Arizona Trail Race 2014, denied again.

Well, wow, where to start. I've been preparing for the Arizona Trail Race now for nearly 4 months, time that prepared me for everything the trail and race could throw at me. Unfortunately I pretty much decided to ignore the signs that my body was giving me to maybe reassess my plans.

 I didn't ride my bike from late December to late January, I had been putting out pretty big power numbers and decided that I didn't want to be blown up and over trained as I came into the race.  That first week of training was interrupted by a really swollen right knee that had me on the couch and in severe pain for three days. I hadn't really had any recent problems with this leg considering how messed up it is (compound Tib/Fib break and a torn MCL in my early twenties, 1/2 inch short) so this flare up kind of came out of left field. It would always ache a bit if I didn't ride for a few days, but would always remedy itself with some hours in the seat. I kind of blew it off as a freak incident but it continued to be swollen and painful for the next few weeks. Depending on how work went, it would come and go, typically hard days on the bike were a good thing and staved off the pain for a couple of days.

Date on the picture says 2-2-14

I had made an appointment to see my Ortho and actually went to the appointment which isn't my strong suit. An x-ray showed a bone fragment floating around under my knee cap and likely tearing my Meniscus. The PA put an order for an MRI in and I promptly ignored it. The knee had been feeling better with my increased training load and even pushing my bike around after riding for a few hours was not giving me any problems. The only issues I had with it were from inactivity, sitting in the truck for hours or standing in the shop all day in a fixed position welding made it pretty unhappy, but hell, I was only going to be riding my bike or hiking for 750 miles, not standing around for Petes sake.

So my preparation for the race continued. It's a real logistical nightmare to do this race. It's a point to point race which means leaving a car at one end and getting to the other end somehow. All of the details were coming together and it looked like it was going to go pretty smoothly. Work had really ramped up in the months leading up to the race, I mean REALLY ramped up. I had been working 7 days a week since late November, even working on X-mas and New Years day. Going into the race the only real concern I had was just overall fatigue. I pretty much took the last two weeks off from riding, not ideal, but the only way I was going to be able to go. I had two large homes that were going to final while I was gone so they absolutely had to be completed before I left.

 I had been working on getting my kit together and my setup for the hike of the Grand Canyon together for months so those parts of the race were pretty dialed. I was super happy with my canyon hike setup and was really looking forward to this really difficult aspect of the race. Work had me working pretty hard right up to the morning I left, I was literally in the office till the minute I left.

The drive out was nice, just getting away from work and all the stress related to it in the past months felt like a huge load off of me. I was going to meet Mark and Aaron in St. George, Utah on Wed and we were going to get our vehicles out to the border and then drive straight through to Sierra Vista that day/night. We made pretty good time and pulled into SV at about 9 pm. We had Thursday to finalize the details of getting to the Mexico border and just chill a bit before the 7am Friday start.

Sleep was hard to come by on Thursday night, but then it's always a little rough the night before something like this. We made our way to the border with the help of the local bike shop owner who was super accommodating. The weather this year was much warmer than last year which made it much more enjoyable. 17 of us hardy souls were at the start, we would ride for 15 miles to the start of the 300 mile race and then join another 35 racers at Parker Canyon Lake. 

Mark C with Mark from Sun and Spokes

Aaron D in a moment of contemplation.

Mexico on the other side.

Some of the riders getting ready

Lots of girls this year!

The race started promptly at 7 am and I found my way to the pointy end of the race. It's a pretty mellow 15 miles of gravel road to Parker Canyon and the pace was just below my target of keeping my heart rate below 150 BPM. We hit the first singletrack into the Canelos in a little over 1 hour and I found myself out front, a place that was uncomfortable to me so I just stuck to my plan of keeping my heart rate nice and low, this race is won later in the week, not in the first 50 miles. I rolled around in front for a couple of hours until Jay Petervary and Aaron Denberg finally caught up with me. Jay was the odds on favorite to win being an accomplished endurance racer and record holder at the Tour Divide and Iditabike races as well as winning nearly everything he enters.

 I was happy to see them come by, it allowed me to ride my pace without the pressure that is always present no matter what your plan is. I rolled along riding what I could and walking whenever my heart rate got a little high. It was at this point that my knee started to ache a little bit, nothing too big, but certainly more than I wanted so early in the race. I caught back up to Jay and Aaron riding my own pace which surprised me a bit, my guess is they pushed a bit to catch me and were settling in to a reasonable pace that also suited me. Aaron made a move on the next big hike a bike as I was really starting to be concerned about the pain coming from my right knee and rode out of sight, Jay must have stopped for some food or something as he was nowhere to be seen.  I rode alone for the next 10 miles or so, waiting for others to catch up to me but no one appeared. It was in this space of time that I think my race ended.

Somewhere out past Canelo Pass I was climbing a steep little short pitch when I exploded the chain on my brand new drivetrain. There must have been a defective link in the chain as it broke in the middle, wrapped up around my derailleur, broke my hanger and wedged in between my spokes and cassette. More importantly, the force  that it broke at strained my right knee and made it even more painful than before. It took about 20 minutes to fix the carnage and in this time I was passed by 4 or 5 750 racers and the lead pack of three 300 racers. I quickly caught on the lead 300 guys and let them pace me back up to Jay who was still behind Aaron. This was a really fun section that kept me on the bike for  nearly an hour but at the first HAB section my knee was completely locked up and it felt like someone had driven a nail into the outside of my knee. I decided to let everyone go and try to get to the pavement heading to Patagonia with as little damage as possible. Unfortunately there are endless little pitches that require getting off and pushing your bike in the Canelos and every one was killing me, I looked like a wooden legged pirate hiking up those pitches.

