave me a chance to watch my legs do their pedal thing. It was not pretty.

My left leg holds straight and strong over the pedal, but my right knee pulls rather dramatically to the left. How far left? It’s centimeters away from crashing into the top tube, that’s how far left. Continued effort to straighten my leg felt tight and unnatural - like I was purposely trying to pedal bowlegged. But my natural inclination is to pedal like I’m overcome by an urge to pee. Ugly, ineffective and definitely detrimental.

An effect of knee injury ... or the cause? Probably both. There seems to be some knee-cap tracking that is causing the joint to collapse toward the inside. There also is the issue of my wimpy quad muscles that are probably disproportionately wimpy to one another.

Either way, the damage has been done. My concern is what I can do about it. I realize quad strengthening is the best road, but I’m not sure what the best exercises are. Wall sits are OK. Squats make me wish I were poking myself with a sharp pencils instead. Any suggestions?

Also, does anyone know of a brace or maybe a taping technique that might correct such a thing? I have been doing some Internet research, but almost all of it leads me in the direction of changing one's running habits. Tracking is common in cycling, but there doesn’t seem to be much readily available information about how to fix it on a bike.

Probably time to call my physical therapist again. I am definitely not thrilled about all of the medical bills that have been rolling in lately. I think if I knew three months ago what I know now, I would cash in all those copays and sell my bikes and take one of those Alaska cruises.

On second thought ... scrap that. Better to go to Antarctica.

Cheater

Date: May 21
Mileage: 7.5
May Mileage: 81.1
Temperature upon departure: 56

I was not going to ride today. It was an odd (off) day, so it didn’t fit into my Baby Steps Back To Recreational Overuse® cycling plan. But then I woke up a little on the early side of the day and, as directed by my plan®, went straight to the gym. Going to gym is like eating a pound of broccoli - healthy, but tasteless and unsatisfying. When I returned home, I still had more than two hours before I had to be at work. And I thought, hey, I've been good all week. I deserve some desert.

The short road goes to Sandy Beach. And low tide meant the coastline was a sparkling sheen of high-resistance goodness. I really don’t know what it is about cycling on snow or sand that turns me on so much. Maybe it’s the random swerving; the spastic spinning; the all-out effort just to hit 5 mph. But I think what's really most appealing about snow or sand is the smooth, borderless surfaces that stretch out to seemingly limitless possibilities. I mashed across a creek flowing high enough that the current almost knocked me over; but on the other side, I caught a glimpse of a line of sand that continued uninterrupted for miles down the coast. I think I could follow its narrow path and find the outer tip of Douglas Island, a place where no roads or trails go. Someday, I’d like to try.

Today was not the day, though. At first, I didn't feel guilty for riding 'when I wasn't supposed to.' It was a rather arbitrary deviation from what is admittedly a rather arbitrary plan. But then again, I'd been off Aleve for four entire days and I felt compelled to pop a couple of blue pills this evening. I still can't help but wonder how much of this is all in my head.

On a completely unrelated side note, if anyone has dropped by looking for little tidbits of good ol' Alaskana, the Anchorage Daily News has an interesting collection of homemade short films by Alaskans about Alaska. Some friends of mine are trying to win a plasma TV or some other equally obnoxious prize. I think you have to fill out a form to vote, but if you did take two minutes to do so, and did feel compelled to vote for them, and they did in fact win an obnoxiously large TV, you would make their day - and vicariously, my day. I recommend viewing and voting for "Chugach Energy Drink" and "The Latest in Bear Behavior Research" (Grizzly charge! Scary! Oooo!) Either way, it's yet another way to avoid actual work. Click here.

Moving on up

Date: May 20
Mileage: 14.4
May Mileage: 75.6
Temperature upon departure: 58

I going to start keeping track of my cycling mileage again. Why would I bother? Well, after three months of flailing defiance, mistake after mistake after mistake interrupted by short periods of indifference, I think I may finally be poised for a comeback.

