I am scheduled to fly to Manchester, England for the UCI Masters World Track Championships on October 5th. I'm 55 this year and quite notivated to compete at my 7th world track championship. More specifically, I was gunning for a new 55+ world record in the 2 kilometer pursuit. Sadly, the current world record holder, James Host of Chicago. IL (2:20.413 or 31.9mph from a standing start) broke his hip in Indy at the USA Masters National Track Championsips, but that was also my opportunity... until I crashed. I crashed in the scratch race at the NCNCA State Track Championships on September 13th. The past nine days have been a roller coaster of emotions. I was tough guy after the crash, asking to be carried off the track, tough guy in the ambulance and at the hospital letting them know I was "3" on the pain scale. That was an accurate assessment until I moved, then I'd feel "9" and "10". How the heck am I going to make it to England in three weeks, let alone start a bicycle from a dead stop? Fast forward to yesterday, day eight, and the roller coaster was at the bottom of the ride. I had seen my chiro, gotten a deep tissue massage, walked too far on crutches and pushed it too much on my turbo trainer. Saturday, Sept. 21 was a bad day.
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Dr. Block had encouraged me to be patient, that the swelling in my hip would go down over the weekend. Lana Hemenway had encouraged me to be patient, that the pain she inflicted would eventually help me. Today, Sunday, Sept. 22 is a good day. I woke up after a restful ten hour sleep and was filled with the hope that I might be able to race in Manchester in two weeks... for this goal driven guy, that's exactly what I was looking for!
to be continued...
Weeks ago teammate Rob Anderson took off to Africa for the MTB World Championship. As a former world champ he feels the same pull that I do to return to compete. Unfortunately, Rob took a nasty fall during his recon ride. Unfortunately, he was going through the same things that I was going through, both in his head with doubts and confidence and with his body in the fits and spurts of feeling progress and set-backs. Thankfully, he's really good about communicating his far off adventures so I've benefitted from his lessons. Or, as he calls out in his update from Trento, Italy - "trials and tribulations"
Today was the end of an interesting journey and I have learned much from the experience.
I did my last race for many months today, the world road race championships. On Tuesday I will be in France and about 48 hours from now I will have a new shoulder. That is something that excites me. Then I can't wait to get back on my bike and start the long journey that I hope leads me to next years world championships.
Yesterday I had my last physiotherapy session, it was the 26th day of the last 27 days in a row of physiotherapy where I suffered through the painful experience of the therapy. I learned that I needed to accept that pain to heal, the therapy was essential for me to get on the bike today and race.
Today I also learned how brutal a world championship race is when you aren't at your best. The race was in and around the stunningly beautiful area of Trento Italy.
Every time I have raced in the world championships I had done the type of training I thought was necessary to compete against the worlds best and when I did those races I was fully prepared both physically and mentally. I have had the great fortune of winning 3 times and until today, didn't really realize how special it is to win.
My last road race was 6 weeks ago and I was close to being at my absolute best. There was still a little room for improvement and my coach, John Hunt had it carefully mapped out on how to get that last increment into me to win here today. Of course that all changed in a split second on the dirt in South Africa.
Nonetheless, nothing was broken or damaged enough that maybe, just maybe, I could race a month after the crash. So began an eye-opening 30 days.
Racing in a world championship and being able to ride a bike are two very different things that became overwhelmingly obvious to me today. My coach knew it but me, being as stubborn as I am, refused to accept it. After the crash in South Africa I couldn't ride outside because I could not hold a bike upright or control it due to my injuries . The only alternative was to put my bike on the trainer indoors and gingerly mount the bike and pedal easy. Along with this mode of training came severe muscle spasms around my injured ribs, neck and scapula which required an uncontrollable verbal expression of pain each time it happened which was about every 5 minutes of pedaling. This went on for 10 days. Oh yes and shallow breaths were my only choice as anything but was impossible.