Trail out in the Canelos

More trail in the Canelos

 I had to one leg my bike along the final paved section, but I finally made it to the store in Patagonia. I took a Vicoden and some Ibuprofen in Patagonia and made my way along the 15 mile paved stretch to Sonoita. I had hoped the Vicoden cocktail and the road spin would help my knee to loosen up but really was worried at this point. I decided to stop for a while in Sonoita and ice my knee for an hour or so. Racers came and went and I watched my chances of winning this race disappear into the distance as quickly as the ice melted on my knee.

 I was o.k. with the way my race was going. I knew that to finish this race was an unbelievable accomplishment and just continuing on for the next couple of days would see me catch and pass many of those who had gone by in the past hour.

I took off from Sonoita heading for Kentucky Camp with ice stuffed in my leg coolers. This worked awesome and really raised my spirits, looking back it was just the Vicoden starting to kick in, which was fine, I had nearly 40 of them.....

On my way to Kentucky Camp...

I headed out the dirt roads on my way to Kentucky Camp and soon found out that my newly found elevated spirits were soon starting to fade. I found a really pretty spot next to a flowing creek and elevated my leg for 45 minutes or so, popped another Vicoden and seriously considered staying here for the night even though I'd only been riding for 8 hours and was hoping to go at least 24 before stopping. I decided to try and make it to Kentucky Camp and reconsider my race from there, it was only 4 or 5 miles and fairly rideable so I figured this was a good decision. Aaron Johnson passed me just as I was starting again and we chatted a bit. He's a fellow racer from Mountain View, Ca. and a very strong rider that I knew would do very well on his way to Utah( he's currently in 2nd place). We both pulled into Kentucky Camp together and refilled our water for the next push to Tucson. It was pretty apparent to me I wouldn't be joining him for the night time ride to Tucson, at this point I couldn't even bend my knee a few degrees.

I made my way up the hill to the gate beyond Kentucky Camp and looked for a place to settle in for the night hoping that some time off the bike would work miracles and my knee would be pain free the next morning. I found a decent place next to a stock tank and tried to get out of the 30+ mph wind that was also settling in for the evening.

Disappointment under a stunning evening sky...

I actually slept pretty well( thanks to my well stocked medical chest..) and was only awakened to the sound of tires passing in the night. I had set my alarm for 5am and slept till it woke me up. The knee was still very sore the next morning( the awesome camp host at Kentucky Camp had given me a knee brace) and the knee brace was helping a bit at walking but was pretty cumbersome on the bike. I decided to head out the course a bit and see what happened. My knee was hurting, but not nearly as bad as it was the day before which gave me a little hope. The next 20 or so miles are all rideable and really fun. I knew there was some hiking ahead but was just really hoping that my knee would do just what it had always done, get better with more riding. The first HAB section destroyed all of those hopes, no way was it getting better and really was just as bad as the day before. I took my second Vicoden of the day and set my sights on getting to Tucson and re-evaluating my situation. The trail to Tucson beyond where I crashed last year is super fun and it made me mad that I crashed literally within 100' of being clear of all the techy sections of the first 100 miles.

One of the dozens of cattle gates you open... and close....

Sweet trail on the way to I-10

Heading to Tucson.

More sweet desert trail.

I found my way to Colossal Cave and refilled my camelbak. It had been pretty pain free getting to here, no HAB at all but I was favoring my right leg so much that my left leg was starting get tired and cramp. Multiple hike-a- bikes past Colossal Cave reaffirmed my decision to drop in Tucson, there were literally miles of pushing coming in the next 50 miles of the race and I was struggling on 10' sections.

I finally hit the pavement in Tucson and headed for the airport to rent a car back to Utah. Of course as luck would have it, I got to pedal 30 miles into a 30 mph headwind in the middle of Tucson to get to the airport, not fun...

By the time I got to Tucson my knee was huge and my whole leg was swollen, something that had not been happening since that original outbreak in February. I made the push to just outside of Kingman, AZ. that night and pushed on to New Harmony, Utah the following morning to meet my friend Steve who was world class cool to help me get my truck from the border. Another day spent driving home had my knee just as painful and swollen as it has ever been, and still is.

 I was lucky enough to call on Monday morning and make an appointment for an MRI on Tuesday morning which was pretty incredible. I figured I'd be waiting weeks to get in, lucky I still had an open order for the MRI from February.

Funny thing is I had a Ortho app set up for late April so that is still on the books. I'll see his PA next week to go over the MRI results( they don't discuss them over the phone for some reason) and I'll go from there. Work is still looming over me, but much less stressful than before I left and it will work itself out somehow, it always seems to.

So another disappointing trip to Arizona. I'm not so much disappointed in the race as I am in just not wanting to be in pain anymore. I worked my ass off to strengthen my shoulders up so I didn't have a repeat of last years debacle ( and they were awesome!) only to have something new crop up and kick my ass. I'll just keep on fighting through this crap and know that many others in this world will never even attempt to do what I have tried to and find some solace in that.