My recent numbers tell most of the story themselves:
December, 476.1 miles
January, 893.4 miles
February, 361.1 miles
March, 14 miles
April, 25.3 miles
May, 75.6 miles

Somewhere in there, I went very, very wrong. Maybe now I have finally learned my lesson about the perils of overuse, and the virtues of steady increments. But probably not.

I managed to whittle myself back to the bottom; now there's nowhere to go but up. Because I'm facing the slow climb as an alternative to the depths of inactivity, I feel like I have nothing to lose. And so I amble.

I tried out my clipless pedals for the first time today. I was a ball of nervous energy; suddenly thrown back into traffic with a loose rear hub and a sagging chain and a touring bike I definitely did not like being attached to. Even worse than the cars were the tourists, who treat downtown Juneau like it’s Main Street Disneyland; every move they make is unpredictable, and every pedestrian law goes out the window. Today Geoff yelled out, "Hey, did you know that this is a road, not a sidewalk?" But it's true. Maneuvering around tourists takes more skillz than singletrack, and I am not known for my roadie skillz.

Geoff and I rode out to Thane. He lectured me on the decrepitness of my road bike and my unwillingness to master the clipless, but we had a good ride. At the turnaround, he took off for a run on the coastal trail and I ambled some more, covering about three more miles on foot (For which I had to bring an extra pair of shoes. How annoying is that?). Someday I will appreciate clipless pedals. And someday I will be able to ride more than I would ever want to. Someday.

But for now, I wanted to say congrats to all who rode the Kokopelli Trail this weekend. I've been thinking about you and your 142-mile desert epic as I chart my next planned ride. Tuesday, 18 miles. We all have our thresholds, and my goal is to not find mine anytime soon.

I pretend I'm a tourist

I figured out a way to hike up a mountain without actually having to walk back down. The Mount Roberts trail wends through the rainforst, switchbacks up a steep slope and, in the last half mile, disappears beneath neck-high layer of crusty snow. Then, right at treeline, and just when you think you can climb no further lest you risk being swept away in an avalanche, you reach the Mount Roberts Tramway. You can purchase some useless trinkets, gawk at caged bald eagle with a bullet hole through its beak, buy a $5 cup of coffee and coast effortlessly back to sea level via the Mount Roberts Tram.

I arrived at the platform just in time to catch the 5:45. A rush of tourists, nearly every single one clutching a red bag from the $5 T-shirt shop, wedged me in next to the driver. He rattled off the safety spiel and we shot downward.

“How are you liking Juneau?" the driver asked me.

I paused for a second, considering the part of a tourist. “It’s pretty cool,” I said. I couldn’t think of what to add to that, so I said, “I saw your bald eagle.”

“Pretty sad, huh?” he said. “But it’s OK. Eagles are like rats here. They’re more of a pest than anything.”

“Sad about that one, though,” I said.

“So have you checked out the glacier yet?” he asked me. I realized he must be feeding me the standard tourist questions. It’s probably part of his job, part of a quota he has charted somewhere on his employee mission statement.

“Yeah ... you guys should wash that thing once in a while,” I said and flashed him my most earnest smile. He didn’t even flinch.

“At least you got a nice day today,” he said. “Usually I have to explain to people why it’s raining all the time.”

“Oh really? You have an explanation for that?”

Again, he didn’t even flinch. I considered my next dumb tourist question, but before I could say anything, someone from the back of the tram shouted, “Look! A bear!” I turned my head to look out the window. Sure enough, a yearling black bear was ambling up the hillside no more than 100 feet above town.

“We’ve spotted him a couple of times,” the tram driver said, more loudly so everyone could hear him. “His mom’s around here somewhere. She’s a much bigger bear.”

As my fellow tourists murmured and cooed, I said to the driver, “Wow. That’s really cool that you can see bears from here.”

“There are bears everywhere,” he said. “We see them all the time. They’re like dogs here.”

“Really,” I said as the tram lurched to a stop. “I would have never guessed.”

