Ahhhhhhhhh. Here I sit, after a 2 month "off season", thinking back about how this year went. My first year in competitive cycling, and I feel like so much has happened. I went from finishing OFF THE BACK, dead last...to dominating my class at the Can-Am Police and Fire Games for 4 days. I raced everything from long, hilly road races, criteriums, circuit races, time trials, and sprints. I've learned that solo efforts rarely work, and I don't like assholes that don't do any work in a break away group. I also learned that I don't make excuses, and I can't stand the guys that do. Here's a news flash: if you didn't win, it's because the other guy was stronger, smarter, or his tactics worked better than yours that day. 'Nuff said. I love the feel and sound of carbon fiber, and I'm not much for "old school" or nostalgia. I also love the sound of a cowbell as I race past.
Most of July and August were spent in a great deal of pain in my hips. Many people called it an IT band issue. However, IT stretches didn't help. I discovered the magic of an ice bath late in the season, thanks to a friend at work, which brought a lot of relief after workouts, but I was still having problems sitting for long periods. For a while, I even thought I was having problems with my glutes.One night, my wife was giving me a deep tissue massage to the back of my legs, and she hit the painful spot precisely. She made the comment, "Y'know, that muscle is right next to your sacrum." That night, I Google'd "Sacrum muscle cycling pain" and found something called the Piriformis muscle, and Piriformis syndrome. To make a long story short, it is a very common issue in cycling, and there's some great stretches to fix it, which helped immediately. So now that I have it under control, I'm ready to start laying down some base miles for the winter.
Recently, I've been riding very lightly on the road, doing a little mountain biking, and even some work at the BMX track. Riding bikes is so much fun, that it gets hard to limit it to just one discipline sometimes. I'm looking forward to racing next season, and I'll probably focus on crit's, as it seemed to be what I did the best in.
