Outdoor adventure

Went for a walk with Swill, Mini-me, and Seamus today. I'd call it a hike, but the pace was pretty mellow. It was still nice to get out and about. I had a much better day today. Yesterday I was pretty fatigued all and canceled my trip to Boulder. This whole breaking my arm thing and recovery from surgery is taking a little longer for me to feel normal and healthy than I thought, but I did pretty good today and even did some vacuuming and one-handed mopping. So all in all a good day.
Back to work tomorrow. I really enjoyed having an extra day off this weekend. Apparently I needed it.

Hot compress

Seems that I have a slight infection from all the deer poop I ground in to my arm in the crash, so I am doing warm compresses to drive the infection out. Not to worry, I don't think my arm will fall off, it might just leave an uglier scar.

Weekend Update

Today marks a milestone in my post-surgery recovery. I got on the trainer for the first time.
20 minutes, 103 avg watts, 125 kilojoules, but who's counting. I devised a system with propping Robo-Arm up on the back of a chair and that worked pretty well. It's a little bit too much extension to reach the bars, and I can't put any weight on my hand, but this seemed to work OK. In fact, I'd say it went really well. I stopped at 20 minutes because my upper back started to tighten up. That's been giving me more problems than the broken elbow the last several days, so I decided not to push my luck and leave this progression on a positive note.

One good thing I can say about riding the trainer now that summer has arrived in Colorado and that's Air Conditioning.

I did take a little rest afterward for some ice on the elbow and heating pad on the upper back. You know you likes all this Renee down time? The kitty cats. They think it's fantastic that I'm home more and napping a lot.

getting kind of cocky

I had a really good day today.
- I made it through a whole day at work, first time this week
- My arm still felt really good at the end of the day
- I had so much energy at the end of the day, I went for a walk, and I didn't need a nap afterward.

But then I got taken down a notch. I was chatting on the phone when I knocked something off the table. I had the phone in my right hand so my natural instinct was to reach and try to catch it with my left. Owwwiee!

The funny thing is I just got off the phone with my friend who broke his hand in February. I was going on and on about my breakthrough day and how good I felt and he said I might have a bad day tomorrow following this really good day. You know, good days, bad days.... Anyway, hope it doesn't hurt too much in the morning. I'm going to grab an ice pack and head to bed.

Rick to the rescue

I should have nice straight hair for the next 48 to 72 hours after a visit to Rick today. I'm going to have to bugdet for weekly visits until I can get my left arm high enough to do a pony tail. Either that or a buzz cut for the summer.

Week 1 review

I wanted to write a little review of my first week after surgery. Really, there's not too much to write about because there just a lot of napping and sleeping.

And not just the cats. I slept a lot, and I was really surprised at how much surgery wiped me out. The first day I left the house was Wednesday. I was out for about 2 hours and only went to get my hair done and stop by the office, but I came home and had to go to sleep immediately. By Saturday I ventured out for a walk to Walgreens 1/2 mile away. Again, complete exhaustion and nap once I got home. It's getting better, but I'm still not able to make it through a whole day at work yet, so I'm not even really thinking about training at this point.

I think the most awesome thing about last week was how much support I got from family and friends. I didn't know I had so many awesome friends! I don't want risk leaving anyone out so I don't want to name names, but to give you some examples of my friends' awesomeness, I had people driving me around (because I couldn't drive), bringing me dinner, baking me cookies, sending me flowers, and coming over to clean out the cat box and help me tie back my hair.

Which brings me to the inconveniences of having a broken arm. For me I think the biggest one is not being able to tie back my hair. I have naturally curly (more like frizzy) hair. It takes a lot of product and time with the blow dryer and flat iron for me not to look like a crazy cat lady. At this point hats are not even containing the mess on top of my head. I have an appointment with Rick today for disaster control.

I've had to be creative too with some other things like opening jars. I feel like some kind of monkey, which is also what I look like when I shave my right arm pit. Go ahead and try shaving your right arm pit with your right arm. I think I've got a mohawk going on under there now, but I'm doing the best I can. Makes me really appreciate the challenges that some of my Paralympic friends face every day.
On Monday, the week after surgery I went to ortho to get the cast off and get fitted with a new cast. Looks pretty gross still. I am going to have an awesome scar.

