Giddyup

Yesterday I had probably the best ride I've had since last year's Prouty in July. 60+ miles from Goffstown, out to New Boston, Bennington, Antrim, looping back through Weare. 3000+ feet of climbing, and I was just wailing on every single climb. On one effin' gear. As the ride wore on, my legs were definitely less and less reliable, but I was completely and totally abusive to them. So what the hell gives? Why all of a sudden am I riding like this?

1. Weather was super cooperative. Mix of sun and clouds, a little warm at times, but when the mild winds weren't holding you back, they were cooling you off.
   
2. Breathing during hard efforts. Focusing on breathing is a great trick that Grampie showed me a few rides ago. Just get the air solidly in and out. It distracts you from everything else and gives your body the only thing it can really use during super hard efforts: oxygen.
3. Strategy: when the going gets hard, go hard. I think this nugget of wisdom came from Joey Adams. Commit to the effort. When the hard efforts are done, recover your heart rate. On this bike I can go deep into the well of zone 5, but come out in zone 0 after the dust clears.
4. FUEL. Sarah Crane gave me everything I needed here. Don't eat shit you can't use, period. Gels convert easily to energy. Solid foods end up sitting in your stomach and rob you of energy while they digest. Judicious use of Powerbar gels, plus a magical Everything Bagel+OJ breakfast made me feel almost unstoppable. My only solid food was a tiny can of Pringles, probably at the halfway point, when the going was fairly easy.
5. Core strength. It's coming back. I've been doing regular work on this, and yesterday some new friends came to the party. And hopefully more are on the way.
   

That was probably my last big ride for a few weeks; I'm away for work-related training soon, so it will be kind of a mixed bag of cross training until mid-June.

I'm pretty encouraged today. Maybe I'm out of the woods now. What I really need is another effort up Kearsarge to see where I'm really at this year in terms of climbing. If I'm solid up there, then we're in business.

In a funk

I'm still over a month away from my visit with the neurologist. That appointment won't come soon enough. I'm starting to go crazy. It's not like I'm expecting some kind of magic diagnosis or miracle solution to the way I've been feeling. I guess I just want to know, definitively, whether or not being so damn tired is something I can control, or if it's influenced by something that I can't.

I've been rubber-banding big time. I have these huge efforts on the weekends, and then I have absolutely zero energy for days on end. There's no balance whatsoever. Now that I'm unable to mountain bike on Wednesdays or race in Loudon on Thursdays, I'm missing a lot of structure to help keep me fit. I'm gaining weight. It's nearly June, and I'm in a pretty substantial hole already. At least 15 pounds.

I'm starting to think that running again might have to be my way out of this. Which had me thinking about 2005, when I was running almost every single day of the week for months on end. How is it that "back then" I could sustain that effort, and today I can hardly get out of bed? It has to be consistency and moderation in effort. Has to be. My diet is probably better now than it was back then; that can't be it. My level of stress really hasn't changed one way or the other. And it's not like I didn't have hard efforts back then. Somehow the schedule of regular, balanced exercise levels things out?

Unfortunately, and this is why I need this neuro consult so badly, is that the only other variable not present in 2005 are three concussions. The more I think about this the more frustrated I get. Even last spring I had great energy, but even then, that was two less concussions ago. I'm going nuts. I need this issue put to bed.

If I haven't mentioned it already, self-hypnosis is very beneficial in so many ways, but particularly for keeping me sane throughout this process. I need to do it more consistently because I'm starting to crack. Like anything it needs to be a routine.

I think I'm doing the Okemo hillclimb in June. I need to get back into a climbing routine; it's just a matter of feeling up to it.

100 Miles of Nowhere

The stage was set for an epic battle between Andy and I for the title of Manchester or Possibly all of New Hampshire Winner of The 2009 Fat Cyclist 100 Miles of Nowhere. Who would win the race to 100 miles. 100 miles, in a trainer, as fast as possible. Saddled up on our trainers, the resistance completely off, under the shade of the Keniston family garage, who would be the victor today. Andy brought his venerable triple to the party; I out of sheer laziness left my compact on. This would prove costly for certain. Before a single pedal stroke is made, Sheldon Brown makes the disparity quite clear:

With the advantage only growing for the 52t triple ring as the RPMs increase, my work was cut out. Ample nutrition was positioned on a table between us. No one would starve today. The DVD was on the fritz, leaving us with VHS to light the way to 100 miles. Revenge of the Nerds inserted, we were off at 8:36AM.

