A Little Reflection

Late Fall and Winter tend to kick the general pain and discomfort up a notch. There is something noticeably different about this year, I'm not really bothered by it. If I pause and think about it, yeah, I hurt. But where in the past it was at the front of my mind and I had to actively work past it, right now its in the background.

I've been thinking about what has changed. It might be an unforeseen side effect of my crazy bike rides? I willingly put myself through some physically and mentally hellish rides this past year...I think they helped. To get through some of the rides I had to put the pain and fatigue in the back of my mind and focus on pedaling forward. At the time I questioned why I was doing this to myself. It certainly was risky to push my body to that extreme, but it seems to have helped me learn how to better deal with my chronic pain and fatigue. I asked my doctor about doing rides like the Crusher and whether they were bad for me. I probably should've asked beforehand, but I was afraid he might say yes they were bad. He just told me to listen to my body, it'll let me know if I'm overdoing it.

I've made plans for an even more challenging year in 2012. A 50+ mile snow bike ride, the Iron Horse Classic, Crusher in the Tushar, LOTOJA if I can get in again, and all the training rides in between. Hopefully I don't find my physical limit any time soon.

'Cross

The Utah cyclocross season is coming to an end this Saturday. I was introduced to the sport four years ago by my friend Ethan. I had never heard about it before and over the past four years I've found that most people don't know what 'cross is. It's hard to really explain what it is. I mean I can tell you some of the background legend about how it started, I can tell you the rules of how it works, but all that doesn't really explain what it is to me and why I enjoy it so much. If you are really curious about that other stuff, Wikipedia does a decent job of explaining the nuts and bolts.

What I love about 'cross:

It doesn't matter if its hot, cold, dry, snowing, raining, the race is never cancelled. In fact poor weather conditions are considered a good thing in 'cross. The worse the course conditions the more fun it is. The worse the weather the more fun it is. I used to dread seeing a bad weather forecast for a Fall weekend. Now. I can hardly contain my excitement when I see rain or snow on a Saturday!

'Cross racers don't quit. I love that! I have races like a few weeks ago at Wheeler Farm where I feel awesome. My legs have strength. My body has energy. I can try and chase people down or try and stay ahead of my nearest competitor. I can race! Then there are races like the one the following week at Mount Ogden where it was all I could do to pedal around the course. My legs have no strength. My body has no energy. I'm not able to chase anyone down or stay ahead of my nearest competitor, but I have to be there. 'Cross racers don't quit.

The people. I've especially enjoyed having a Clydesdale category (over a certain weight, 210 lbs this year) to race with. Its a small group which I think has helped us get to know each other better. Its a great group of guys. We all want to do well and try our hardest to be the ahead of the others across the finish line, but its a friendly competition. I like that.

LOTOJA - Ready To Talk About It Now

LOTOJA is a few months in the past now, almost three I guess. In a lot of ways it was a traumatic experience for me. Going into it I was not very motivated and almost didn't go. I was pretty sure I could finish, just wasn't sure I cared about doing so.

I'll spare a lot of the details. The short version is that I started from Logan, UT at 5:50am riding with a group of 6 guys and I finished my day at 8:20pm alone, 5km short of the finish line at Teton Village, WY. If my math is correct that's 14.5 hours. I had been fighting varying degrees of nausea for around 13 of those hours. I don't know that I can say any part of the ride was fun. I don't know why I kept going. I had three chances to bail early but kept going until there was no light left and I couldn't see the road in front of me. I know why I kept riding during the Crusher, I wanted to finish! But LOTOJA, I didn't care if I finished so WHY did I keep riding!? The question really bothered me for a couple months. I think I have some answers now and I'll go into that more at a later time.

The physical effects on me? Well, at some point two screws came out of my shoe cleat allowing my left food to move side to side on the pedal a lot more than it should. My left knee has been a trouble maker for several years and the who knows how many hours of weird movement aggravated it pretty bad. For a couple weeks walking was a bit painful and biking was a torture fest. Its all good now. My right hand went numb during the ride and stayed numb for a solid month, its mostly better now...my pinky still doesn't have much feeling.

14.5 hours on a bike is a long time. 204 miles is a long way to pedal in one day. It wasn't fun in any way shape or form. But I was still essentially able to finish. That makes me happy.

The Fruit of Procrastination

A couple days after my Moab trip I got the flu. A very unpleasant experience I must say. So that kept me in bed for about a week. During that time I could barely keep anything in my stomach and my medication isn't too stomach friendly in the best of times so I hadn't been taking it for that week. Sunday came around again and I was feeling better. I figured the flu was over and I was able to eat again so I decided to take my medication again.... That didn't go over so well. About half an hour after I took the medication my eyes went bloodshot and I started shaking uncontrollably and throwing up. After an hour of consistent shaking I decided I should probably go to the ER. Something I REALLY didn't want to do as an uninsured person. Long story short I had a bacterial infection in my gut that was causing problems. Another week in bed! Saturday rolls around and I'm weak, but not feeling sick anymore!!!!! Sunday night as I'm brushing my teeth I notice my mouth feels kind of funny...kind of numb. Monday my mouth looks like I've been to the dentist and my right eye won't close. Back to the doctor and a diagnosis of Bell's Palsy, it's been two weeks but it's clearing up. I'm now back to my normal schedule, eating normal, trying to get somewhat back in shape. I've never been this sick before and it did a number on my body. I will never again put off getting a flue shot!