Instead of getting a hard cast they fitted me with "robo-arm." It's just a brace with a movable joint. So far I like the name robo-arm the best, but others have named it "bionic arm", "star wars arm", and "go, go, gadget arm". I will be taking a poll of best names to appropriately name my new best friend of the next 6 weeks.

So with robo-arm, the doc wants me moving it already and has me starting PT already which is great. The brace is so much better than a hard cast because I can take it off and shower and move my hand around. I can even type with both hands. He's got me on a pretty good range of motion in it too. Not that I have any strength to move my arm but it's still so much better than having it in a hard cast.

So that was pretty much week 1. Thanks for stopping by, and stay classy.

Update

I wanted to make a week 1 review update, but today was such a good day I had to post. First, I think I have figured out why I haven't been sleeping well... someone's been using my brace as a pillow.

So I haven't been sleeping well the last few nights, not because of the cat company, but just because my muscles are so jacked up. It's not my elbow that's been hurting so much the last two days, but my upper back from wearing the sling for the last week and guarding so much.

Yesterday I went for my first PT appointment, and it didn't go well. They set me up with a hand therapist...uhm, it's not my hand that's broken, duh! She had me do some piddly ROM exercises and when I told her that my back was what was really bugging me that day, she said that wasn't part of my therapy and I'd have to get another script from the doctor and see someone else to take care of that. What? Are you f'ing kidding me? Anyway, I did not make a follow up appointment.

I called my friend Jessica Lehman who's a PT and she recommended another therapist. I went to him today and he's great. Peter deJong, which coincidentally I have worked with before. Way back in the day I was an exercise tech at a PT clinic and he used to work there. So he poked around, looked at my back, and has come up with a good plan for my therapy. I feel really good about it.

I also feel really good because I got a massage today to work out those muscles in my upper back. We conveniently have a massage therapist that works out of our office. She's really great, Jennifer Chee. I highly recommend. I feel 10 times better than yesterday. I'm hoping I can fit one in at least once a week til this gets better.

The Crash

Here recounts the story of my big crash in the Deer Trail road race. Deer Trail is a classic Colorado road race. It's flat, windy, and my kind of race.
(not actually Deer Trail, but you get the idea, basically looks like Kansas)

I usually do pretty well in these kinds of races. I've finished on the podium in Deer Trail a few times, so I was pretty psyched for this race. Plus I was getting to race with my good buds Sharon and Beth. They're not racing crits this year because they're too dangerous with a high risk of crashing. Ironic.

So we raced around for a couple hours, blah, blah, blah. It was pretty much a race of attrition with the wind out there. By the time we came in to the final kilometer there were only 5 of us left. Me, my teammate Beth, two DFT gals, and one other person I didn't know. Going in to the sprint, Beth gave me the nod and told me she was going to lead me out. That put a lot of pressure on me because I'm convinced Beth can win any race she wants to (because she usually does.) So if she's leading you out, you better not screw it up.

Beth start going with about 3 or 400 meters to go, basically way far out. She went pretty hard but I was able to stay tucked right in on her left hip. There was a pretty strong cross wind, so staying in the draft was key. She turned to look back at the gap we had and we just got tangled up. I didn't expect her to look back and she didn't expect I was so close. It's nobody's fault, it's just one of those things that happens. I hit her back wheel with my front wheel pretty hard just couldn't save it. I hit the deck, and as I was going down I knew it was going to be bad. Plus I was pretty pissed because I was soooo going to win that sprint!

The good news is Beth didn't go down too; she actually won. Perhaps it was because I was sprawled in the middle of the road providing a good road block for the rest of the group, but hey a win's a win.

Stock photo of Beth winning, although to note, she said she didn't raise her hands in victory out of respect for her wounded teammate. She actually said that she contemplated stopping to see if I was ok, but kept sprinting because she knew I'd be more pissed if one of us didn't win. What a good teammate.

