Crazy... more traveling than a human should.

the last few weeks have been pure craziness. i left nature valley, went to colorado for a week long pursuit camp- that was SO HARD! the track is a new definition of suffering for me. i got back on thursday night only to get in the car on saturday AM, drive for 7 hours, race that night, then drive back sunday another 7 hours... monday, on a plane to california for about 8 hours of travel after a layover in houston!... a presentation to TIBCO on tuesday, then a 6:15AM flight on wednesday for another 7-8 hours of travel back to cleveland! WHEW!

that is not the reason i have not been blogging. truthfully, after i finished my dissertation, i got out of the writing mode. i was kind of boycotting on a subconscious level, i think. at any rate- when i DID try to write, it would not come out well. i was frustrated that i could not express myself and that it did not feel good. honestly, i felt like an idiot. sort of like i was done with my phd and now my brain could being to atrophy back so some previous state of pre-academic mush.

that is behind me now. i have been working on stuff for the team that gets me very involved and keeps me mentally acute. now i feel like i can write again and i want to get back to my blog. i do feel like it is good for me to assess my day in some electronic form.

i am not going to write too much right now though since i promised someone that i would write up a thing for cyclingnews. when it comes out, i will send a link. so, i have to start that. but i did want to get a little literal calisthenics in getting my fingers warmed up to write again.

so quickly... one of the things that i did get done yesterday is i FINALLY got a bike fit! i went to our bike fit guy, curtis at revolutions in fitness (www.revolutionsinfitness.com) and he is fantastic! he was a physical therapist who did the AIDS ride (the same year i did!) and realized that a lot of bike pain could be prevented. so, he decided to combine PT with bike fitting and went to study bike fits. it is a great combo- PT and bike fitting...

i was SO blown away with what i learned about my body. i have always been pretty comfortable on the bike and so i had not prioritized getting fit. i have had people tell me before that i should have my knee above the spindle at 90* etc, but i kind of felt that as long as i was not feeling pain or discomfort on the bike, i was pretty much ok.

what was interesting is that i have one leg that is much larger than the other. i told curtis thought that i did not think that there was all that much of a strength different. true enough- when i pedal, my stroke is very smooth and even between my two legs. humm! interesting when one leg is gianormous and the other practically puny! (and ACL knee reconstruction in 1993 is the reason for the size difference). anyway, well, we dissected out my body with a fine tooth comb and found out that the reason i pedal smoothly but have freaky, disproportionate legs is that i compensate with my back and abs. my whole left side (sans quad) is so much stronger than my right! that told me two things... 1. i need to work on strengthening my core to balance me out (i do get some back pain on occasion as a result of the twisting of my core from my asymmetry) and 2. if my wimpy leg can put out as much power as my strong leg because of core muscles.... then core is even more important than i thought! i always though of core as being important for preventing injury and driving some power... but this really hit home to me that i am getting POWER from my back and abs when i am just pedaling in the saddle. so, shirking on my core work is a very bad thing. bad brooke! do your core! it was fascinating.

i can’t wait to try out my new fit. i am going to be riding tomorrow and checking things out. i encouraged him to really try things since we had a lot of room to play around. the best thing is that he wants me to touch base and see how things are going so we can keep trying things. he is not just sending me off.

i feel so dumb for not going to him earlier. if you are seriously about cycling, getting a good fit is a great idea. sounds dumb, since everyone always says that it is important to get a good fit... but now i am devout in my advocacy of a good bike fit!

i honestly did not even mean that as a big plug for curtis. but he is great.

for now, i am going to go write up that diary entry and get on my flight. it will feel DAMN good to be home for SO long! i will be home until the 21st!