Rosser Chiropractic

Last night I went out for a short ride of about an hour and found myself at the top of local Tumwater Hill. This area used to be covered with trees as recently as last year, but now is denuded with 360 degree views around the area. For the moment, you can see Mt. Rainier, Mt. St. Helens, and the Olympics all in one sweeping view, with the Port of Olympia in the foreground. Soon, though, this spot will be covered with houses, as some parts of this development are already under construction. The grid of streets in the development have been paved, and these offered a chance to practice cornering, picking lines, and sprinting. I didn’t do so badly in this race against myself, but I was glad nobody was watching.

Riding on the trafficked streets yesterday was a little bit of a bear. I changed my hours this week at the office, which should give me time to ride on Tuesday nights… but I forgot that it’s bad lighting right about then, and I forgot my lights. Because of my previous work schedule, I can’t remember the last time I rode in weekday traffic! When the time changes, the local Tuesday night rides start up and I will be able to participate in them now. It’ll give me one more chance to ride with a group to keep developing my race riding.

Yesterday I completed my first road cycling race at the first of three training races around Mason Lake north of Shelton, WA. Our starting group (Category 5) was around 50 riders by my estimation. Within our group, I recognized several riders from my racing in the 2007 cyclocross season. We rolled out as a fairly tight group for about half of the first lap. Then, there was a single rider crash mid-group, probably from a touched wheel. Up to that point, there was a lot of stop-and-go jerkiness to the group, which could have easily led to this crash. He was about 5 bike lengths ahead of me, but those behind, including myself were able to ride between the bike and the fallen rider (Sorry, dude!)

I was able to sprint back up to the main group, and several others were left behind in a momentarily split group. We maintained a pace of about 24 mph around the rest of the lake until the last 1000 meters of the lap. At that point, the pace increased quite a bit, and I was left behind on the incline leading up to the start/finish line. End of Lap 1.

Laps 2 and 3 were fairly low key and consisted of trying to maintain a quick pace. I was overtaken at the tail-end of the second lap by the Masters C/D group which started about 5 minutes behind us. I worked my way back to the back of the group were I found a few of my group riding, which is allowed in these races. I stayed with them as long as I could, but they carried on without me, much as my own group did on yet another incline. What’s with these inclines?

I was left to my final lap with another rider from my race who turned out to be not too chatty, or interested in working together to avoid some of the wind on the course. In the end, I sped up my pace in the last mile and finished the race about 200 meters in front of him, for whatever that was worth. At least by doing so, I was assured that I hadn’t finished last… for whatever that was worth, too.

In the end, my two goals were met: First, staying upright for the entire race, and, second, finishing the race in whatever time it took, hopefully not last.

Last night I hosted a Core Exercise Clinic in my office for members of the cycling team that I race for here in Olympia. The question was asked of me whether I ever felt any discomfort on the bike because I do all of these exercises. I wasn’t able to answer her very completely last night, so I thought I would do it here. In the first place, I got into chiropractic as a profession because of some injuries that I had as a child. As a result of a fall from a horse, I have had to deal with chronic lower back pain in some form or another throughout my entire life.

Throughout high school and college, lower back pain limited me in many of my most favorite activities such as biking, hiking, and canoeing. I didn’t even consider sports like kayaking feasible because of the back demands. I spent most of my time stiff and sore. I couldn’t even sit reading for very long without having it drive me crazy. When it came time to channel my energy into a profession, I chose Chiropractic, because it had given me much relief and mobility, personally, over the years.

Now, as a 36 year old, I would honestly say that the past 2-3 years have been my most comfortable. Many things have changed in those few years, too, and here are some of the notables: First, I have lost over 50 pounds that I had accumulated while going to school and starting a practice. I’ll never forget the day that I looked at my scale and saw that I weighed 232 lbs. I was well on my way, at that point, and found it very depressing to be a health care provider who wasn’t living a healthy lifestyle. So, I turned that around with some great advice from my naturopath and by rekindling my love of the sport of cycling. The second thing that happened is that I started taking my own advice and performing many of the exercises that I now give to my patients to take care of their backs. I try to be as consistent as I can with them.

I had all but given up riding my bike after college because of my lower back pain. Now, I’ve spent countless hours and at least 4 thousand miles on my bikes and feel the best that I ever have. I put the (good) blame on a dramatic loss of extra weight, and the exercises that I have put consistent effort into. I can see myself getting better, over time, as well. That’s a good anti-aging type feeling.

Yesterday, I tried getting back on the trainer for a quick lunchtime ride. It quickly became obvious that I had some major residual pain in my knee from the previous day. Since I haven’t had this problem ever before, it’s been very distressing. I knew that I didn’t want to continue the workout I was attempting. I also was quite sure that I have been feeling something clunking in the drivetrain somewhere. While spinning, I kept noticing that I felt a “bump” just about to the top of the pedal stroke on my left side (knee pain side.) I hopped off and checked the crank arm, and sure enough there was a few degrees of glide of the crankarm (FSA spindle axle.) I’m kicking myself for not looking there before, but what can I say, I’m a rookie.

Since I’ve been working a lot on my spinning and pedal stroke on the trainer this winter, I’m guessing that eveytime I kicked over the top, it was like I was kicking my toe into a wall. Let’s see a pedal cadence of 90 would add up to 5,400 pedal strokes per hour… for 6 hours per week that would be 32,400 pedal strokes for the week… over roughly 4 weeks (a guess) would be 129,600 pedal strokes since I got the loose crankarm! That’s a lot of repetition, and plenty of time to brind about this injury. I guess my focus was on other things, (like keeping my Clif Bars down on team rides.) Hopefully this was the problem and I caught it early enough to have it calm down quickly. By the way, the info on “Spring Knee” still holds, just luckily isn’t the problem that I have.

Next week will be my first road race of 2008, and, um… ever. This time, next week, I’ll be checking my gear over for an early Saturday trip up to Mason Lake, which is north of Shelton, WA. This coming weekend will be a challenge for me, since the team that I train with is heating up the ride this week to a faster pace. On average the training rides have been about 50 miles with an average of 17-19mph. Last week was only the second ride that I held on to until the end with the group, which is quite a feat for my novice legs. Of course, everyone else was working hard while I tried to duck down behind, to stay out of the wind. Hopefully next weekend, I can achieve my only goal which is to finish the race under my own power (and maybe not last!) This, of course, may be a lot to ask… We’ll just have to see what comes of this all. Tomorrow, my daughter and I are taking a pleasure trip to Seattle to attend the Cascade Bicycle Club’s annual BikeSwap.