So I laid on the ground knowing I broke something. I knew other groups were coming in to the sprint, but I just couldn't get myself off the ground. The EMT helped me up eventually, and he asked if I wanted to go in the ambulance. Having been transported in the ambulance from a race before, I know how pricey that can be. Plus we were in the middle of BFE eastern Colorado and I wasn't actually dying, so we decided to drive me to the hospital in the Springs, 2 hours away.

I have to give a big thank you to Christina Moore. We drove out to the race together and she did a great job of taking care of me on the drive and making sure I got checked in to the hospital ok. I usually travel to races alone, so it was just good luck that she asked me to carpool to the race, and even better luck that she was willing to help me out so much.I don't really know how I survived the 2 hour drive or the 2+ hour wait in the ER before I saw a doctor and got good pain meds because this is what my elbow looked like. I broke off the olecranon process (tip of the elbow) when I hit the ground. Then as I was skidding across the pavement the olecranon got pushed out of the way and I just kept scraping down my ulna (lower arm bone) on the road. The doctor said the end of the ulna was real smooth after all that sanding down so the pins he put in to fix it all together fit in really flush to the bone. That's a bonus, I guess.

I also took some hunks of flesh out of my knee. You could see my inner fat from under the skin. It was kind of gross but didn't bother me at all because the pain in my elbow pain almost made me pass out a couple times.

Because it was an open fracture (broken bone through the skin) they had to do surgery right away. So I had surgery to screw it all together that night. I stayed in the hospital overnight to make sure everything was ok and to get plenty of IV antibiotics to flush out all the cow poop from the road in Deer Trail.
I got out of the hospital on Monday and went straight for an ice cream milk shake. Makes sense since with all this I'm not so worried about rehab and permanent damage to my arm, I'm just worried about becoming a big fattie with the time off the bike. So what better way to get a head start than a milk shake at Cy's.

Back to the Blog

I've decided to start blogging again because my blog fan (note singular) suggested it would be good to chronicle my comeback from my recent injury. Plus most of my family is not on the book of faces so it saves me from actually having to talk to them... just kidding Mom!

So what recent injury? I broke my elbow in a bike crash in the Deer Trail Road Race on May 16th.
I had surgery to repair it. They put pins in to fix the bones back together, and it's estimated it'll be 6 weeks before I can hit the road again on my bike. I can, however, ride the trainer. I can't tell you how awesome that is to be faced with riding the trainer in May and June after trainering through a bad winter and spring.

After considering blogging all this, I thought it could be therapeutic and help me work through all the ups and downs of coming back from injury especially at this point in my life. The last time I had a major injury was when I broke my collar bone in 2000 or 2001 at the Solano race in California. Back then I was still an enthusiastic bike racer, working my way up the ranks and that was one of my first NRC races so I was super motivated to work my way back that year. I think I raced my bike 4 weeks after that and won my first race by week number 6. But now I'm old, semi-retired (if you can retire from something you don't do professionally), and just hanging on to old glory in the sport. I've done this bike racing thing for 20 years. I'm not trying to get any better at this point; I'm just trying not to get too fat or too slow.

To tell you the truth, before the crash at Deer Trail I was really struggling with motivation for 2010. The weather this spring has been so crummy and I just don't have the drive to ride in crappy weather or trainer like I did 5 or 10 years ago when I was coming up in the sport and "trying to go pro." I was contemplating taking a break in training after Hugo to try to get myself back on track... I got a little more of a "break" than I wanted, and now I need to decide what to do.

Do I work hard, trainer my ass off, and come back strong for the late season races and masters' track nationals? I had planned on defending my title in the pursuit in Frisco in September. I even bought a new track bike this year.The other option is to bow out gracefully for the season. No one would begrudge me that. I could spend the summer doing other things that regular people do like hike, go on vacation, and do beer and barbecue on the weekends. Shit, I haven't taken a summer off racing since 1996-97 when I broke my back, and that was no "vacation". I don't know if my inner bike racer will let me do that, but it does sound like fun, more fun than riding the trainer for the next 6 weeks.

