It's funny how every January, just about every human decides on resolutions or goals for the upcoming year. Like many others, I too had selected my 2018 goals. It was to ride a century (that's riding 100 miles on bike, for the non-riding readers) and both days of the Shenandoah Fall Foliage Tour with my long ride being on Sunday and possibly as long as a Century. I worked hard last winter riding Zwift or going outside and riding an hour per ride (on weeknights; longer rides on the weekends). I spent a lot of time cruising the roads near my house and riding up and down hills. I was having a good spring, setting PR's on segments on Strava and thoroughly enjoying my abilities. I had ridden almost 1200 miles between January and April and had built a pretty good base fitness for road rides.
I had previously ridden a century back in 2013 - Backroads Century - Berryville Edition. It was a blast and beautiful roads. There is just something about the look on people's faces when they ask what's the farthest you've ridden on a bike and you say a hundred miles. HA! I was super excited to try again and was considering the Burke's Garden Century as the one to do as it's cheap, an out and back, not that far from home and the weather usually isn't that bad.
Alas, May 19th changed the entire rest of the year. All of my goals were smashed as badly as my hip. There would be new things to focus on, things to relearn and many milestones to accomplish. This isn't how I wanted to spend 2018, but it was the hand that was dealt to me. I would deal with it just like everything else in my life - work hard, be determined to succeed and NOT GIVE UP. As Pat Summitt said, "Handle success like you handle failure. You can't always control what happens, but you can control how you handle it." I find a lot of strength in Pat's words.
From the minute I realized I wasn't going to stand up in the Tennessee field, I started planning. First it was the immediate concerns of my mom, etc. that I talked about earlier then of course the entire hospital/surgery stuff. Always in the back of my mind I was what is this going to be like? How will I get back on a bike? Will I get back on a bike? At first I knew that the doctors could fix my hip; after all I had seen that surgery hundreds of times in my career, I'm 44 years old - it can't be that hard to fix.. But I had no fucking idea how hard this would be. Even with the devastation of having to have the revision surgery in June, my mind would go back to riding - when, how? But doubt would creep back in with the realization, "you can't walk. You can't even stand on both feet." Fear creeps in, but you have to push it aside or you will drown in the the worry that things won't get better. I couldn't feel sorry for myself. I did this, I was the one who chose to go ride in the rain. It's all my fault.
There would be times, I'd wake up and feel normal then one movement the wrong way or trying to raise my leg that at times felt like it alone weighed 150lbs. "Reality check, dumbass - you broke your hip, it's attached to the main part of your skeleton, you are stuck in this chair, your muscles are wasting away. Stop, stop thinking about that - you have to get better, try to raise your knee." Inches felt like a huge accomplishment, but pain would soon stop the attempts. Each day, try a little more. Today, try to raise your foot off the chair, come on, GO! Nothing - "OMG, this is horrible, this is never going to get better."
I had previously ridden a century back in 2013 - Backroads Century - Berryville Edition. It was a blast and beautiful roads. There is just something about the look on people's faces when they ask what's the farthest you've ridden on a bike and you say a hundred miles. HA! I was super excited to try again and was considering the Burke's Garden Century as the one to do as it's cheap, an out and back, not that far from home and the weather usually isn't that bad.
Alas, May 19th changed the entire rest of the year. All of my goals were smashed as badly as my hip. There would be new things to focus on, things to relearn and many milestones to accomplish. This isn't how I wanted to spend 2018, but it was the hand that was dealt to me. I would deal with it just like everything else in my life - work hard, be determined to succeed and NOT GIVE UP. As Pat Summitt said, "Handle success like you handle failure. You can't always control what happens, but you can control how you handle it." I find a lot of strength in Pat's words.
From the minute I realized I wasn't going to stand up in the Tennessee field, I started planning. First it was the immediate concerns of my mom, etc. that I talked about earlier then of course the entire hospital/surgery stuff. Always in the back of my mind I was what is this going to be like? How will I get back on a bike? Will I get back on a bike? At first I knew that the doctors could fix my hip; after all I had seen that surgery hundreds of times in my career, I'm 44 years old - it can't be that hard to fix.. But I had no fucking idea how hard this would be. Even with the devastation of having to have the revision surgery in June, my mind would go back to riding - when, how? But doubt would creep back in with the realization, "you can't walk. You can't even stand on both feet." Fear creeps in, but you have to push it aside or you will drown in the the worry that things won't get better. I couldn't feel sorry for myself. I did this, I was the one who chose to go ride in the rain. It's all my fault.
There would be times, I'd wake up and feel normal then one movement the wrong way or trying to raise my leg that at times felt like it alone weighed 150lbs. "Reality check, dumbass - you broke your hip, it's attached to the main part of your skeleton, you are stuck in this chair, your muscles are wasting away. Stop, stop thinking about that - you have to get better, try to raise your knee." Inches felt like a huge accomplishment, but pain would soon stop the attempts. Each day, try a little more. Today, try to raise your foot off the chair, come on, GO! Nothing - "OMG, this is horrible, this is never going to get better."
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