If you haven't noticed, I've been avoiding following up my 2008 Race Results post with my 2009 Season Plan because my knee has been acting up lately. I'm hoping it's just something acute like an early season flare up or being slightly out of fit on HiFi, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't deep in a pit of despair.
Actually, it has been horrible day. I worked today and yesterday which consisted of 6 hours of sitting in cramped quarters without being able to move, much less stretch. My entire left leg was in pain, but the patella was the worst. It was the achy pain of old injury, scar tissue, and nerve damage. The kind that leaves the leg perfectly functional, but never lets you forget things aren't right.
The pain fuels voices of doubt echoing in my head which say "Ha, Sucka your never going to move up!", "Your never gonna race again!!", or "You suck, why to you even own a bike!?"
It takes every bit of resilience I can muster to disbelieve them and stay focused on the positive. Speaking of which, on Tuesday I have an appointment with arguably the best cycling specialist in the world. This is a rare opportunity I should be grateful for. (I am!) We have a history and although he hasn't been able to offer a clear answer yet, perhaps this time things will be different. Maybe this new pain will offer a clue.
Racing is much more a mental act than a physical act. If I do make it out on a race course this year I can promise that every single second of doubt, despair or anguish I have ever felt about my knee will be used to fuel intense determination that will be taken out on the race course and anyone who happens to be competing against me.
It's there already, waiting to be unleashed, but the time is not right. For now I will file it away, letting it slowly grow so I have it when I need it. Maybe the pit of despair serves a purpose. Maybe it's days like today that keep me going when it's too cold, when sun goes down, when the climb never ends, and when all I want to do is quit. Or maybe that's how I got in this situation in the first place! Hmm... Either way I'm here now and my immediate job is not to over do things, to stretch, and to keep pursuing a solution for my pain - mental and physical.
In truth, satire is my ladder out of the pit of despair and I wrote this post more for my own benefit than for yours. So keeping in line with that theme, the following couldn't be a more truthful satire of my blog. Even the picture is fitting!
Plug: Check out http://www.dispair.com/ for more hilarious demotivational posters.
Actually, it has been horrible day. I worked today and yesterday which consisted of 6 hours of sitting in cramped quarters without being able to move, much less stretch. My entire left leg was in pain, but the patella was the worst. It was the achy pain of old injury, scar tissue, and nerve damage. The kind that leaves the leg perfectly functional, but never lets you forget things aren't right.
The pain fuels voices of doubt echoing in my head which say "Ha, Sucka your never going to move up!", "Your never gonna race again!!", or "You suck, why to you even own a bike!?"
It takes every bit of resilience I can muster to disbelieve them and stay focused on the positive. Speaking of which, on Tuesday I have an appointment with arguably the best cycling specialist in the world. This is a rare opportunity I should be grateful for. (I am!) We have a history and although he hasn't been able to offer a clear answer yet, perhaps this time things will be different. Maybe this new pain will offer a clue.
Racing is much more a mental act than a physical act. If I do make it out on a race course this year I can promise that every single second of doubt, despair or anguish I have ever felt about my knee will be used to fuel intense determination that will be taken out on the race course and anyone who happens to be competing against me.
It's there already, waiting to be unleashed, but the time is not right. For now I will file it away, letting it slowly grow so I have it when I need it. Maybe the pit of despair serves a purpose. Maybe it's days like today that keep me going when it's too cold, when sun goes down, when the climb never ends, and when all I want to do is quit. Or maybe that's how I got in this situation in the first place! Hmm... Either way I'm here now and my immediate job is not to over do things, to stretch, and to keep pursuing a solution for my pain - mental and physical.
In truth, satire is my ladder out of the pit of despair and I wrote this post more for my own benefit than for yours. So keeping in line with that theme, the following couldn't be a more truthful satire of my blog. Even the picture is fitting!
Plug: Check out http://www.dispair.com/ for more hilarious demotivational posters.
2 comments:
I hope you feel better Alex.
I think there is now one more thing that is a bigger time suck than blogging: Twitter. Or maybe even facebook. At any rate there are a lot of healthy people sitting on their butts on a computer who could be outside doing something healthy. I just hope you can get to be one of the outside people.
believe me when i say i feel your pain.
i was playing tennis at the pro level. a milisecond laps of judgement on a motocross bike, one highside and a severed ACL later i still feel the pain and think about it every day, many years later.
i'd like to say it get's easier. all i can say for sure is that it slows you down and changes both your reality and your perspective on life. learn to adapt, and find pleasure and meaning in other ways with the same intensity and drive.
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