Vitamin G

The last few months that I lived in Boston I had problems with my IT band. I'd go for a ride and within 5-10 miles I'd have terrible pain on the outside of my left knee. At first I thought it was a saddle height/setback issue, so I moved the saddle up, down, and all around, but nothing worked. After doing some internet research, the description of IT band syndrome sounded pretty fitting. I ended up doing a lot of specific stretching and took about three weeks off the bike completely. Thus ended the year 2007 for me.

New year's Day 2008 found me in a new city (Tuscaloosa, AL) with a renewed vigor for riding. I started off the year with a few easy, very short rides (less than 15 miles) because I didn't want to overdo it. The time off seems to have worked, because my knee has been holding up fine after about 450 miles thus far this year.

A new year also brings new goals bike-wise:

1. I'd like to do some races and have decent results. I'll start as a 5, and depending on my fitness/drive/schedule, I should be able to move up to a 4 within a reasonable amount of time.

2. I'd like to end the year with an average of 25 miles/day, which works out to 9150 miles total. in 2005 I did 10, 209 miles, so i know it's possible to ride those sorts of miles. Let's just hope that grad school doesn't get in the way too much (or should my priorities be reversed? Who knows?). The last few years I've come to the realization that I have more of an interest in riding long hours than training and racing (this may complicate goal #1), so we'll see what happens.

3. I'd like to include more gravel/dirt roads into my riding. More rides need to be considered "epic" when they're done.

4. I need to work more on my capacity for suffering. I'm not sure if that means I need to do hours upon hours of hill repeats, but I think a large part of climbing better is being able to overlook the pain in your legs and the desire to climb off the bike. Or maybe I have some sort of weird residual Catholic guilt/suffering issues. Who knows?
















"When I attack, I try to psychologically destroy my rivals, who never know how far I can go. It's certainly hard to bear the responsibility of blowing the race apart everytime, just as it's hard to tackle a mountain when you know the suffering that's around the corner."

Marco Pantani (1970-2004)


RIP Marco.