Right away I'm totally screwed. Normal rules make no sense in the 100 Miles of Nowhere. I am spinning well north of 100rpm; absolute concentration is required to synchronize with the pawls in the freewheel and actually feel like you are doing work. My wheel setup is much lighter than Andy's, but this would not be an advantage today. Andy's greater rotating wheel mass, plus his taller gearing combined with pure raw ability to go nowhere make him a dynamo. My greatest short-burst effort put the wheel north of 66mph; Andy completely obliterates this mark as he tops out at an incredible 72.8mph.

Somewhat level during Revenge of the Nerds, Billy Madison was up next and Andy was in his wheelhouse, pulling away with each passing minute. My feeding strategy was sound, but could I overcome my sheer mechanical disadvantage, digging deep into my vast reservoir of experience and tap into my ability to endure tremendous physical and emotional suffering? Absolutely! Not. With my compact, I've brought a knife to a gun fight, and Andy beats me handily by a 10 mile margin. The Keniston family is made proud today in the final statistics:

Andy
100 miles
2:39 min
37.2mph avg (max 72.8)
65 avg cadence (max 190)

Chris
100 miles
2:52 min
34.9 mpg avg (max 66.1)
97 avg cadence (max 156)

2009 Crank the Kanc

Photo: Moat Mountain Photography

1:33:26. Better than last year by a minute and a half - a good race for me. The past week was a complete rollercoaster. Exactly one week before the race I was an overmedicated zombie that spent the entire day under a down comforter in bed. The week had ups and downs, but more downs, and Friday I felt absolutely awful. Very tired, nauseous, and I drove up early just to nap at the hotel. Which I did, followed by a pretty awesome meal and about nine hours of sleep. I woke up Saturday and needed no convincing - I felt very fresh and was definitely okay to race. Weather was coolish to warmish and cooperative. At least I wouldn't melt today.

I went off 30 seconds ahead of Grampie, and gave it everything I could without blowing up early. Last year I gave up all of my time to him on these "flatter" first 16 miles, and I knew I had to do everything I could to hold him off. Almost, but not quite enough. He finally nipped me around mile 12 or 13, and from there it was just a matter of trying to keep him in sight on the 5 mile climb. I did what I could there, but didn't have a snappy climb at all. My legs didn't have it, and who knows if this extra weight was helping matters. I went all in with one mile to go; probably one mile too late. I finished like an animal but in the end was 2:21 off Grampie's pace to take 2nd in the singlespeed category. Matty Stoller came out of the ether to post a respectable 1:45 for third. Only three of us braved the race on one gear this year. "You guys are CRAZY" proclaimed Phil Ostroski at the award ceremony. I agree. This race is so damn hard riding it this way.

Avg HR: 175 mile 1-16, 180 mile 17-21. Need some time to think about that one.
Max HR: 197. New high.
Avg/Max Spd: 13.5/21.0 - 21mph on an 42x18t singlespeed really isn't too bad.
Avg/Max Cadence: 76/115 - I used 180mm cranks this year. They're whatever.

I had hoped to go under 1:30 this year and really felt like it could happen as I motored the first 16 miles, but I only made up a little over a minute there. On the climb I only reeled in 12 seconds. Even still, I'm very happy with that. This year has already been crazy.

Training plan you will not find in Chris Charmichael's next book:

SAT: Bedridden zombie state due to medication reaction
SUN: See Saturday
MON: Very dizzy; Dr. appointment; 45 minute light spin
TUE: Less dizzy; MRI; Mow the lawn
WED: Dr. followup; 80 minute light spin
THU: Veg
FRI: Drive an hour to work, then 2 hours north to the hotel
SAT: Race!

Hopefully it's all in the rearview at this point and I can get on with the season.

