The Long Pause
I haven't posted for several weeks because my computer has broken and news from Chris has in any case been far more thrilling than anything I can recount. The life of the injured cyclist in Alcoy involves a lot of time staring at the wall.
The knee situation, in summary: I have been diligently following my physical therapy exercise regimen, in addition to icing and stretching three times daily. For the first month in Alcoy, I rode from one half hour to three hours six days a week, for the most part easy spinning rides, usually alone. All seemed to being going well until last week when I began to notice an acute muscle pain in the vastus internus, the inner quadriceps. Luckily, my services were conveniently required starting on Thursday as mechanic for Jose's team at the Vuelta Cartagena in Murcia. Since the muscular pain is a result of building muscle too quickly and intensely, I needed a week of rest (translation: boredom). The tour provided the perfect distraction for me. On Saturday and Sunday I returned to light training without any trouble. Today I went to the physical therapist and he looked me over. The pain I still have around the entry points of my surgery is still noticeable, and that is normal. The slight tendinitis I have at the base of my knee cap is a result of the quadriceps being overstressed and should go away, so long as i can 'walk the tightrope' as they say, between under-activity and over-activity. The PT has been doing some variation of acupuncture needlework which seems to be helping as well.
The next ten days' forecast calls for rain and more rain. One day of rain is frustrating because typically you spend an equal amount of time cleaning the bike as you do training on the bike. Ten days in a row is rather fun because you can say the hell with it until that last day of rain comes to pass, in the mean time playing in the mud and road grit like a little kid with goulashes. A messy, cold wetness heightens the ever-present sense of abandon and letting-go you feel training through small olive grove roads and mountain passes, even in hot and dry conditions. There's a thrill to indulging in the basic mythical fantasy of sport, to withdraw into the sub-world of athletic metaphor where lactate threshold becomes your capacity for brute-like survival and the mountain is the dangerous predator. The rain drizzling stirs up this fun of pretending, though coming back to a cold apartment without a warm meal prepared or a hot shower isn't quite as romantic.
Other than that, not too much to report. A lot of my time is taken up by reading. Here's what I've made it through so far:
"In The Absence of The Sacred: The Failure of Technology and The Survival of the Indian Nations" by Jerry Mander
"Waiting For The Barbarians" by J.M. Coetzee
"Steppenwolf" by Herman Hesse
"Walden" by Thoreau
"The Sweet Hereafter" by Russell Banks
"The People of Paper" by Salvador Plascencia
"The Tao of Architecture" by Chang
and currently, "Absalom, Absalom" y Faulkner
-Sam
The knee situation, in summary: I have been diligently following my physical therapy exercise regimen, in addition to icing and stretching three times daily. For the first month in Alcoy, I rode from one half hour to three hours six days a week, for the most part easy spinning rides, usually alone. All seemed to being going well until last week when I began to notice an acute muscle pain in the vastus internus, the inner quadriceps. Luckily, my services were conveniently required starting on Thursday as mechanic for Jose's team at the Vuelta Cartagena in Murcia. Since the muscular pain is a result of building muscle too quickly and intensely, I needed a week of rest (translation: boredom). The tour provided the perfect distraction for me. On Saturday and Sunday I returned to light training without any trouble. Today I went to the physical therapist and he looked me over. The pain I still have around the entry points of my surgery is still noticeable, and that is normal. The slight tendinitis I have at the base of my knee cap is a result of the quadriceps being overstressed and should go away, so long as i can 'walk the tightrope' as they say, between under-activity and over-activity. The PT has been doing some variation of acupuncture needlework which seems to be helping as well.
The next ten days' forecast calls for rain and more rain. One day of rain is frustrating because typically you spend an equal amount of time cleaning the bike as you do training on the bike. Ten days in a row is rather fun because you can say the hell with it until that last day of rain comes to pass, in the mean time playing in the mud and road grit like a little kid with goulashes. A messy, cold wetness heightens the ever-present sense of abandon and letting-go you feel training through small olive grove roads and mountain passes, even in hot and dry conditions. There's a thrill to indulging in the basic mythical fantasy of sport, to withdraw into the sub-world of athletic metaphor where lactate threshold becomes your capacity for brute-like survival and the mountain is the dangerous predator. The rain drizzling stirs up this fun of pretending, though coming back to a cold apartment without a warm meal prepared or a hot shower isn't quite as romantic.
Other than that, not too much to report. A lot of my time is taken up by reading. Here's what I've made it through so far:
"In The Absence of The Sacred: The Failure of Technology and The Survival of the Indian Nations" by Jerry Mander
"Waiting For The Barbarians" by J.M. Coetzee
"Steppenwolf" by Herman Hesse
"Walden" by Thoreau
"The Sweet Hereafter" by Russell Banks
"The People of Paper" by Salvador Plascencia
"The Tao of Architecture" by Chang
and currently, "Absalom, Absalom" y Faulkner
-Sam
posted by samwise at 12:24 PM
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