Entering the Age of Injury

As recently noted, I tore my Achilles last February and had surgery and then after what I thought was enough rehab I embarked on racing my bike in September.  This sequence led to a lot of riding miles and subsequently another injury.  The injury was bound to happen as I went from zero miles and an atrophied right calf muscle to doing 13 hours of riding a week and then a race a month later.  Yeah, the old man muscles can't come back that quickly and even a young man's tendons would be put on edge by that type of routine.

Shortly after my race, I joined up with Coach Nate Dunn (Data Driven Athlete) of Rio Strada Racing (my new team for 2012 - check back for updates this year) for the Coffee Republic ride in Folsom CA with a group looking to pound the peddles and put the hurt on.  Riding the 10 plus miles to join the ride I could tell I was having trouble with my leg and my newly adjusted saddle height and then just a few minutes into the 75 mile ride I started to feel a tightening of the right thigh and soon the pain spread to the knee.  I did my best on the ride to keep in contact and suffer through some of the worst pain I had experienced in my 25 years of riding.  The pain was sharp and extreme and rendered my right leg to about 50% power to which my body was only putting out around 50% power potential in the first place.  The ride with the group tested my resolve and the additional 10 miles back to my car after the ride was down-right pathetic.  Turning the peddles with the right leg was virtually impossible.

The result and diagnosis was the IT band on my right leg.  Evidently this is a common injury for runners and cyclist, but one that I have never experience.  The gist of the injury stems from overuse of the IT band due to compensating for muscles that should be doing work but for some reason are not.  The butt muscle (Gluteous Medius) is the likely weak culprit.

I now have a foam roller, I'm getting massages, stretching daily like a yoga addict and taking time off the bike in hopes to recover soon.  To me, its obvious that my previous Achilles injury helped in causing this new injury.  As I get along in life and still try to maintain my youthful ways it's imperative that I do more to combat these injuries, which really means eating well, doing proper stretching and concentrated warm ups - oh yeah, and avoiding playing basketball.

No Sacramento or Sierra's in 2012 Tour of California

Since it's inception in 2006, the Tour of California has visited the Capital city of Sacramento in some form or another. The first year the race came roaring into Sacramento from Santa Rosa concluding with several fast laps around the cesspool the California legislators call home - The capital building. The race has since held the time trial prologue or been the stage finish with the past two years hosting the sprint stage that started in the foothills or directly in the Sierra's. This year however, the host city of Sacramento is not on the list and neither are the gem of California, the Sierra mountains.

In the 2011 edition, The Tour of California (TOC) moved the start date to May from the early spring in an attempt to better adapt to the UCI racing calendar and in the hopes of getting some famous California weather and skip the days of rain the race had been plagued with. 2011 was slated to start in South Lake Tahoe with a bumpy ride around the Lake with an exciting finish at North Star. Then the next day would see the field begin at Squaw Valley (host of the 1960 Winter Olympics) and finish in Sacramento. But due to an early winter snow storm stage 1 was cancelled completely and stage 2 had to be moved down the mountain and away from Squaw completely but still completed in Sacramento.

Perhaps this year the organizers wanted to stay away from any possible conflict with mother nature in the form of snow and therefore decided to move the race inland. While the Sierra's are skipped this year, the true toughness and climbs (as found by the Donner party in 1846) were never really in focus anyway. Mt. Baldy in Southern California is the true climbing stage of the race and will once again prove pivotal in the outcome and in Chris Horner's title defense.

The following cities to host this years race were announced as follows according to the CyclingNews website:

• Stage 1: Sunday, May 13 – Santa Rosa
• Stage 2: Monday, May 14 – San Francisco to Santa Cruz County
• Stage 3: Tuesday, May 15 – San Jose to Livermore
• Stage 4: Wednesday, May 16 – Sonora (new for 2012) to Clovis
• Stage 5: Thursday, May 17 – Bakersfield (Individual Time Trial)
• Stage 6: Friday, May 18 – Palmdale to Big Bear Lake
• Stage 7: Saturday, May 19 – Ontario (new for 2012) to Mt. Baldy
• Stage 8: Sunday, May 20 – Los Angeles/L.A. LIVE