Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Yep, it's official...

   I'm done riding DH for this year.  I was holding out a tiny speck of hope that I may be able to race the Pro GRT finals at Mammoth in September, and waited until my visit with the sports medicine specialist to find out for sure; he confirmed the opinion that it's not a good idea since it's taking so long to get better.  If I hit my head again too soon it will be more painful and an even longer time to recover and that's not what needs to happen at all.  Drat.  Guess it's time to forget about this season and focus on plugging away at recovery so that I can prepare for an even better year in 2014.  I'm really going to miss spending more time this summer with all of the new friends I've met and camping out at the races.  Bike racing is so much fun and I can't wait to get back at it!  However, I am also hoping to be able to ride in time to take an IMBA coaching certification course later this summer and be able to help coach at the Shine clinics; this would be great as far as my mission to get more ladies involved with and/or totally hooked on riding mountain bikes, and could be a great opportunity to work on other aspects of my involvement with bicycles.

   With that said, I'd like to send out a big THANK YOU!! to my team, our sponsors, and my family and all of the friends who have supported and encouraged me this season.  It's a great feeling to have so many people believe in what you can do, trying to chase your wildest dreams.  You all are awesome!!  Special thanks go to Kit for being so supportive of my nutty bike addiction, coming to far away races to cheer me on (and doing most of the driving) with hopes of a side trip climbing or a little pedaling somewhere in there.  And more recently, putting up with multiple nights of cooking dinner AND washing the dishes when I didn't feel good enough to get off the couch, all without complaining. I am so lucky!

   Shred on! Stay tuned for whatever happens when I can start really doing stuff, whenever that happens to be--hopefully soon because I'm going craaaazzzyyyy!

Monday, June 10, 2013

Ahhh, riding the roller coaster...

   As with any recovering injury, this one has had its ups and downs; it's been about 5 weeks since the initial concussion, and almost 3 since my concerted recovery effort began.  I have to keep reminding myself to take baby steps to progress, which is so hard when I just want to get on a bike and crank!  Thankfully things have been more on the up in the past week and I've been able to add a few activities like walking to the beach and driving places without headaches.  It has still been mentally trying, and at one point I fell into such a state of despair that I listed my DH bike for sale on Pinkbike and Craigslist so that I wouldn't think about riding it!  It narrowly escaped shipment to L.A. when I thought better of that crazy idea--though I probably won't be able to get a nice paddleboard without the extra cash--I think I would rather have the bike and not need to worry about finding a new one later this season.

   I still don't have a concurrence of answers from any doctor as to when I should/would be able to ride it, but if it is sometime late July-August that would be nice.  I've been referred to a specialist at the last doctor visit because he thinks some brain exercises might speed recovery a little, but am still waiting for the call to schedule an appointment.  At the very least I may be able to race in Mammoth in September so that's my goal for now unless the doctor tells me otherwise.  For now, per a friend's advice I am planning to stay off the bike more or less for another 3 weeks to give the brain a full 2 months of relative rest; then as I feel good enough, adding some easy road rides and eventually some mellow XC.

   The vegetable garden I started a couple of weeks ago is coming along nicely with some extremely happy squash and red runner beans, a lemon cucumber (YUM!!!), experimental Hopi blue corn, and some spindly little tomatoes that I'm hoping I've been watering the right amount.  Even though my mom has always had an amazing garden back home in Washington, I never felt like I got the green thumb and have been seemingly more adept at killing plants than raising a garden full of them.  On top of that the growing conditions in Tahoe are difficult, rather dry with mostly chilly nights and a short season.  Considering that, I'm quite pleased with how everything is coming along and only managed to lose one tomato seedling so far (knock on wood--I'm really hoping for those cucumbers).  It must be all the meaningful conversations I had with those happy sprouting plants...haha!

The vegetable garden, and happy hens.
    With Kit's ingenuity we designed a drip irrigation system out of an old hose, which makes watering so much easier and better for the plants.  Luckily I tested it first on the established ornamental garden and discovered a few things to make it better, like actually pointing the holes downward and only making holes after laying out the hose so that the water actually goes where the plants are.

  Of the major bike maintenance projects I have planned, I've only knocked one out so far: transferring a new rim onto the rear wheel of my cyclocross bike.  That wheel has had a dent in it for almost 4 years now, though I only remembered it when I went on a road ride, so it was largely ignored until last week when I was in desperate need of amusement.  That only took a few hours, to my disappointment, including truing to a pretty darn close state of round using the rear brake pad as a truing device.  Next up is the single speed conversion of my old Rocky Mountain hardtail, a relic from my XC racing days that is still clean and fun to ride, if not a tad scary because of its steep geometry.  That will be an excellent way to get some pedaling strength back into my legs.  Yes, I have a hard time not thinking about bikes, especially when I can't ride!

Here's a Pork Chop snoozing while I build a wheel, just for fun.


   I went to work today for a half day, and am hoping to do a full day tomorrow and get back to full time this week.  Hooray!  Hopefully this is the end of puttering aimlessly in the back yard debating whether or not to water the garden again, and hours of watching the "chicken channel" while throwing bits of food or pebbles into the pen to provoke an amusing reaction.  Not that I mind a day or 2 of those activities, but a week or more is just too much.  I'm getting antsy for some exercise too and hope to start swimming soon, but at least going to work might burn off some of that energy that's built up.  That's all for now!