Spoke Too Soon!

So I thought my back was 100% and pushed a bit too much and had a small setback. It’s been quite humbling to say the least. I came back from my travels to a small snow storm, and shoveled the bottom of my driveway out. It was that thick, heavy ice and snow that the town plow dumps at the foot of your driveway. Then, I built a snowman with the kids. We made a mega-snowman, and the middle snowball, I guess this would classify as the snowman’s torso, weighed over 100 pounds. Later that day, my back began to ache. The next couple of days it was sore. Nothing like it was before, but enough to let me know that I’m still not fully healed yet, and to be smarter.

I’m not used to this injury bullshit, but, it happens. I was in seeing Paul Moyse, my chiropractor, when he mentioned to me that I may be susceptible to SI pulls now, and I cut him off with a “I’m not buying that Paul”, which lead to a fun debate. My philosophy is that there is an imbalance that is making me susceptible to this, and I’ll correct that imbalance and be healthy again. I feel too many settle for this diagnosis that they may be susceptible to certain injuries since one may have occurred initially. The injuries keep reoccurring because either they aren’t healed yet, and/or they haven’t corrected the imbalance.

I iced a bunch and kept training, but kept the intensity easy, and it began to get better again quickly. Then I did a hilly long run on Sunday and hill repeats on Tuesday and, guess what? Yes, it’s aching again. So from now until Tucson camp on March 17th, I will keep the intensity of my training on the easy side.

I’m looking forward to the Tucson camp. I’ve never been there before but the area looks very cool, and like a training paradise. I am bringing out my new road bike to try – my new Cannondale System Six. It should be fun. It’s the same one I’ll be riding in France this summer. My wife is up for “wife of the year”. She’s taking me to France for my fortieth birthday. We will be following the last 10 days of the Tour. I will get to ride the stages each morning, since the stages don’t start until noon or one o’clock. I’ll be riding up many of the climbs made famous by this amazing race. We will see the finish in Paris before flying home. This trip was on my list of “five trips to do before I die”, and Lisa didn’t even know this since I made this list over ten years ago and tucked it away.

Back to the Tucson camp; I’ll be blogging quite often, and I’ll try to post pictures daily on my site as well. We have a very busy agenda – without giving too much away, we’ll be riding about 26 hours in seven days! I’ll try to get some of my tired campers to post some stories or journals as well.

A few more movies I’ve been viewing during my ct rides: Babel – good flick. Everyone compares it to Crash, and in my opinion, Crash blows it away. Babel is a tough one to concentrate on when your heart rate is at 140 bpm. However, the movie with Kevin Costner and the skinny kid from “That 70’s Show” – Mr. Demi Moore, about rescue swimmers was a decent training ride movie. Mr. Demim Moore is really a terrible actor, but the ocean rescue scenes were cool and intense.

Cheers,

EH