Thanks for reading and keep reading. cp

iffy

Crank the Kanc is tomorrow, and I'm heading up tonight. I'm 50/50 about racing tomorrow. Tuesday I felt really good energy-wise, but the last two days have been tough. Some quality sleep, but lots of disruptions. I'm planning to go up today, take a nap at the hotel, and then call it an early night and see how I feel tomorrow morning. I know that physically, I'm right on. I had a great spin Monday, and a great 1:20 flat road ride on Wednesday. I'll put some rest in the bank and see how it goes I guess. It won't break my heart if I wake up tomorrow and just don't have it.

I have the Langster dialed in and have the weight down to 17.1 pounds. Pretty good. If I spend hundreds of dollars I could get it in the 16s. So 17.1 it is. Going to run the 42x18 again - the 42x16 I would only ever entertain if I were feeling super super fresh, and this ain't the time.

This morning I think I weighed in at 187.2. Exactly one year ago to the day, I weighed 173 pounds. Those extra 14 pounds are somewhere. If you ask Grampie and Paulie, they've formed a bubble around my ass. Which I hope a lot of people get a quick look at as I decimate them on Saturday on a bike with one gear. That is, if I actually feel up to racing. Honestly, I don't know if I'm going to have it. This past week has been completely nuts. I feel a little bit of pressure to beat my time from last year (1:34), but otherwise, not really any pressure to be had. I'll just be happy to wake up tomorrow and feel like getting out there.

Everything looks good, I guess

Just got back. The MRI looked great, so that is a pretty big relief. I got my hands on a copy of my labs, plus digital copies of the CT and MRI. They're quite a trip to look at. Here's one of my favorites from the CT series:

So now that all of the tests have come back perfect, the consensus is that what I've been going through is related to the series of concussions I have had. Call it post-concussive disorder. Fine. If it has to have a name, that's what it is. I'm still slated to meet with the neurologist in July, but it seems like the writing is on the wall at this point. I took out of my appointment today a series of bullet points. I consider them all somewhat speculative until the neurologist does his thing, but given that there is literally nothing else wrong, I agree with them.

• Centrally-acting medications are going to work differently on me, probably in a more pronounced way, and it seems like if medications have side effects, I'm almost certain to get them. This is what happened with the Meclizine, which acts centrally. For similar reasons, I got the lightheaded side effect of the Nasonex. Then putting both together, I think any medication cocktail with me is bound to be a rollercoaster. I've also wondered for a long time now why alcohol - a centrally acting depressant - seems to skip the "have a good time" phase for me. I have wondered about this for YEARS. Good to know why at this point. It will probably will save me a lot of money.
  
  
• I need to be more conscious of my recovery time. I need more rest now than most people probably do. I got some real awareness of this over the past month or so, but now it's more or less drilled home. It's fun to talk about how you did weeks upon weeks of massive efforts, but not so fun to live with the consequences. It's generally dumb anyway; even if you didn't have a history of head injury, you really wouldn't do that.
  
  
• I have some post-traumatic anxiety, as it was termed, that I guess is going to be there. This is probably a bit speculative until the neurology examination, but I don't feel it's incorrect. That ball is really in my court, I think. I've been really good about using self-hypnosis to deal with stress and anxiety, so I feel like I can keep that in check, and feel like I have been.
  

Recap of my concussion history:

Winter 1998-99: Going top-speed down a bunny hill at Gunstock on a snowboard (first and last time), fell backwards and hit the back of my head. All I remember after falling is being back on the chairlift up the hill, and feeling incredibly nauseous. I have no memory of how I got back to my jeep.

Fall 2007: Climbing Little Bear Trail at Bear Brook at night with a headlamp, my front wheel hit a root and I flew over the handlebars. I remember landing face-down, but can't remember what part of my body hit the ground first. I took a few minutes to compose myself, then rode about a half mile back to my car. All the stars in the sky had halos around them, and I felt very "not right" driving back to town - felt very "out of it". We went to the ER that night and CT was negative.

