Category: Personal

It’s about the time of year that I should be posting something about my spring long-distance ride, as I did in 2015 and 2016. Unfortunately, though, I won’t be able to do the ride this year, and may not be doing distance rides for some time; perhaps never again.

Last October I rode in the 2016 Valero Ride to the River, which was a full century (100 miles) on Saturday, and then a “short” 38-mile ride on Sunday. I was surprised at how strong I felt that weekend – it seemed that all my training had paid off! However, I was even more surprised a few weeks later when I woke up and couldn’t bend my left thumb easily. When I did bend it, there was a very noticeable clicking I felt in the muscles and/or tendons. A quick search on Google showed that I had a case of “Trigger Thumb” (also called “Trigger Finger”). I saw my orthopaedist about it, as well as a hand specialist, and after several treatments (and several months of exercise and naproxen) the clicking finally subsided, and I regained normal use of my thumb. But unfortunately, the consensus of the doctors was that bike riding was the culprit, since it involves a pressure on that part of my hand in the normal riding position, and is especially bad on rough roads that I frequently had to deal with. Yeah, I know all about recumbent bikes, but that just seems too sad to contemplate now. And hey, if anyone knows a good metal worker who might be able to build a custom set of handlebars, I have some ideas on how to change them to reduce the pressure on the hands.

So why did I title this post “Inevitable”? Because of the underlying cause of the condition: osteoarthritis. I had been first diagnosed with arthritis about 20 years ago, and with each subsequent joint problem, my doctors have pretty much told me to resign myself to it, as I seem to have a natural tendency for my joints to get arthritic. When I was examined for my trigger thumb, the x-rays showed a great deal of underlying arthritis in my thumb joint, which probably made the irritation to the tendons worse. And this wasn’t the first time I got such a diagnosis.

Back in my 20s and 30s, I played a lot of tennis. I was pretty good, too, playing at a solid 4.5 rating. However, I noticed soreness in my shoulder when serving or hitting overheads. As many of my fellow tennis players had rotator cuff injuries that seemed to match my symptoms, I assumed that it was something fixable. But after visiting the doctor, he said my rotator cuff was just fine; rather, I had arthritis in my shoulder. There was no treatment except anti-inflammatory drugs and rest (i.e., not playing tennis). I tried to adjust, but even after some time off it didn’t get better. So I gave up tennis.

Right about that time, my sons had progressed in the soccer world so that they were much better than my ability to coach them. I loved being in the game, so I got my referee badge and did several games a week to keep in shape. I figured that if I could keep up on the pitch with 17-year-olds, I wasn’t too far over the hill!

I had had surgery back in 1992 to repair a torn meniscus in my knee (tennis injury, of course!), but after a couple of years of reffing, I had to have 2 more surgeries, one on each knee. When my left knee started bothering me a couple of years ago, I assumed that I needed yet another surgery to clean it up, but my doctor said that there was no more cartilage left there, and that the pain I was feeling was arthritis. Again, I could take anti-inflammatories to relieve some of the pain, but there was nothing I could do to “fix” this. He advised reducing impact to my knees, so that’s when I started cycling seriously. Now that I have to greatly reduce my cycling, I don’t have a lot of options left. I go to the gym and use the elliptical machine, but that’s not even close to doing some real activity. I did go hiking in Big Bend National Park last weekend, and was pleasantly surprised that my knees and hip didn’t complain very much. Oh, didn’t I mention that I also have arthritis in my hip?

So I don’t know where I’ll turn next. I do know that sitting on my butt is not an option. Maybe knee replacement? And/or hip replacement? Geez, I’m a few months shy of 60, and that seems awfully young to be trading out body parts. So I guess it’s off to work on modified handlebar designs for my bike…

The Valero Ride to the River is a two-day cycling event to raise money for research for a cure for Multiple Sclerosis. This was the third time I’ve ridden in it, but what made this year different is that this is the first time that Mother Nature didn’t completely wash out one of the days. We had gorgeous weather, with temperatures cool in the morning, and only climbing to the low 80sF (around 25-27C) in the afternoon.

 

The ride starts in San Antonio, and wanders east and north until it reaches New Braunfels. This route is about 71 miles, but near the end there is a choice: turn left, and finish your ride. Or, you can turn right, and go up the Guadalupe River for 15 miles, turn around, and return back, making the total ride 100 miles. As I had done a full century on my last ride, I didn’t feel the need to push myself to prove anything. I had told everyone that I was only doing the 71. But as the ride progressed, I continued to feel fresh. This was most likely due to the very mild weather: temperatures never rose very high, and there were enough clouds so that you weren’t baking in the sun the entire time. By the time I reached the lunch rest stop (50 miles in), I started thinking seriously about going for the century, but I told my wife I’d wait until the last rest stop before the decision point.

 

When I reached that stop, at around mile 65, I knew that I wanted to do the full century. I remembered the only other time that I did this course, and what a struggle those last 30 miles were, so I braced myself for the ride. I was very surprised to find that, while definitely an effort, it was nowhere near as exhausting as it had been the previous time. Either they smoothed the hills out, or I was in much better shape! ? So while I didn’t set any speed records, I finished the century much easier than my previous two. Here’s the record of my ride, thanks to the Runkeeper app.

 

 

The next day offered a choice of two looping routes: 61 miles or 38 miles through the Texas Hill Country. I had done the 61 mile route a couple of years ago, and remembered how grueling the hills were on that ride, so I chose to only do the 38. For comparison, the route for Day 1 was through areas to the east of San Antonio, which is relatively flat. I had about 4,300′ of total climb (43 ft/mile). This route took us to the northwest of New Braunfels, which is much hillier by far. The total climb was about 2,700′, or over 71 ft/mile! And as you can see from the graph below, most of that climb was in the first half of the ride. There isn’t much else to say about the Day 2 ride. The weather was once again perfect, and while the ride was difficult at times, it felt good overall. Here’s the Runkeeper summary for Day 2.

Of course, I can’t take all the credit. The ride was extremely well-organized by the MS Society, with well-staffed rest stops every 12-15 miles. They also arranged for police support for traffic management, so that riders didn’t get stuck (or struck!) at busy intersections. My belated apologies to the drivers who were made to wait while 2,000 riders passed through!

I also don’t think I would have been able to accomplish this without the loving support of my wife Linda, who gives me the motivation to stay healthy so that I can live a long life with her! Three years ago I thought it was a pretty amazing accomplishment to complete a century at age 55, but now to have done two centuries this year at age 58 is really more than I ever expected to achieve, and I have Linda to thank for that.