Making 10 miles count

Today I got to ride 10 miles. I like my new incremental cycling plan, because it keeps me happy without feeling too reckless. I self-impose mileage maximums, and as long as I force myself to stick to them, I can convince myself that no harm has been done (whether or not actual harm has been done is, I think, secondary to perceived success.)

This morning, however, I looked outside and knew that keeping to my maximum was going to prove a huge challenge ... not a cloud in the sky, sunlight pouring down and a thermometer that had climbed above 60 degrees. These warm, sunny days are so rare that I can't say I've seen a second one in all of the nine months I've lived in Juneau. It was not the kind of day to spend spinning on a road bike for a half hour. So I thought ... how can I turn eight miles into an excursion that would fill up an entire morning? I came up with a four-part plan:

1. Pick a technical trail that I know will keep me slow and honest, like Dredge Lake.

2. Stick to the tightly-wound singletrack. While squeezing between tree trunks, I almost crushed my fingers more than once. I am so out of practice.

3. Take a lot of extended sightseeing breaks. I rode this trail system often in December and January, but everything looks completely different now. It was like discovering a new place.

4. Actively seek out anything that will make me slower. The trails traverse a swampy glacial moraine, so I hit a lot of stretches that looked like this.

I love this kind of stuff. My bike's drivetrain does not love me.

I had planned to ride only eight miles, and technically I did ride only eight miles on my bad knee. I bailed off the trail at mile 8.2 and took the road back to the trailhead. For good measure, I unipedalled the entire last two miles. I pushed hard with one leg and kept my speed above 13 mph. It was the best lung workout I've had in months.

I bought a new camera yesterday, so more than anything, the ride was an excuse to try out my new toy. I went to Costco and drooled for a while over the 10 megapixel Canons with 10X zoom and detachable lenses. I wanted to get something nice that would take great pictures. In the end, I bought the bombproof compact model. It's an Olympus Stylus 725 SW, waterproof to 15 feet under and shockproof up to a 5-foot freefall. Today, after spontaneously whipping it out of my pocket while swiveling my handlebars through knee-deep swamp water, I knew I had made the right decision.

Depending on how this ride goes over, I think I will bicycle 12-15 miles on Sunday. It's arguable that eight miles of singletrack and two miles of unipedalling does not exactly equal a chill 10-mile ride, and I was not exhibiting as much self-control as I'd like to think ... but I'll leave that verdict up to the jury of perceived success.

Now ... off to enjoy a picnic, a short walk and the rest of this beautiful day.

Desperatly seeking fitness

I had a talk with my doctor the Ironman triathlete today. He strongly discouraged complete inactivity as a healing option. His advice was exactly what common sense would dictate, but for some reason we pay professionals to tell us so ... if it hurts, don't do it. "But it's important to keep up with your fitness," he said. He told me the story of a patient of his in Ketchikan who has a similar injury. Our MRIs were nearly identical, he told me. The only difference - she contracted runner's knee while hiking on a steep mountain trail. I earned mine in a long, slow bike race. Now, she can ride a bike without even feeling that burning pain. I could hike up steep stuff all day as long as I was never required to come down. But neither of us can do the thing we love.

Despite this, I am actually still considering inactivity. From everything I've learned, it is probably the quickest path back. My current path of small cycling increments is mostly just an experiment in seeing how much pain I can deal with, now that I don't seem to be stiffening up as much as I used to. I know it's not the smart path. No one needs to tell me that. I don't see it lasting for more than a week, either. But I am curious to learn whether cycling is still an option, should my current condition persist indefinitely (there's no guarantee it won't. Even inactivity isn't sure-fire insurance against that.)

But the big question, the question I hear sometimes and ask myself often, is what is the big &%*#@ deal anyway? What is so bad about losing fitness? What is so great about cycling that I can't give it up for a few weeks or months, when that's all it might take at this point? All very valid questions. After all, there are so many worse things that could have happened. I am definitely both a lucky and selfish person, and the view from my front window reminds me of it every day.