I have cried just twice since I broke my elbow. I didn't cry when I hit the ground, I didn't cry on the 2 hour car drive to the hospital or in the 2.5 hours waiting in the ER to get to see the doctor and get my first dose of morphine. I didn't cry in recovery after surgery or in the hospital alone overnight. I cried once a couple days after surgery when I woke up because it hurt so f'ing much after sleeping through taking my pain medicine. Then I cried tonight because the reality of it all hit me. A week after surgery I'm off the Percocet euphoria of the last week and I've determined this just sucks. I've been playing it off as no big deal, and in the big picture it isn't. I've been hurt worse than this and come back from bigger things, and certainly lots of people have worse problems to deal with, but I still think I'll rate this an 8 out of 10 on the suck meter.

So here we go. Tonight was a lot of words and philosophy, sorry for that. I promise in my future posts there will be a lot more pictures and amusing quips just like my old blog posts. Maybe even a few cat pictures. Next post, I'll tell you all about the crash since a lot of people have asked how it happened.

Dear Mom, I know you're not on the book of faces and wanted to see my holiday/ birthday/ housewarming gift that you so wanted me to have. It's pretty nice, and High-Definition is totally worth it, you should get a high-def TV, you'll never want to watch anything else but HDTV.

Another Cat Blog

Yes, there has been a lot of cat blogging going on this week, but it's either this or the weather which it happens to be snowing again anyway.

Budha and Pest have a new favorite hiding spot.

That is because I moved their basket close to the fireplace which finally works after I got it fixed this week. That's a good thing because as I said it's snowing today.

Toothless Wonder

I picked Budha up from the vet tonight. She's fairly groggy, but the first thing she did when she got home was go straight for the food dish. She must be trying to get her girth back. Who's ever seen a skinny Budha? The second thing she did was go straight for my water glass. Somethings never change.

Turns out the vet needed to take out 7 teeth, which in addition to the other 2 she's had pulled before, means she only has her front teeth and canines left. It's kind of sad, but still funny to watch her drink water tonight. It's somewhat similar to how anyone of us drinks water after going to the dentist.

Looks like at least one kitty will be on the soft food from now on.

What did I tell you?

Given up

I have finally given up trying to get the kitties to drink out of my water glass and have fooled them with giving them one of their own. So far it is working.

Kitty Loaf

Some mild drama in the life of the Eastman kitty cats this week. Budha needs to go in for some minor surgery. I took her to the vet today after realizing she had stopped eating and dropped some weight recently. In fact, she's lost 2 lbs, and when you weigh just over 10lbs, 2lbs is a lot. She is a svelt 8.2 lbs now. Anyway, took her to the vet today and turns out she needs to get a couple of teeth pulled, that's why she's not eating. Funny thing is, the vet said she wouldn't be "upset" if Budha stayed at the weight she is.... Is she calling my cat a fattie mcfatterson? To be honest, Budha did not get her name from being the thinnest cat on the block, which just goes to show, you can't even be a fat cat these days and get away with it. There's even peer pressure on my poor kitty cat to be a svelt 8-9 lbs instead of her large and in charge 11-12 lb. I wonder if she'll have any body image issues from this whole ordeal?

The vet also referred to her age several times and said things like "at her age" you can't expect her to bounce back as quickly. Is 13 the new 65 in cat years?

Mom's Visit

Today, for the last day of Mom's visit we went and did some touristy things around town, including going to the top of Pikes Peak. Allow me to illustrate.

We went via the Pikes Peak Cog Railway. It takes about an hour to get to the top via the train, and I've actually never taken it up it before.And Mom loves trains. The view ain't bad either.

View from the top of Pikes Peak. 14,000 feet up.

It's a little windy up there.
But she made it.

2009 season review

My 2009 racing season is officially in the books now. I think it was a pretty good season; although, I am at that age now when reminisce about ‘back in the day’ when I used to be fast. Regardless, it was way better than my 2008 season. 2008 was not a good racing year for me. There were no wins for me and no team wins, so I was a little more motivated this year to turn things around.

