ChrisCowan.us

Now that I’m officially off the bike for a while I decided to start swimming to help maintain my fitness. Holy Crap! Swimming is a really hard workout. I’m not sure I was really swimming, I think it was more like me flailing away in water moving from one end of the pool to the other.

I think I swam for about 30-40 minutes, I didn’t officially track the time or count the number of laps I did. My goal was just to try to swim some and focus on my form. It took me a while to get into the rhythm of swimming. It’s quite a bit different then what I remember as a kid.

I had to re-learn how to breath, my first lap I held my breath while my face was under water and then tried to exhale and take a breath, I about died. Then I remembered I need to exhale while my face was under water. It also took me a while to get the timing just right. I had to slow my strokes down and get the rhythm down to where I took three strokes and then a breath then three strokes then a breath.

Once I got that figured out I tried to do a flip turn and ended up ramming right into the bottom. It’s pretty hard to do a flip turn in 3 feet of water when your 6′3″. So I used a slightly different technique I saw on YouTube where you touch the wall then do a quick turn and push off the wall to get the same effect.

The important part of the push off is to stay under water and do a few dolphin kicks so you can get a chance to rest. Once I put that all together I could actually do about 3 laps consecutively before I had to stop to catch my breath.

Near the end I was spent but it was that good spent the type that energizes you. The type of spent where you are ready to refuel. I released some of my pent up frustration and stress that I usually release during my morning rides. I got the endorphin rush I was craving, it felt good!

I just got back from the doctor and he said it was NOT one of the following:

• Meniscus
• Cruciate
• Collaterals
• Patella Tendinitis
  
• Bursae
• Pes Anserinus
• IT Band

and the diagnosis please… (drumroll) … Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome come on down!

He did some prodding and poking and does it hurt here when I do this or how about this. All of which I answered no. Then he drew some cool diagrams to show me how everything works and how he came to his conclusion.

He wrote me a script for some Physical Therapy and a set of X-Rays. I forgot to ask if I should avoid riding or how long I should wait to ride. You never seem to ask all the questions you had in mind because your so excited that the doctor figured out what’s wrong.

He is suppose to call back tonight with the results of my X-Rays so I will hit him up with my outstanding questions. We did talk about how I should probably schedule a bike fitting because Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome has a lot to do with biomechanics. I also scheduled my first PT session for next Friday.

As a side note… my doctor is awesome!

Update: My doctor called back and said the X-Rays confirmed his diagnosis. He also said I’m going to be off the bike till after I start PT. Which I’m guessing the physical therapist can probably give me a better idea as to when it would be good to start riding again.

Update Too: My doctor is Veko Vahamaki at Camino Medical Group.

In about 15 minutes I’m going to my first doctor’s visit about my knee injury. I figured I’ve done enough self-diagnosis and should probably get some professional help. I still think it’s patella tendonitis and from the reading I’ve done on the subject I suspect I’m going to be off the bike for a month or so to give it time to heal.

Wish me luck…

One of the things I have the hardest time with is recovering from an injury. It’s hard for me to take a break from my bike because I feel like I’ve worked so hard to get to the level I’m at. Injuries suck balls!

After my last ride on Monday I realized that my knee pain has been worse since I switched to the flat pedals. I would have thought that having the freedom to move my foot around and change my position would have improved things. So I’ve decided to call off my experiment and go back to the “click” pedals (evidently clipless is really really confusing to everyone who’s never seen pedals with clips).

I really wanted the flat pedals to work for me. I was looking forward to having the freedom to use any shoe I wanted. It was nice to be able to just hop on my bike and ride to work without having to swap shoes. I felt a bit like a rebal unraveling the threads of the cycling pedal culture (well not really but that I though that would sound poetic).

My theory for the increased amount of pain was that my muscles are built up around pedaling on my “click” pedals. I noticed that when I got my feet in the exact position where my “click” pedals are the pain would be reduced. I also notice that if I moved my feet closer to the frame it helped too, the “Q-Factor” on my new cranks is wider so I switched them from 113 mm back to 108 mm. Although my commute is relatively short I could tell the difference, my knees felt good and everything felt comfortable again.

Another break-through in tackling my knee problems is that I slept on my back all night and I woke up without any knee pain. I’m a stomach sleeper and I think what’s been happening is that when I sleep I’ve been putting pressure on my patella (fancy word for knee cap). This has been preventing it from healing properly in my sleep.

So my new plan is to take a break for the rest of the week to give my knees more time to rest. I’m hoping that everything will be feeling fine by the weekend so I can get in a nice easy ride in. If that goes well then I will start ramping up the millage again… slowly… so i can do some fun touring this fall.

Here is the Surly ready for some fall riding.

I’ve decided to take the last couple day off the bike to give my knees a chance to rest. My knee issues seem to be a result of pushing too high of gears on my climbs. This all started a few months back when I had the bright idea of try to break my personal record up Old La Honda.

My strategy was to try and stand up out of the saddle on my climbs, recover and then repeat. I’ve also been encountering really steep off road climbs using my 1×9 setup. After my mixed terrain rides my knees were usually really sore for a few days. Top things off, I don’t know how to do an  easy recovery ride so I would follow those rides up with some heavy climbing and record breaking attempts up Old La Honda.

I had this arbitrary goal of trying to get faster this year but I’ve come to realize in the last couple of weeks that fun is more important then faster. For the next couple of weeks I’m going to be focusing on spinning higher RPM’s and taking it easy to give my knees a chance to heal and recover. If you see me at a stop light or pass me on the flats don’t expect me to give chase (since we all know every stop light is the starting line and getting passed is a challenge to race).