A Hurt Locker of a Different Kind

If I can't muster up a blog entry in my current state, I'll never write one again. I'm currently in my 4th day of being completely leveled by some kind of virus. Lauren had it last week and she was TKO'd for 5 or 6 days and now I've been down since Sunday afternoon. I think I've only been off the couch for a handful of minutes since I fell I'll, so I figured I should be able to find the time to compose an entry. However, since I wrote my last blog entry, it wasn't time that was keeping me from updating, it was motivation.

Normally, I'm motivated to write blog entries when things are going well or I have positive news on which to report, but recently, around these parts, things have been the exact opposite. After my Belgium trip I scheduled a couple weeks completely off the bike to let my body and mind fully recover from the season. Once my 2 weeks was up, the motivation was flowing, so I jumped back into it. I made the stupid mistake of moving straight back over from my cyclocross bike/pedal/shoe set up to my road bike/pedal/shoe set up and did 4 hours and 3.5 hours the first 2 days back. Idiot. I wanted to catch up with everyone I hadn't seen or talked to in a while, and turning around an hour into a weekend group ride isn't very cool, but neither are knee injuries, as I found out.

I was having a knee cap tracking issue due to some muscle imbalance in my right quad. I had a tough time getting the inflammation to go away completely, so I ended up taking lots of time off the bike, 4 weeks on top of my initial 2 week scheduled break. Well, I guess they weren't all completely off, I did ride probably half of the days on average at about 90 watts to try to re-educate the muscles as I was rehabbing my knee.

This whole ordeal was pretty tough on me mentally. 6 weeks off is by far my longest break since I started riding competitively and it was even harder listening to all my friends talk about their great 5 hour rides and training camps. Oh yeah, well I did 194 kj's in an hour yesterday... Anywho, I think the knee issues are behind me now and I'm trying to stay optimistic that this slower start to the training season will have a positive impact on the longevity of my season.

I'm also excited to report that I started working with the Cycle-Smart coaching family this season. Being a numbers dork myself, I'm particularly excited to work with these guys because they seem to enjoy power-dorking as much as I do.

I hoping to be back on the bike by the weekend, just in time to watch Het Volk and Kurne-Brussels-Kurne and then go out and hammer down the gravel roads around here with my hands on the tops of the bars, my favorite thing to do.

Keep you fingers crossed for a pair of Lars Boom victories this weekend!