What a Growing Body Knee-ds
The pun is for Lynn.
Saturday did a great 70 miles out and back to Elgin. The nice thing about riding to Elgin is you get to get some barbecue to break up the ride. While my ride companions chowed down on brisket and sausage (oh, to be 22 again) I had the chicken. Still quite tasty, by the way.
Felt great the whole ride… except for the part on the way back when my knee started to feel a little catchy every now and then. I didn’t think much of it as it really didn’t hurt, it just was there. We stopped in Manor, and I stretched. But as we got closer to home I still felt it.
Then it started to really hurt. Not constantly, but anytime I stood up or did more of a forward mash than a supple spin, pain. And clipping in was unpleasant.
When I got home I actually felt great. I felt like I could have kept riding.
However, on Easter Sunday, I didn’t feel so hot. We got up to go to 9 AM Mass, as I was supposed to be riding three hours at some point. I also wanted to watch the Ronde on TV and we had to eat our celebratory Easter pizza. (We gave up cheese for Lent.) The ride didn’t happen, because I felt beaten down. I took two naps, and still went to bed early. After alerting Drew of the knee issues, it was decided to be careful and make this week extra resty.
So far, so good. I did an easy spin on Monday, and there was no pain. Today I did two hours in zones 1 and 2 and again there was no pain. It feels a little tight, but the painful catch has not come back. The inner quad right above my knee is tight and tender, so I have been hitting it with ice and the TP quad-rolller.
Considering I went from sedentary to riding a lot pretty quickly, I am not surprised something eventually was annoyed. Saturday’s ride was also the longest ride I’ve done yet, and definitely the longest ride of “not my own pace.” I feel confident that this easy week will be good for things. I have the Driveway tomorrow (it’s the full two-mile course going down the corkscrew, should be interesting) and I am bringing the bike home with me to Baton Rouge for rides this weekend.
On that subject, we are going to Baton Rouge this weekend to celebrate my grandmother BeBe’s 100th birthday… crazy! It will be a quick trip and jam packed. Riding, family, friends… the camera is coming with me so I hope to have lots of pictures when I get back.
Finally, my experiments finally seem to be making some notion of sense (thanks Allen!). It sort of took one of those moments where you realize you were kind of an idiot, but you have gone so far down the rabbit hole it takes somebody else to snap you out of it to see it. But alas, the Lagniappe paper seems to finally be taking shape after all these years. Whew.
With that being said, I’m going to switch back over to my terminal windows and see how those experiments are going.