September 2008: Making a 180-turn on a gravel road in a cyclocross race at UNH, my front wheel angle was too aggressive and my handlebars spun inward, pitching me over the handlebars and directly onto my head. Very memorable. My head was ringing for several hours and I felt hungover every day for about four weeks.

October 2008: Riding too fast through downhill S-turns on wet grass in warmups for a CX race in Gloucester. Bike went out from under me and my head whipped right to left, slamming off the ground; something in my neck popped. Head was ringing but I shrugged it off and raced the event. Felt hungover every day for about four weeks.

October 2008: Two weeks after the Gloucester incident, I was mountain biking at FOMBA down a small hill at very slow speed. My front wheel caught a root and I launched over the handlebars, landing with almost all of my body weight on my right arm, which I extended to protect my head, which I do not believe hit the ground. I got up after about a minute and began dry heaving. X-rays and neuro screen at the ER were negative. This may or may not have been a concussion.

Doctor? Doctor.

This is the part of the show where I now become a doctor and offer a reasonable explanation for everything.

Lingering fatigue for about 2 months: that seems so easy. Overtraining. There is no question in my mind that I had almost all of the psychological symptoms of overtraining. Initiative and excitement about sport that was basically eroded. Sleep disruption, depression, lack of belief in oneself, constant evaluation of todays efforts against the past, so on so forth. But only some of the physical symptoms - The lower than expected heart rate. Inability to maintain level of effort. Fatigue for sure, but no depressed immune function, no muscle soreness, no injury. But of course - I'm burning myself out in Zone 2 - I don't even open my mouth to breathe for these workouts. There is no massive physical effort here. Injury is almost impossible at this lower threshold. How could I ever be sore from this effort? It has to be possible to overtrain on base training alone. I have to have done it. And I made no shortage of stupid, go-way-to-hard decisions all over the landscape of the last 2 months. $500 worth of labs, a CT, allergy testing, all showing nothing - it has to be overtraining. I've had so much time off now. Albeit chemically induced, major major rest this weekend. I got on the trainer tonight for 45 minutes of Z2 and felt unstoppable. I haven't felt like that since February.

Dizziness: this has to be related to the Nasonex. Yes, I have an MRI tomorrow. I suppose that could reveal something else entirely. But something in my brain aside, I'm not buying the post-concussive disorder (PCD) argument right now. It doesn't make sense. Why would these symptoms manifest themselves out of the blue over six months after my last head injury? Why wouldn't they simply persist after the last hit to the head? My last concussion was very predictable; 4 weeks and the hangover-like symptoms abated. Just like all the ones I've had. I read and read and can't find experiences that make the PCD diagnosis make sense for what is happening with me. And the timing of the Meclizine incident is so curious here. Could it have been just that single pill alone responsible for me being practically comatose this past weekend? There's no way that makes sense. I was perpetually carsick as a kid, and took meds like this all the time back then. Why now the acute hypersensitivity? It's not adding up, and the only variable that hasn't been explored until Kristen thought about it tonight is this damn Nasonex - something I was given a week ago and took without question. I was told how incredibly safe and mild and well tolerated this medication is, yet when we searched the web tonight, we found loads of stories of people with awful side effects. So let's start the clock, and let's see who's right. I'm f*cking right and I know it. 1 for me, 1 for Kristen. Doctor: 0.

No clue

So here's what I know so far:

-I saw a doctor today, and I don't appear to have any sort of sinus or ear infection
-Scheduled for an MRI tomorrow, then a followup on Wednesday
-I feel that if this dizziness were due to fatigue, the weekend of sleep I just pulled off should have put a dent in things, and it didn't, so I can't see that rest is the issue
-One week before I started feeling dizzy, I began taking Nasonex daily (never been on it before; we were using it to rule out some allergy-related issues)
-Then I had the freakish reaction to Meclizine, which the more I think about it, the more it seems really unnatural to have that kind of reaction to one pill that is prescribed to be taken 4 times a day
-What I'm feeling could possibly be rare side effects from Nasonex; the kind that are allegedly in the less than 5% chance of having range. This is Kristen's theory.
-I've been off Nasonex for 3 days now; wouldn't say my dizziness/lightheadedness has improved any as of yet, can't really say if it's better or worse, so I'm really looking to tomorrow for another data point
-I'm considering working out tonight just to get this garbage out of my system faster

Slug

Friday night I was really having just about enough of the dizziness. I called my doctor's after-hour service and I got a call back from one of the other physicians. I told him that I had been dizzy for two days and he agreed to call in a script to get me through the weekend. It was for Meclizine, something I feel like I had taken before, but apparently DEFINITELY had not.