Fitness is interesting in that it is a different thing to different people. I read about it in the magazines at my gym. To some, fitness is duty, with obsessive calorie counting and a daily slog through 30 minutes of cardio. To others, fitness is fine-tuned precision, with plastic balls and free weights and index cards. Fitness is routine. It is expectation. It is preparation. It is well-toned arms and that perfect snapshot once a year on a beach in Maui. It is an ego boost after beating co-workers in racquetball. It is hope against hope that life can be prolonged. It is a lot of things. And I respect and appreciate each and every one. But they are not my fitness.

My fitness is the drug that keeps me away from dark places. I may be lucky and selfish, but I'm not immune to depression. Maybe it was a questionable path to self-medicate with endorphins. I know they were tough to quit, sitting immobile on the couch as the darkness closed in. Addiction is one theory; coping is another. Humans were not meant to sit in little cubicles and spend sedentary days learning everything they can about all the meanness in the world. But that's how I chose to put food in my belly and shelter over my head. I love it, the news cycle, but sometimes I find myself lost inside of it. Fitness was my escape.

But it wasn't just that. It wasn't just about pedaling myself into an endorphin-pumping bag of chemicals, until all the images of war and famine faded into the background of my most immediate physical needs. Otherwise, it would be easy to take doctor's orders and just swim until my skin took on a translucent film and my thoughts projected nothing but calm fatigue. Fitness may be a good mental escape, but cycling was my literal escape. I couldn't help but feel wistful today when talking to my doctor about the places he rides. They were the places I used to go. I can only picture what they were like in the winter, because I haven't been back in a while. Berner's Bay. North Douglas. Even the Mendenhall Valley. My memories of the scenery, blanketed in snow and encased in silence, become more muted every day. And what I have left are blurring glimpses of a sunset or the shimmering reflection of sky on water. In my biking days, I would linger for a while and take a few photos. Now I just blaze by in my car, if I get outside at all, and I miss the way the landscape used to lock me in wonder.

It can be a destructive combo - an unfilled inclination to explore, a typically stressful job and pent-up energy. Losing fitness is not the end of the world. It never was. But the fact that I've let a simple, minor injury consume me says a lot about how much fitness meant to me.

"It's not like you're a professional athlete, not like this is your paycheck, your livelihood," my doctor said. (He was just joking. He's a nice guy. Really.)

But still ... who says it's not my livelihood?

5.98 miles

I said I was only going to ride five miles today and I only rode five miles ... give or take a mile. I won’t lie and say I’ve never felt better, but it went about as well as expected. The weather was terrible but I didn't care. These things just don't matter.

I made the odd choice of riding my snow bike. Of all my bikes, that one required the least maintenance to be road ready. Plus, I reasoned, anything that forced me to ride slower was probably a good thing. But deep down, I knew that it was about time my snow bike, "Snaux Bike," and I made amends. Snaux Bike and I have a typical relationship. He hurts me, and I neglect him, but still, I feel like we could have a bright future together if we only we could work through our differences.

We rode out toward Douglas because the road dead-ends there exactly 2.5 miles from my house. Even if I felt great, I knew there wouldn’t be any temptation to ride further once I hit end of the road. Twelve minutes later, I was at Sandy Beach, watching the tide come in as an evenly-spaced line of cruise ships puttered toward the harbor. And I thought ... since I had Snaux bike with me anyway ... and extra half mile or so across the sand wouldn’t be all that bad of an idea. A little beach riding never killed anyone.

It was 45 degrees with steady rain and a 25 mph south wind. The ride was showered in road goo and bogged down in wet sand. But look how happy I seem. I bet I was having a better time than at least 1,847 of the 2,808 passengers on the Sun Princess. It was only 11 a.m., so at least half that number were nursing hangovers. (The other half were probably trying to choose between the Eggs Benedict and Apricot Crepes, and I don't envy indecision, either.)

Anyway, I hope the weather is bad again tomorrow because I plan to go swimming and only swimming. I also have a doctor's appointment, where I expect to be told to give up on the cycling dream. Then I hope to ride eight miles on Friday. When I am ambling down the road at 12 mph, it feels like the quiet moments before a sonic boom. I can’t wait.