Monday, August 24, 2009

Mt. Ogden 50k weekend

Lyna and I took the puppies up to Huntsville for the weekend, I was signed up for the Mt. Ogden 50k race and wanted to have a relaxing weekend as well. The condo was comfy and clean and about 15 minutes from Snowbasin.

I headed up early Saturday morning to pick up my packet and set up the Dirt Coalition Pop Up tent. Went back to the condo to get Lyna and the pups and headed back up, Discovered soon after arrival tha my GPS had no battery charge, oh well, no problem, I warmed up with BZ and headed to the start. I originally signed up as Pro, but then was going to downgrade to amateur, but then realized that with 2 categories, I should race the upper one, only fair.


I think there were around 25 'Pro' men at the start, I was in the top ten at first, and surrendered a few spots on the first DH, as I had not pre-ridden the course. There were several spots on the DH that I had "OH $hit!" moments, but all in all i did well enough, Nate Stowers got around me towards the bottom of the first long DH and I stayed with him as much as I could till the long pavement climb to the lap area. I motored up this climb, putting distance on several riders and grabbed my bottles from Lyna. On the exposed start area climbs I was feeling a bit dizzy, luckily that went away, about 5 minutes later on the rough climb my left knee started to ache, drat, I maybe should have thrown in the towel there, but I kept pushing.

I did better on the DH and then any climb would come and I wanted to go hard, as my legs had it in them, but the knees did not. I was getting passed left and right and was very hot and frustrated, still I pushed on. Finally I made it to the long paved climb to the finish, KC, Adam and a few others passed me here and I was wanting to go with them, the legs said yes, but the knees said no. So I finished, 3 hours 3 minutes 34 seconds. 19th 'Pro' men 24th Male over all, 27th over all male and female.

1st lap 1:25:20
2nd lap 1:38:14

I believe I may have Patellar Tendonitis, need to go see a PT to be sure. The legs, lungs and heart wanna go, but the knees say no.

The rest of the weekend was grand, post race BBQ and awards were fun, I am sure I was one of the few that did not win a raffle prize:). Lyna and I ate dinner on 25th street in Ogden and then hot tubbed it, woke up Sunday and had breakfast at the Jackson Fork Inn, then drove home and hung out at the Tour of Utah crit with the Day's.





5 comments:

The Neil said...

I feel for you on the knee thing, this is the first season in the past 4 that mine hasn't plagued me. Hopefully you can trick em to last long enough for some cross races, right?

Forrest said...

Any form of tendonitis sucks, takes so long to heal and you usually have to rest it, by that I mean do nothing on it. Speaking from experience, hope it works out.

Anonymous said...

knee pain....acccckkk...mine is almost going away, one race season later. rest that knee.

JZ said...

Both knees? That would seem strange to happen at the same time. Of course what do I know. Did you seat-post slip down a little or did you lower it lately? I know my seat height measurement tends to fluctuate slightly throughout the season for some strange reason - sometimes in response to knee pain. Good luck.

Drew said...

Bob,
I had Petella Tendonitous. Went to the TOSH and was jerked around. I would recommend Julie Theisen who is an incredible PT. She was incredible to work with. She has worked on Shannon Barke (sp)with her ski related knee injuries. We used ice, and band tehrepy to strengthen the other muscles in the knee region. Also discovered that I needed shoe inserts since my knee was not tracking properly during the pedal stroke. Worked like a champ. I still have issues with the double tear in my meniscus, but then again they call me "Diesel" for a reason ;) Hope you feel better soon!

Drew