Blue Ribbon!

I won my first bike race! It was the second race in the Intermountain Cup, the Cholla Challenge. Two laps totaling 15 miles on an 85 degree day. Beautiful day, beautiful weather. I got a good start and built a good lead at the beginning...which I used later when I got pretty tired and my calves started cramping up. The fastest guys didn't show up to the race so it gave the rest of us a bit of a chance, it was nice to be up front for a change!

Red Rock Rampage

Last Saturday was the first race of the 2011 Intermountain Cup mountain bike race series. I tried one race about two years ago and thought it was okay, but never really felt a desire to pursue it further. My perspective on bike racing has changed since then. I'm still trying to piece together why that is. Is it three seasons of cyclocross? Is it taking part in two 24 Hours of Moab races? Is it realizing there seems to be correlation for me between the challenges of a bike race and the challenges of chronic illness? Whatever the reason for the change, I want to pursue more mountain bike racing.

The first race was about 4 hours south of where I live. The beauty of southern Utah is that it usually doesn't get too cold in the winter. So while the trails up north are covered in snow or mud bogs, the trails in St George were prime! It felt good to be mountain biking again! I raced in the Clydesdale category (you have to be over 220lbs) and placed solidly in the middle of the pack. There were 11 Clydes and I came in 5th. People always make jokes about the Clydesdale category, like the announcer talking about free hot dogs for us at the top of the first climb. There are some seriously fast big guys though. All in all it was about 14 miles and about 2000 ft of climbing. It was a great day! Babe even ended up getting raced. A Clyde friend's bike broke down while he was warming up for the race, so he used my Fatback. I raced The Sexyness (my Pivot 429).

Short Moment, But I'll Take It

I just got back from a night snow bike ride up Big Springs. It's been snowing the past couple days and the avalanche danger is high. South Fork canyon doesn't get as much snow and there aren't any slide zones to worry about. Its a shorter trail, which was also fitting for me tonight. I haven't been feeling too well. I go through a cycle of fatigue, normal, insomnia. It's been happening for several years now. Long enough that I have confidence in the order of the cycle, it's the length and severity of each phase that is always unknown. Right now I've been in the fatigue phase for about two weeks. By far my least favorite.

Although I dislike my fatigue phase, I also find it the most interesting. Definitely the most contradictory. It goes without saying that I pretty much always feel tired during this phase. No matter how much I sleep I can always sleep more. But I've found that sleeping more than 8 hours makes me feel worse, fewer than 7 hours and I'm a total zombie, 7-8 hours works pretty well for me. Getting up before the 8 hour mark can be REALLY hard though. My body is screaming for more sleep and part of me wants nothing more than to oblige, but experience tells me to ignore it and get up. Also during this phase I don't feel like doing anything active, but if I don't do some form of exercise the pain and stiffness gets worse. If I exercise even just a little bit I know it will keep the pain and stiffness a bit more in check. So tonight although I'm feeling tired and not motivated to exercise I loaded up Babe and drove up the canyon.

It was a beautiful night tonight, fresh snow and enough breaks in the clouds for some nice star gazing. The road from the main turn off to the trailhead was in pretty poor shape, unplowed snow up to about 10 inches deep in some places. I considered just parking at the turn off and riding up the road, but drove up to the trailhead anyhow. It was pretty nice snow bike conditions. About a foot of new snow, but just enough people had been through to create a rideable trail. Packed enough to be able to ride, but still soft enough to enjoy the feel of floating on snow. A snow bike does pretty well at floating and making its way through snow, but it does have limits and 12 inches of new snow is above that limit.

It was a slow ride with lots of stops. When I'm not feeling well that's just the way it goes. But, that's also one of the things I love most about mountain biking. You don't have to go fast or far to have a good time and stopping to enjoy the scenery can be one of the best parts of the trip. The start of any bike ride is usually not too fun for me, I feel tired, weak, lacking air. I push through because I know that within 15 minutes or so my body will warm up and the endorphins and adrenaline will start kicking in and everything in my body will feel good. I didn't have the energy to stay out for very long and I know that pushing myself too hard will have negative consequences. But for half an hour I felt well and everything in life was good. It was a short moment, but I'll take it.

A Slow Process

The diagnosis process felt like it took forever. It took a month from the time my family doctor told me I should see a Rheumatologist until my first appointment with one. I guess they have some long waiting lists. Waiting is hard for me. I feel like I can deal with stuff really well if I know WHAT I'm dealing with. I now knew there was in fact something wrong and all the pain and weakness in my body probably wasn't going to just go away. The WHAT was still a big unknown and really annoying to me.

