It Happens, Then It Keeps Happening

For most of the year I’ve been fortunate enough that life hasn’t gotten in my way too much and its allowed me to ride pretty regularly. The past two weeks however have been a struggle. I won’t say that everything that could go wrong did, but there were definitely some “life happens” moments that have made riding and working out difficult. How does one deal with this adversity and keep motivation high when life keeps kicking you in the shins? Well it ain’t easy. Matter of fact, its much easier to throw up your hands in surrender. Too often I choose this path when I need to put on my big boy pants.

My recent trials started two weeks ago when I woke up with a scratchy throat, sinus headache, and general blah feeling. I’d obviously caught a bug somewhere. Despite feeling less then ideal, I finished that day’s workout and ride. I didn’t sleep well Monday night and felt like death warmed over Tuesday morning. I had planned a ride with Taco(Aaron Smith) that night, but had to cancel. Vague hopes that I’d be able to ride the trainer when I got home were quickly killed when I began to feel worse with every passing hour. When I got home I called it off, popped some pills, and hit the rack at 8pm…early even for me. Wednesday brought some relief because I got some sleep and started feeling much better. Work flew by and I got home and threw my leg over the trainer only to get a phone call from Memphis 10 minutes into the ride. When a Memphis number pops up on my phone it can only mean one thing; the alarm at the office was going off. Begrudgingly, I got off the bike and headed back to work to make sure everything was secure. Much of the drive back was spent with me intending to throw in the towel for the night, but I’d missed the ride the night before and didn’t want to feel guilty for missing two days in a row so I fired the trainer up again when I got home. Since I missed a ride on Tuesday, I made up for it on Thursday, rode the trainer again on Friday evening. That’s when things started to get interesting.

As I’ve mentioned before, Saturday is the only day I have to get in a big ride. The weather was beautiful and I was feeling adventurous so I head off to Raccoon Mountain to play in the rocks. Riding on Raccoon was great…until it wasn’t. I’d left from the East Overlook and head down Electric Ave, to Laurel Point, down High Voltage, up Livewire, to Small Intestine, then up and down Grindstone Ridge. My intent was to hit road near the Visitor’s Center, then Six Flags Connector trail that bypasses the first part of Megawatt, back to Laurel Point, and up Electric Ave to the East Overlook. However on the connector trail that leads from Grindstone to the road there was a surprise waiting for me. A metal cable was laying across the trail that I didn’t see. When I hit it, the cable popped up, caught my foot, and sent me over the handlebars. Normally this wouldn’t be a big deal, but the bike didn’t unclip and folded me over in a direction that the body isn’t supposed to fold.

My lower back was now in a bad and way. So bad that my weight training was put on hold last week. I wasn’t too worried though because I knew there was no permanent damage and I could still get in some trainer time, until I couldn’t.

The first several rides on my new Elito Suito trainer were great. Everything was working smoothly and I was thoroughly enjoying the trainer for once. On the fifth ride however it started making a creaking noise on every pedal stroke. On Friday I pulled the cassette off to find that the freehub body had come loose, so I tightened it down, put the cassette back on, mounted the bike, and started a ride. Everything was blissfully quiet…for 20 minutes. I finished the ride and and intended to check it out on Sunday, which I did. The free hub was still tight as was the cassette and through axle. The noise was coming from the flywheel itself, not anything related to the freehub. See the video below:

That happens on every pedal stroke, so you can see how it would be quite annoying. Since I purchased the trainer through Zwift sending it back was super easy. They have a 30 Day Hassle Free returns policy. It went back last Monday, so I didn’t get my normal Monday night ride in. Since I was generally unhappy with the old trainer I went with a Wahoo KICKR, which is the trainer I wanted from the beginning and will have a blog post about next week.

The point of this long, rambling mess of a blog post is to point out that sometimes life gets in the way of training plans and one needs to quickly adjust fire. Things haven’t worked out perfectly, but I’m focused on doing what I can to get ready for Snake on January 4th. I might not be getting in the types of rides I want, but any ride is better then no ride and that’s what I’m focused on right now.