I had some major life changes in 2009 too. I went back to work ‘for the man’, aka Chris Carmichael, and resumed a full-time position at CTS. That was a major change from working in my pj’s at home on my own time to going back to a full-time job where I had to be somewhere occupying space from 8am-5pm every day Monday through Friday. Really, it’s not that bad. I do work for a cycling company, after all, where office meeting can often involve 3 hour bike rides on the open road. This year also marked another major life change to buy a house (townhome) and embrace the wonderful world of having a mortgage.

Despite all those changes, I really enjoyed the 2009 racing season. I have embraced my role as the old, wily, veteran racer who might not be as fast as the young’ins but has years of experience to carry me through. 2009 also marked the return, after a year hiatus, of my good teammate Beth. With Beth and Lisa back from having their babies, the addition of Maegan to our roster, and Jenna and Carol returning from last year we had a really fun and cohesive team for 2009. The more years I race, the more and more I rely on my teammates to make racing fun and help push me to a higher level.
2009 also marked a return to the track for me. It’s not that I ever really left the track, but this year I raced a full season on the track, and I realize how much that makes me a better rider. Track is great; it’s all the best parts of racing. It cuts out all that b.s. riding around for miles and miles before anything good happens and just gets straight on to the good parts. A long race on the track is about 12 minutes, so it suits my attention span just fine. I had a good year on the track in 2009 as well. By my math, I’ll win CVA rider of the year on points for the season, and I also won a couple of national championships. Masters Nationals was held here in Colorado Springs, and I won the individual 2k pursuit and the team pursuit. No matter what else happens, it’s a good season if you win a stars and bars jersey, even if it is just Masters Natz.

Our team also had a very good season. With Beth back in full-force, she won so many races I lost count. It was somewhere over 10 or 12 races; I’m sure she can correct me. It’s funny how when you’re on a winning team that it elevates the performance of everyone around. So, I think the team as a whole had a much better year in 2009. Everyone on the team raced really well. Maegan had a win in Glenwood Springs, and I finally got a win on the road too. I hadn’t won on the road since 2007, and it meant a lot to me to get one this year. I won the Vic’s crit in August, and I think getting that monkey off my back helped my confidence going in to nationals that was a few weeks later.

So I am satisfied with my 2009 season. I have this imaginary mark of a good season that is winning 3 races. I think that’s a pretty good season for anyone (except Beth). I won 2 by my count with Masters Natz and the crit at Vics. Sure, I could count the team pursuit or any of my other individual races at the track, but I never got the sweep at any nights of the track. At the track, we do 3 races every night. I count it as a win if I win all 3. I had a few nights of winning 2 out of 3, but a young 16-year old, Maddie, nipped me a few times for that 3rd win and the sweep. How’s that for injustice, getting beat by someone less than half your age and that you are totally old enough to be her mother! I feel old. I’m also tired, but a good tired from a good year of racing. So that’s all folks, until the 2010 season where I’m totally going to come back as a climber… (p.s. I say that every year and have yet to make it true ;-))

I have been singing this all afternoon.

Steamboat Springs Wrap Up

Last weekend we (Beth and I) went out to Steamboat Springs to do the last official race of the season.
Steamboat is really pretty, and I've never been, so I was pretty excited to go. It's too bad that my legs were not also excited to race as I pretty much stunk it up in the first two stages of the this race. I finished 11th or 12th in both the opening time trial and the first circuit race. I just chalk it up to bad legs in the first circuit race. Maybe too much track racing this past month? There are no hills on the track you know! I got dropped on the first lap climb of that circuit race and was in no man's land. I made up a little ground by catching a few people along the way, but it just ended up being a bad day for me on the bike. Beth did really great though, she finished 4th and hung on to the lead group of climbers. She was sitting 4th overall after the stage.

I was kind of upset about the circuit race and really didn't know what to expect from myself after 2 bad days on the bike. I joked to Beth the night before about going from the gun in the road race, and her response was an emphatic "No!" We hoped the race would stay together and not be too aggressive because we heard it was a pretty hard course, and as we've said before, we're not a team of climbers.

