Nobody Cares: Train Harder and Ride Faster

I sewed a patch on my gym bag a couple months ago. It says, “Nobody Cares: Train Harder”. Not too long after that, I saw an advertisement for customizable headset caps to go on bicycles. I ordered one that echoes the gym bag patch - “Nobody Cares: Ride Faster”.

I look at these when I start to slow down during a workout or on a training ride. They remind me that I’m in charge of my own fitness. I could come up with lots of excuses to go easier in training. However, the excuse won’t make me any fitter. Putting in the work will. 

I’ve spent the past couple of years getting used to being resigned to the truth that I’ll never have the physical capacity that I used to have. Not too long after I was released from Craig Hospital (one of the premier Spinal Cord Injury rehabilitation facilities), folks asked me if I was 100% recovered. I replied that I was not, and never would be, back to full capacity. 

And I’ve repeated that statement plenty of times over the past three years. I repeated it enough that I started to internalize the message. It was a slow and subtle attitudinal shift, but I went from:

* working diligently to regain as much of what I had lost in the aftermath of the accident as possible, to

* working some, but writing off my limited capacity to the accident.  

The other day I was riding my bike home from work. As I started up the one significant hill on that route, I started to slow down. My subconscious mind allowed me to slow down, because I wasn’t in shape like I had been before the accident. Then my conscious mind remembered the headset cap, ignored the excuse, and rode faster for the rest of the climb up and over the crest of the hill. 

As gravity started to help me out on the downhill, I passed by a bus stop at a wide spot in the road. I remembered that spot as being a place where I had to stop to rest when I first started commuting to work by bicycle after the accident. 

I will likely never regain the physical capacity that I lost three and a half years ago. I’ve decided, though, to ignore that reality - and to train harder and ride faster. 

$0.02

Continuing Recovery

I came away from my skiing accident broken. The knee that was injured (ACL and MCL) is part of the same leg that has been most significantly affected by the Spinal Cord Injury. It really didn’t work at all for at least a couple days. And when I started to be able to use it again, regaining muscular control was complicated by the fact that the ligaments weren’t doing what they were supposed to.

In addition to that leg hardly working at all, I’d lost most of my cardiovascular fitness while I was laying in the ICU for ten days – so much so that when I started PT, five minutes of balancing on my knees wore me out enough that I needed a breather. And while I made huge gains during PT, I spent most of the next five weeks in a wheelchair.

So when the inpatient portion of post-accident rehab was done, I had virtually no stamina. When I was discharged and able to be home again, every couple hours I’d have to stop what I was doing so I could lay down for a while. And when I wasn’t resting, I really wasn’t doing very much of anything except being more upright than horizontal.

It felt like a blow to my identity to need rest after a couple hours of simply existing in the world. I’ve never been the fittest guy around, but for years I’ve been able to spend a whole day going nonstop without really taking a break. Further, there are numerous times when I’ve strung together seven days like that in a row.

The physical recovery I longed for was that the mostly-broken leg would work again, and that I could regain most of the stamina that I’d lost.

Finally, over the past week or so, I’ve felt a beautiful confluence of healing. Our trip to California forced me to not stop for almost the whole day for a few days in a row ... which served to increase my stamina. And just this past week, one of the muscles that hasn’t worked for months finally started engaging again ... which allows my whole body to work more like it’s supposed to.

Add to that the fact that I’ve recently been able to start going on longer bike rides – bike rides on an actual bike, instead of that silly spin bike in the gym. It’s a good thing, because I’m registered for a 50k bike ride in a couple months.

The bike ride is a fundraiser for Craig Hospital. Craig is a specialty hospital which treats spinal cord injury and brain injury patients. I was inpatient there for five weeks, and continue to do Physical Therapy there as an outpatient. The staff there does phenomenal work. I’d encourage you to support Craig by making a contribution through my Pedal 4 Possible fundraising page

I’m not quite ready to take on the course I’ve registered for. Lucky for me I have time to build enough stamina between now and then.

On A Bike Again

I got on a bike again.

It was awkward, and slow, and tough to start & stop, and scary. I can only manage about 60% of the speed I once was able to maintain, and have stamina for maybe 20% of the distance.

But I can ride a bike again.

A year ago, I started figuring out how to spend more time riding than I had before. Racing a road bicycle, riding more challenging mountain bike trails, plotting bikepacking trips through remote and beautiful places, learning how to ride and race on a velodrome, and seeing how quickly (and how slowly) I could make my two-wheeled commute.

A day ago, I struggled at the end of an easy six mile ride that we had taken a 20 minute break in the middle of.

But I was on a bike again.

One day, in a flurry of broken bones up and down my back, all the planning and preparation and fitnessing drifted away like a dandelion puff ball on the current of a kid’s breath, and the bikes gathered dust for a while. Since then, I’ve figured out that I can lash a crutch to my bike so I’m able to walk when I get where I’m going. And it’s joyous to be able to move in a way that I’ve loved since before the age of 10, when I was skidding coaster brakes on gravel roads.

I’m getting back on bikes again.