I realize I have some catching up to do on this blog so I’ll try to do it quickly. After the Spring Sprint, I took it fairly easy for a week and then tried to get back into my training but was still pretty sore and tight. On a lunchtime interval run I strained a calf muscle, stranding myself 2.6 miles away from my office and had to limp all the way back.
The calf injury is familiar territory as I have torn calf muscles on more than one occasion by trying to power through the pain or by not allowing the strained muscle to heal completely and returning to running too soon. So for the next 3-4 weeks I only did swim and spin workouts.
During this time, I also turned 38 and got a new road bike to celebrate. On the day of my birth, I took the new bike on a maiden voyage to the top of Double Peak Park; a ride that totaled about 3000 feet of climb in about 40 miles with the steepest part of the climb at a 17% grade. I instantly took the new style of riding and had a blast on the new bike, a 2017 Diamondback Podium E’tape disk.
Memorial Weekend: On Saturday, I did a practice tri with the Endurance House crew. A surf entry/exit open water swim, quick ride down the coast and back, then my first run in almost a month; 2 miles easy to see how it feels. I averaged about a 7:40 pace and felt pretty good – dull tightness but no sharp pains.
On Sunday I rode from my house out to Fallbrook via Sleeping Indian Rd., another fairly well known and challenging climbing track for cyclists in the area. Loving the new road bike; disk brakes are such an amazing confidence booster on descents.
On Monday, Melissa and I slept in (other than when I’ve been sick, I don’t think I have found myself in bed after 7:30 a.m. in years) and then we enjoyed a nice breakfast since the kids stayed at my mother in law’s. After that I did some bike maintenance and readied for another great ride continuing my new pursuit to summit all the local tough hills I have always heard about but never before attempted. This Memorial Day ride was going to take me out through Vista and San Marcos, up to San Elijo Hills via Twin Oaks Valley Rd. -the main climb of the ride which is about 2 miles long averaging 8% grade- then down to Carlsbad and back up the coast home. Ended up being about 37 miles with 2200 feet of climb total.
Before I got to the good challenging bits though, at about mile 10, I checked off ‘crashing a road bike’ from my new experiences list.
Yep, the third ride on my new steed and I already laid it down.
I stopped at a train crossing on Santa Fe in Vista. When the crossing gates went up I clipped back in and started to ride. As I got going, I noticed that the bike lane took a hard right and routed onto a sidewalk away from the road and proceeded down to the cross walk at the next intersection. I thought, “I wonder why they did that? Oh well, too late to make the turn now” and I continued down the road with traffic on my left.
Suddenly I understood exactly why they did that, as I found myself skidding across the road. “They” being the smarter-than-me civil engineers, made it so the bike path crosses the tracks at a right/perpendicular angle because the tracks cross the road in more of a leisurely juxtaposed/parallel-ish fashion that might be dangerous for a skinny-wheeled road bike to cross.
But before I could process that thought, I was horizontally collecting roadrash on my elbow, hip and ankle. Thankfully, I took the brunt of the spill; other than some scuffs on the front rim that got stuck in the track groove, scratches on the shifter hood and some torn bartape, I didn’t find any other damage on the new bike. And with only light bruising, mostly to the ego, I was able to continue on and finish the ride.
Overall, I think the experience was positive; I got my first roadie crash out of the way and I rode away filled with gratitude because unlike the many we honor on this day, I came home from a combat deployment unscathed and able to enjoy a beautiful day of freedom on my bicycle.