My first Rheumy visit was mostly lots of talking about what I felt like, examining of my joints, and what seemed like a lot of blood samples being taken. I went back the next week for a follow-up and which point I was told I exhibited enough symptoms to be diagnosed for both Rheumatoid Arthritis and Lupus. That being said the doctor wanted to do more blood work to make sure there wasn't something else going on. And gratefully I was given some meds to help out, mmm Prednisone...I can still remember the sweet sweet relief it offered from the pain and stiffness. More blood drawn, more tests run. More time gone by. More blood drawn and more tests run to confirm previous tests were accurate. I'm not sure how much time actually passed, but to me it felt like FOREVER. Finally I had a diagnosis. My ANAs and anti-RNP results were ridiculously high...Mixed Connective Tissue Disease.

Starry Nights

Night rides are pretty new to me. This winter I've been going on a lot of them though. Largely because, well, it's winter and there isn't a whole lot of daylight. I've also found that the snow conditions are nice at night for biking. It also helps that I bit the bullet and bought some nice bike lights last summer for the 24 Hours of Moab.

Thursday night I pulled up to the Pine Hollow trailhead and was the lone vehicle in the lot. The sky was clear, the air a crisp 12 degrees. It was still pretty light outside, but a couple stars were starting to appear. I bundled up and headed up the trail. In this case it's really just a snow covered road...but in this case I still call it a trail....

I love mountains. During the day the mountains and their detailed features rule the landscape. During the night it's the sky that rules. I love watching the slow transition between the two! I rode up the trail enjoying the view of the transition. Pretty soon the mountains were just dark silhouettes and the attention grabber was the brilliant stars in a clear sky. No one was around. Just me and the sound of the snow crunching under my tires. I stopped frequently to admire the view and take in the silence. I'm starting to really like this snow bike thing...and this night ride thing...

Frozen Hog

Still getting used to this blogging thing...and actually posting stuff. It's been a good week. Last Saturday was the 9th Annual Frozen Hog Winter Mountain Bike Race. The race consists of two laps (~7 miles total) around some mountain bike trails in Alpine, UT. This was my third time participating. I find it funny how perspectives change. The first year I did the race was 2005, I can't even really remember why I signed up for it, but I do remember thinking I was a crazy idea and kind of regretting that I had signed up for it. That first race felt like one of the hardest most miserable things I had ever done in my life! I remember it as kind of fun...but mostly miserable. I figured it would probably be the last time I would do anything like that....

2011 Frozen Hog. Whether it was the snow bike, the better cold weather riding gear, or time and experience, I was really excited for the race this year! And it turned out to be really fun. The weather warmed up and almost all the snow melted negating the need for my snow bike, but all in all it was a great time. I took second place out of four in the Clydesdale (over 215lbs) category and was pretty happy about that too.

Meh, It'll Go Away

The first sign that something wasn't right happened on a Martin Luther King Jr. weekend roadtrip with some friends. I woke up Saturday morning feeling really sore, but wrote it off to the basketball game the day before. The next day I was still sore and the next and the next and...

Three months of being sore later I was still thinking, well I'm not sure what this is but I'm sure it'll go away. Things were getting noticeably worse. If I was sitting on the floor it was almost impossible for me to get up again, I'd have to do this rock a bit and then roll to my knees and push up all the time keeping the momentum going. Just standing up was impossible. Trying to put on a button up shirt was a joke, especially the top buttons. Then there were my hands. I'm not a terribly strong person, never lifted weights, never worked out, but I had always had a really strong grip, impeccable penmanship...I had amazing hands! Now. I couldn't curl a hand into a fist without the assistance of my other hand, my hand strength was gone. It was hard to hold a pen yet alone write anything, my impeccable penmanship was gone.

I was nervous about going to the doctor. I remember it as a mix of fear that nothing was wrong and I was just being pathetically weak and a fear that something might actually be wrong and I was too young to have health problems. I heard another guy in my apartment complex mention that he had recently been diagnosed with arthritis. For whatever reason that broke down the barrier of my fear to go see a doctor. I made an appointment with my family doctor. He said that it was possible to get temporary arthritis symptoms and that's probably all it was but he'd run some blood tests anyhow. A couple days later his office called with the blood test results..."you need to go see a Rheumatologist"....

Meet Babe

I'm a bicycle junkie. My main love is mountain biking, but I'm pretty open to just about any form of biking...except fixed gear, they scare the hell out of me. I was able to test ride a Surly Pugsley snow bike last fall in Vegas. Yes, I realize test riding a snow bike in the desert is a bit odd, but that's just how it worked out. It was love at first ride, I knew at that moment I had to add a snow bike to the stable. I did a little more research into it and decided that although I loved my Pugsley test ride an aluminum Fatback from Speedway Cycles was the bike for me. It's big. It's blue. It's made cold weather much more enjoyable. The Fatback's name is Babe as in Babe the Blue Ox of Paul Bunyan fame. I came upon a fallen tree blocking the trail I was riding and at that moment it came to me, Babe would be a great name for my Fatback.