Learning to Acknowledge Pain

We had our regular group of Saturday riders join us today. The route du jour is a new route on familiar roads. Pete spliced together the Woman Hollering Creek ride with the start of the Cibolo ride and came up with a 40ish mile route. I was looking forward to increasing my mileage this week and having a good weekend of riding.


I've been reading the Lance Armstrong book slowly, this week and learned a lot about how cyclists don't just train by riding. They also train themselves to ignore the pains of riding a bike so hard, so long, and so far. As I started to feel some pain today in my left hip, I told myself, "buck up and deal with the pain. Quit whining about the couple of hills. The first rest point isn't much further." A mile later, we make the final turn before the gas station where we take a break, and all I can think is "how much further?" So, I holler out to Pete and ask since I know he has the route mapped on his GPS. He tells me it's about another 3/4 of a mile. I make a sigh of relief as I look at the skyline for the sign along the highway. Thankfully, I see it in the distance and latch on to that bit of hope.

I decide to take it easy and just get there. About half a mile later, I reach to shift down a gear and find that I can't. I don't know if I was tired or my hand was in pain, but this was the point that broke me today. I realized how much pain I was in, I felt broken, and I just was not having any fun.

I pulled into the parking lot and spotted the group stopped along side a short wall. Good! I knew I needed to sit down and didn't know if I'd be able get back up if I just sat down on the ground. Now I could sit on the wall. I pulled in behind the group, but stayed back a bit to have some space for me to figure out what was going on. I stopped the bike, got off and sat on the edge of the wall. I quickly wiped my face of sweat, tears, and snot. I took some deep breaths and some sips of water as I tried to stretch out my legs and my aching hip. I saw Pete's legs come walking over and I confessed my pain. He offered to let me rest and go get the truck. I thought about it for a second and told him I thought I could make it back on my own, but I couldn't go any further out. After all, we've only gone 11.75 miles. If I go slow and stop when I need a rest or a stretch and just take my time, I can handle another 12 miles.

Erica quickly offers to ride back with me. I'm appreciative of the offer and that I don't have to ask. I know she'll ride as slow as I need to and won't complain if I make too many stops. Pete talks us through the quickest, flattest, and best surface route to get us back to the truck. I'm confident I know the way and so is Erica. We bid the others a safe ride as they head out. Erica asks me if I've had a Gu, and I realize I haven't addressed my energy level on this break. I have a quick Gu while she finishes her energy bar and then we head out.

I remember how much I dislike access road surfaces on a bike and am thankful Pete gave us a better route option so we're off this surface as quickly as possible. We cross I-10 and turn onto Partnership Road. This road is truly only a single lane road. The surface is questionable, but if you can avoid the bumps and holes, it's worth the scenery. You are truly riding through the middle of fields. The road twists and turns and you cannot see it's path through the fields until it's right in front of you. There seems to be a recent attempt to fill in some of the holes so we are dealing with some loose gravel on the road too.

Our directions were to turn right onto Santa Clara when Partnership comes to a T at Santa Clara. Partnership came to a T, there was no street sign, but I knew the direction was to turn right, so I did. We get to the overpass of I-10 and I know we're not on Santa Clara for two reasons. One, the overpass is a lower incline over the highway; and two, the speedway is not at the intersection of the overpass and I-10. I quickly read the signs and realize we are on highway 465. I figure we have two options, we can continue down the highway and make a left turn onto familiar Lower Seguin, or we can get on the access road along I-10 to Santa Clara and get back on track. Erica and I stop to discuss and we decide we can explore 465 and at least we know we have a good downhill and then know where to turn.

It's a great downhill with a smooth surface and we lucked out with no traffic approaching in either direction for the hill. I enjoy the downhill and reach a top speed of 31 mph. I begin watching for the left turn, but can't seem to find a road on the left. Suddenly, out of nowhere, there's a road. Again, no street sign and the stop sign that might have been a clue is set so far back on the side road that it was hidden from my view by a tree. We make the turn and enjoy the shade a bit. Suddenly, we discover a cemetery on our right that we've never seen before. We've ridden past here, but always in the opposite direction. The largest tombstone is large enough and clean enough that we can make out the name "Zuehl". That's the name of a road we also ride on. Interesting. There are a lot of mini cemeteries in this area. It might be fun to explore them, maybe even make a recreational bike "tour" together to see some of them up close one of these days.

Erica and I keep each other moving and stop in the shade when we feel like we (or I, to be honest) need it. For the first time ever, I get hungry on the ride, so we stop so I can eat part of a Clif bar. The heat is getting to me and it becomes a mental thing to finish the ride. I slow down a bit and am excited when we turn for the home stretch and have a tail wind. We arrive back at the truck and take our time unloading our gear. As we finish up, I look up and Pete and Tom come rolling in to the parking lot. I know we were slow, but wow! They made great time! Come to find out, they cut their route short and only did about 30 miles. The timing was perfect.

I hope I get all of my bad rides of the year out of my system before October. I'm glad that I'm able to admit to my riding buddies that I can't finish and need to turn back. I figure it's part of being humble enough to accept when you need a SAG wagon ride for the big event. I think it's also part of recognizing that you may not realize the extent of all of your injuries from a fall/crash. I truly feel the pain in my hip was courtesy of my Thursday crash. I'll be able to rest up and heal this week as we go sailing and can't ride. I was worried about the break, but I'm now ready for it and glad I had the crash before the trip and not after.

Goals
Today's Miles: 25.5
Total Miles Achieved: 609.4
Financial Investment: $1781.14
Total Weight Loss: -2.8