We started the 3rd stage road race with a neutral roll out on a dirt road for about a mile and then hit the open high way. Then I, in typical fashion, got bored about 1 mile in to the race because I was doing about 90 watts and no one wanted to pull, so I went to the front to to a pull and get the ball rolling, and lo-and-behold, I was off the front. Turns out Beth pulled up when I went to the front and opened up a gap for me. 2 Bike Law women followed with me and when I saw we had a bit of a gap, I just started riding. That was how this epic adventure all got started.

I pull up my SRM file as evidence of the race that unfolded because I am sure as I retell this story that my breakaway will get longer and longer as the years pass. So it was me, Alisabeth, and Sue off the front from mile 1 of the race. We worked very well together. I knew it was an ill-fated move, but I still wanted to gain as much time as possible before we got caught so we could help our teammates in the race. Unfortunately, Alisabeth flatted around mile 15 when we crossed a rail road track. Then it was just me and Sue for another several miles. We still had a pretty big gap because I couldn't see the pack behind us, but our break had more bad luck when Sue dropped her chain around mile 20. I had the choice to go alone or wait for her. I chose to go alone. And so I went...

I went alone to the turn around in the race which was about mile 25. I thought I couldn't be more than a minute or two in front of the pack by then, but when I spotted the pack after the turn I had already been past the turn around for more than 2 minutes. By my powers of dedcution, that meant I had to have about a 5-minute lead on the pack. Holy Crap! I had almost 25 miles to go to the finish, but a pretty big lead. This is the point when I started to have a glimmer of hope of taking this race to the finish. So I grit my teeth and did my best impersonation of Jacky Durand.

Of course, it didn't play out the way I had hoped it would, in epic fashion to start a break on mile one and hold it to the finish. It still was a great adventure. As I ticked the miles away I still couldn't see the pack behind me. When I got to 15 miles to go and still couldn't see the pack, I thought I still had a chance. I did a lot of math in my head that day... I could lose 1 minute every 10 km and still win, but of course, the last 5 miles were mostly uphill. So I was not certain at all that I could hold it. Then with about 10 miles to go the skies opened up and it started to pour down rain and hail. This was turning in to an epic day. I thought and hoped the rain would slow the chasing pack down, but it didn't.

Unfortuatately for me, the moto official started giving me time splits in those last few miles. At 10 miles to go I had 2.5 minutes. I thought... I couldn't lose 2.5 minutes in 10 miles in my worst time trial, right? Oh, but wait, I forgot to factor in the 30 miles preceeding of bascially time trialing. By the time I hit the base of the climb the moto official rides up and tells me I had 1:10 over the chasing pack... I thought to myself, "Crap, I need at least 2 minutes to hold this lead." I kept going as best I could, but was like one of those tour guys who has been in the break all day and getting chased by Lance just weaving my way up the climb. I got within sight of the summit of the penultimate climb when I heard the whir of Susannah's wheels behind me. My epic adventure was over 3 miles from the finish of the race.

It was the best of times and the worst of times. I have always been the rider who isn't afraid to attack, and although my attacks are often ill-timed and ill-advised, I always go with the hope it will work. This time I was in the lead of the race for 45 miles, it's just too bad that the race was 48 miles.

I got popped as soon as the pack caught me and strolled in well after the leaders finished because the last mile was all uphill and I was cooked. The good news of this epic adventure was that it did actually help my teammate Beth who didn't have to do a lick of work all day until the final climb. She did great and finished 3rd on the day and made the final selection up the last climb. The next day was the crit and if she did well she could move up on the overall.

In the crit, I made several attempts to get off the front, but to no avail. We did take both cash primes, and I was able to help Beth with a good the leadout on the final lap. She eneded up taking the win and bumped herself up to 3rd overall with the time bonus, so that at least was some gratification for the weekend.

All in all, I had a good time at Steamboat and we went to the hot springs after the race. I wished I had raced better in the early stages, but we can't always get what we want. I will still count that break-away in the road race in Steamboat as one of my favorite moments of 2009, eventhough it didn't work out in the end. I'll keep trying though, you all know me by now.

New napping spot

I have discovered the reason why all my towels are covered in cat hair