As the physiotherapy really started to change things for the positive I began riding outside. The muscle spams continued but it was better than being stuck indoors in such a beautiful place. I found an amazing place to ride and this allowed me to start putting a little effort into the pedal stroke and trying to rebuild some fitness. For the next two weeks my coach constructed workouts that he knew I could handle but they revealed a degradation in fitness and strength of about 15 to 20% initially from my numbers right before the crash and after 14 days improved to a loss of about 10 to 12%. The injuries made it pretty much impossible to be on the bike for more than 3 hours and he knew what that meant and so did I but what's the sense of not giving it a try.
There were two world championship races here, a time trial two days ago and the road race today.
I got on my time trial bike for the first time since the middle of July two days before the time trial on Friday. I feared getting on the TT bike because the position has always been uncomfortable even in perfect health and I couldn't imagine how it was going to hurt under the circumstances.. Wow, was I wrong. As it turns out it was much less painful than riding my road bike. The best I could surmise was the horizontal position on the time trial bike was making the mechanics of the muscles around the injured areas more relaxed than the more vertical position of the road bike. Regardless, I was happy and really looked forward to Friday. It wasn't going to be three hours on the bike, only about 40 minutes of pain. I could certainly handle that.
Although he didn't say it, John new what to expect. I finished 5th and the 4 guys ahead me had found themselves slower than me on several occasions in the past. That said, it made me smile, not bad for what had been going on.
In the back of my mind, I was kind of dreading the road race. I knew it would be about 4 hours and anytime I got to about 2 hours on the road bike here the wheels started to come off. The debilitating muscle issues would start kicking in and the more time on the bike after 2 hours, the more severe the pain. But maybe I had improved enough to make a go of it.
The race started easily enough as the first 10 or so kilometers were on flat road. Then came the first climb, 8 kilometers averaging maybe 6%. The race went ballistic. The guys I knew I had to watch hurt me badly. I hung onto them for the first half of the climb and then slipped back to a chase group. We went over the climb about 30 seconds back. I led the group down the descent and within 4 kilometers of some more flat road we were back at the front. Phew.
It was now about 30 kilometers of flat road before the second climb. All I had to do was sit in and get ready for the second climb. The average gradient would be slightly less, than the first one, maybe 5 to 6%, but it was about 3 kilometers longer. In an interesting twist of fate, we arrived at the base of the second climb 1 hour and 55 minutes into the race. I made sure I was right up front and with the 3 or 4 guys I knew were the best in our group. It went all out right off the bat again.
I hung on for about 5 to 7 minutes and then I was fried. The pain began to build, I ignored it for a while. I looked down at my power meter and what had been 300 to 310 watts on the first climb was now only 270 watts. As a side bar, I knew to be truly competitive in this race, I needed to be able to race on each of these first 2 climbs at about 325 watts.
A few minutes later, the same level of pain could only produce about 260 watts. My competitors were leaving me behind. I was now about 10th in my age group and slipping back more and more.
Now over 2 hours in, that haunting pain was building and I still had about 2 hours of racing ahead of me. My courage was leaving me and for the first time in my life I thought I should stop racing.
I had finally stopped the back sliding as far as the competition was concerned as I could stay with the guys that were now with me but another glance at the power meter and I was seeing 250 watts. The husband of the husband and wife roommates I have here in Italy that have shared living quarters patiently with me for the last 3 world championships was the man-extrordinaire, Rob Van Houweling who was at the top of this climb to feed us. He had driven there and I knew what I had to do. The race today would end for me at the top of the second of three climbs. Going on to the finish would be very painful as it would require 2 more hours of racing including the last brutal climb, the famous Monte Bondone and if I were as good as I could be without having crashed, it alone would take about an hour and 10 minutes. It was no longer a race for me it was masochism (but what race isn't?). A few minutes later we were in the car and that was the end of my ride.
That's it. I pushed my body as best I could and this time the mind could not overcome the body but that doesn't mean I have to accept that in the future. Remember how stubborn I am.
Over and out.
Larry Nolan and Rob Anderson, Team Specialized Racing
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