I picked up the prescription at about 9:30 on Friday, took one pill and went to bed around 10:30. Twelve hours later, I wake up, only summoning the will to get up because I was starving. I felt completely incapacitated. I could barely function. I felt like everything in my body was moving at about 1/4 speed and I was massively, massively tired. All I did Saturday was sleep. I phoned the pharmacist that afternoon and she assessed that I was hypersensitive to Meclizine and advised to not take any more pills. Yeah. I had pretty much made that determination on my own.

I think by Sunday around noon it had completely worn off. One little pill basically leveled me for about 36 hours. And the recommended dose was 4x per day! Needless to say that's one medication I never need to take again. I can't even imagine what would have happened if I had taken more than one dose.

So now it's Monday, still dizzy, waiting on a callback from my doctor's office. I'm hoping this is just something simple like an ear infection. It almost has to be. I haven't been able to even do the simplest of workouts in almost a week now because of this.

Not sure what's up

It's been a few months now; something is up, but I just can't figure out what it is. I've been exhausted. I feel run down every day. My appetite is good, I haven't been sick that I'm aware of; I just have no energy. I went through a period where I had a headache for about 10 days in a row and saw my doctor; we did a whole slew of blood work, CT scan, allergy test, nothing. Everything looks perfect so I'm told. Sarah, my trainer, did a nutrition assessment for me and determined that my diet was not so great, but my blood didn't indicate any deficiencies, and I feel like I'm generally eating better this year than last year, even though it still needs work. I track every single piece of food that I eat.

I'm giving myself more rest time now, and I'm barely able to train between these weekends of extremely difficult rides. I've researched 'overtraining' and I feel like I have all of the psychological symptoms but literally none of the physical symptoms. So that diagnosis doesn't make too much sense to me. Maybe I just need more sleep. But I feel like I'm sleeping OK. I don't feel sleep deprived or anything like that. Not really any different from last year.

My primary care doctor believes that I am suffering from postconcussive disorder. I really didn't want to accept that diagnosis, just because the symptoms are so general that literally anyone could claim to have it, even if they've never hit their head. However, I have had four serious concussions, including two within a span of four weeks last fall. I may have even induced a fifth, smaller one, only two weeks after that period, when I fell off the front of my mountain bike. Since I've been tested for literally everything, it's sort of hard to see that it could be something else.

In spite of having it, or maybe not having it, my doctor and I have agreed that I would not race this year. Also I had to agree not to mountain bike this year. I need a good long time away from another head injury to sort out what is really going on. We agreed that hillclimb events and road riding are about all I can do. But most days I feel like I can barely do them. I'm scheduled to meet with a neurologist in early July, so I'm hoping something positive comes of that. I'm on a waitlist to hopefully get in sooner.

Yesterday I was dizzy and sick to my stomach all day long. It's still with me a little today. I'm keep hoping there's some other explanation for all of this that has nothing to do with postconcussive disorder. But I have no idea. I'm supposed to race next week, and I don't feel like I'm going to be up for training much in this last week leading up to it. Everything just seems really messed up right now and I have little to no ambition to do much of anything. It's really hard to just do nothing for multiple days in a row, but I really don't feel like there's a choice at the moment. We'll see. I truly hope Sarah is on to something and this is nothing more than a diet-related situation that could resolve in a matter of weeks.

Chasing 1:20

My first road bike was some anonymous Italian steed given to me by our landlord when I was in elementary school. I would hoof that thing down two flights of stairs and ride little criteriums around Enfield Elementary for what seemed like hours. Mindless laps around the building; just happy to be out. I had no idea how to maintain that white steel bike with it's exceptionally uncomfortable textured rubber grips, but I rode it just the same. Then I'd watch American Flyers.

