Outside

River's high

Last Saturday was my first day outside, on the bike, since April 2. I knew from past experience that it would be a little uncomfortable, but by then I felt the expected level of discomfort would probably be no higher than that of another hour on the indoor trainer. The typical time everyone always gives for bones to more or less heal is six weeks. Saturday was three weeks and two days, so some compromises and adaptations were definitely in order. Top priority was to not fall down, of course, but not doing more harm than good was right up there too. Fortunately, I had the 'Cross bike, currently shod with 36 mm gravel tires, and set up for a much more upright position than the Bianchi, to fall back on. The bike currently has a Redshift "shockstop" suspension stem on it, since I'd been thinking of doing a little gravel riding if I could ever find anything nearby that was worth it. So I put about 40 psi in the tires, and stepped out the door around 6:30 am, aka sunrise, on Saturday. Under the circumstances, riding in the dark is just needlessly throwing another unknown variable into the equation, especially since I would be riding alone and didn't have to worry about meeting a group or anything like that.

Not knowing which of the local streets may have been torn up or re-paved over the past few weeks, and not knowing how my shoulder was going to respond to every little bump in the road, I decided to play it safe and take Neron to Short to St. Charles to Burdette so I could cross the railroad tracks at the Corps of Engineers entrance and avoid the unknown condition of Willow and/or Oak Streets. I probably averaged 10 mph at best. The shoulder still aches when my right arm is on the bars, and even more when I lift it off the bars, and as expected I could feel every little bump in the road despite the relatively cushy tires and upright position. Still, it wasn't really much worse than being on the indoor trainer in that regard. The weather was practically perfect, which seems to be the status quo since I was injured, of course, so I ended up riding all the way out to the upriver end of Jefferson, where the levee bike path is still closed. The river is just below flood stage this week, and they've opened a little bit of the Spillway already, but it looks like the level will drop next week. On the plus side, the flooded batture attracts a lot of wildlife. On my two rides up there, Saturday and Monday, I have seen two or three eagles, a rather big alligator, a snake swimming in water, at least three types of herons, some killdeer, and occasionally some humans.

These rides are not steady, or fast, and any actual training benefit is minimal. It's more about getting comfortable on the bike and moving my legs at this point. Interestingly, riding with my hands on the drops does not seem to hurt any more than in other positions, although I spend most of my time with my hands on the tops and probably 70% of my weight on my left hand. Every couple of miles I move my right hand to the top of my thigh, which immediately relieves the otherwise ever-present dull ache. As a result, I see my speed and heart rate kind of all over the place as I shift hand positions and, occasionally, sit up entirely with both hands off the bars. Anyway, I guess it was a successful experiment in that it confirmed that I could handle being on the bike for an hour and a half without too much of a problem.

Sunday's weather was also nearly perfect, so I decided to make my way to Starbucks for the start of the Sunday Giro. I planned to ride with the group, carefully, on the Lakeshore Drive warmup segment, and then turn back at the Armory loop. That worked out nicely, so I put in a few extra easy miles on Lakeshore Drive before heading back home. It was still early on a Sunday morning on my way back, so I didn't have much traffic to deal with.

This morning I did another easy levee ride, which felt pretty much the same as the last one. Progress at this point is really slow and hardly noticeable on a day-to-day basis. What I am noticing is the return of my more usual aches and pains in my back and neck, probably made a little worse for lack of use. My right elbow occasionally hurts, but hopefully I won't end up with epicondylitis from lack of use like I did with one of my collarbone breaks. Also, the 'Cross bike just seems so slow and heavy compared to my regular road bike. The mountain bike shoes don't help in that regard, either. So I guess I will continue with this routine for the week and see how things are feeling on Friday. 

This is always such a balancing act.