After a year or two, we moved to the top of Jones Hill and I graduated to a blue Ross Eurosport that my grandfather poached from Dartmouth lost-and-found. That bike must have weighed at least 30 pounds, and for at least a year I couldn't clear either the front or back side of our hill without having to walk. All summer long, armed with a crude map of the area, I'd plan ridiculous and epic rides with my riding partner Ian, and we'd ride everywhere. Ian astride a mountain bike, I owned him on most of the pavement, but when we encountered the inevitable fire road, he was off like a shot as I survived my first encounters with cyclocross. As time wore on, I grew more and more enamored with mountain biking, but one of my clearest memories of road biking as a kid was that feeling of accomplishment when I could ride either side of Jones Hill without stopping.

For who knows what reason, I didn't find my way back to a road bike for a really long time. It wasn't until 2006 that things lined up just right and I found my way into a used Trek for short, short money. My first road bike since the days of the Ross Eurosport that patrolled the roads of the Mascoma Valley. I rode only recreationally in my first year with the Trek, and I sort of liked it. It was OK. Riding in general was difficult, time consuming, hard, and only somewhat enjoyable. My ass hurt all the time and I didn't really get the appeal of road riding. It was definitely not unearthing the memory of euphoric cycling from my adolescence.

On July 29th that year, Grampie and I embarked from Hopkinton on a ride that would lead us to the top of Mount Kearsarge. Tragically undergeared for my level of fitness, that first trip ever up the Kearsarge toll road was an epic struggle beyond anything I could comprehend. I had never, ever seen anything like this, and it was brutal. But that day something in my DNA woke up; something that had been lying dormant in there since those days climbing Jones Hill as a kid. It was absolute suffering, but when I was done, I wanted more. And in the next week alone I went back to climb Kearsarge three more times.

That year I drove a support car for the bike race up the Mount Washington Auto Road, and I knew right away that I wanted to be there racing the very next year. That mountain was epic, and I wanted a shot at it.

I've had the good fortune to climb Mount Wash a handful of times so far, each time improving in some way, with my eyes on one goal: to break the 1 hour 20 minute mark. The Top Notch classification. To break into that field and line up alongside some of the greatest climbers in the world, including everyone's childhood hero, Ned Overend. Who knows if Ned will still be there by the time I make it, if I ever do. But I dream of one day making it into that group. Even if it's just to watch him disappear within moments of the gun. It's what I train all year for.

And that is what this blog is about, and has been about. For years I was thinking of a new blog title, and probably one day I will be again. I'll still write about whatever is going on with me, no matter what it happens to be, because it's all part of the same package. I'm sure you know by now that there's a lot more to me than just riding a bike. But more often than not, most of the exploits, most of the stupidity, all of the torture; it's usually connected to one thing: chasing 1:20.

Thanks for reading, and keep reading,

cp

Nowhere fast

'Nowhere fast' as a phrase is relevant to this discussion but it is also an Incubus song that has nothing to do with anything I'm talking about because Incubus songs are nonsense.

Taken with Fat Cyclist's mission to fund cancer research, Andy and I signed up for Fatty's 100 Miles of Nowhere. Basically we pay $75; $50 gets donated to LiveStrong, and we get a goodie bag full of awesome stuff that well exceeds $25 in value. So it's a good "deal". But we do have to offer something in return. We have to ride 100 miles. And go absolutely nowhere. On the 22nd, we will put our bikes in the trainers, take all the resistance off, and spin like wild animals to get to 100 miles. I have absolutely no idea how long this will take. I'm guessing 4ish, 5ish hours. We're both taking that Friday off (memorial day weekend), and will probably start by noontime. I sure hope it isn't raining because I really don't wanna do this indoors.

What is really awesome about this is that 421 other people are doing this, all in their own different parts of the world on or about the same day, and just like that we collectively raised something like $21,050 for LiveStrong.

There will be MASSIVE boredom to contend with, so I imagine we'll have the TV going with some choice films to be selected. I have already selected Dumb and Dumber. This will be very interesting. Hopefully we will accumulate a support team and there will be photo & video evidence.