Category: #bikedc

I won’t stand for it

Yesterday turned out to be a pretty miserable day. I spent the morning at a brunch, the afternoon helping my daughter move to a new apartment, and the evening at a holiday party. I didn’t ride my bike and did only a few gentle stretches for my back before the day got underway.

At the brunch, my aching leg made it impossible to stand. This was okay since we were mostly just eating and chatting. Several people went for a post-food walk in Rock Creek Park but I decided not to on account of my back.

During the move I found that standing around made my leg ache. Walking up and down the hallway, sometimes carrying lightweight items for staging at the elevator, actually relieved the pain somewhat.

After about three hours of this, my leg started to ache. We drove to the party and, by the time we arrived, I couldn’t stand. Fortunately there was an ample supply of chairs and red wine.

We arrived home at 11:30. My leg was on fire. I could now feel pain in my left butt cheek and it wouldn’t go away. I lied down on the couch and gently stretched my lower back by raising my knees to my chest. After about an hour, fatigue conquered pain and I fell asleep.

At 2 am I awoke. Once I stood the pain came back. I did some gentle pelvic tilts in my easy chair and the pain subsided. I went to bed for five hours.

In the morning I had breakfast. As long as I wasn’t standing there was no pain. After breakfast I went back to the couch, put on headphones, and meditated for an hour.

Now I feel okay but I know that once I stand the pain will come back.

It’s cold and windy outside. I’ll probably go for a ride after lunch. Then, I’ll attempt some stretching exercises.

I am not having fun.

Now if only I could walk

Today was another successful bike jaunt. I intended to do an easy 20 miles but ended up doing 26 even though it was raining. I am really amazed at how good I am feeling on the bike. And, more importantly, how the pain in my left knee and hip has seemingly disappeared. Happy New Year to me.

I still have a hot spot of pain outside my left hip. It goes away after I ride. It doesn’t seem to be my iliotibial band and it is no more painful now than anytime in the last year. It just is. Go figure.

As for the stenosis, it’s still hanging around. I feel fine for the first few hours of the day when I’m doddering around the house. Once I start walking more than 30 feet or so, the ache returns. Last week I bought a cane. I can’t bring myself to use it.

In the comments yesterday, my brother who is a retired nurse with apparently the same defective back gene suggested I try a chiropractor. Many years ago I tried one. One treatment made me worse off. Of course, he wanted me to come back for weekly adjustments.

I tried acupuncture for my shoulders. One therapist managed to fix my right shoulder with one treatment. Another therapist didn’t do a thing for my left shoulder. Of course, he said that if only I come back for regular treatments, I’ll get better. No thanks.

My friend Kathy with whom I stayed on my 2018 tour recommended trying Feldenkrais. She and her husband have been doing it for years and swear by it. Feldenkrais is a strange blend of martial arts, engineering, and meditation. It involves monitoring your body through very controlled, gentle movements. I watched a few videos online. I was thinking “No way this is going to work.” Then I tried a few simple exercises. I was barely moving but damned if it didn’t work.

During her recovery from getting bowled by an SUV, Mrs. Rootchopper took a Feldenkrais class in nearby Arlington, Virginia. She said it helped and that, strangely, she felt a couple of inches taller when she walked out of the class. I am intrigued. I signed up for a one-hour class next Tuesday night. If this pans out, I may buy some audio tapes that Kathy recommended.

My father used to say that you should never have surgery unless your ailment prevents you from working. Too many things can go wrong. I think my stenosis falls into this category. I am in no rush to go under the knife even though my back surgery 30 years ago was a success.

One way or another I’ll get through this. I have some bike touring to do this summer.

 

Leg Pain Whack a Mole

It’s all very frustrating. my hip and knee pain seem to be gone but now I have to deal with this stenosis-related pain.

Last night I watched a movie (The Danish Girl) while lying on the couch. By the time the movie was over my leg pain had quieted. I slept through the night without use of pain medication.

My leg stayed calm through noon. Since it was pretty nice day outside, I did a somewhat hilly 36-mile ride on my Cross Check. Lowering the seat has greatly improved my pedaling. Still no problems with my knee or hip, although the pain outside the hip seems to be sticking around. Riding did not bring on stenosis-related pain as far as I can tell.

When I finished my left leg felt fine. Once I started doing my stenosis exercises, however, things took a turn for the worse. Certain exercises that are supposed to help actually hurt. I know I need to do the exercises but I also know that if I keep pinging the nerve while I’m doing them, I am defeating the purpose.

Right now I feel general soreness in my left butt cheek, outside my left hip, my inner left thigh, and in my left calf. On a scale of 1 to 10, the pain is a 3. On a scale of frustration, I’m at about an 8.

 

 

Adios prednisone

Last night while waiting to go into a movie, I could tell that the prednisone I had been taking was wearing off. By the time the movie was over, my left leg was aching every bit as much as it was before the steroids. When steroids wear off, it’s like a light switch. Pow. Welcome back to the pain party.

Today, with a lowered saddle, I rode my Cross Check a relatively easy 24 1/2 miles. There were a few small hills thrown in. I was surprised that neither my left hip nor the underside of my left kneecap hurt at all. After I warmed up, my stenosis pain went away too. Maybe I’m finally making some progress.

When I got home, I had a healthy lunch. (Okay, it was chocolate cake and milk. Cut me some slack here.) Then I did some work on my bike. While I was walking back and forth to my shed, the pain in my left leg came back. Big time. My left butt cheek has joined in the fun.

I hit the floor for some stenosis exercises. They didn’t do much. I did find that the pain completely stopped during bird dogs which is useful to know if I plan to spend the rest of my life as a display at Cabela’s.

So, I’ll be munching ibuprofen for a while. Unfortunately, this is beginning to look a lot like my ruptured disc episode of 30 years ago.

Happy new year.

The Big Finish – Part 3

Prednisone

Today was my final prednisone pill. It’s powerful stuff. It has interesting side effects. It makes you speedy, improves your mood, and boosts your appetite. Basically, you run around the kitchen eating all the Christmas goodies. It’s a dirty, lousy, thankless job but somebody has to do it. Oink.

Stenosis

After breakfast, I did a half hour of yoga for my back. Normally, I start by doing standing stretches, but today I did nothing but stretches and core exercises on the floor. Child pose is the bomb. I think the prednisone allows me to relax and stretch without muscle soreness. It’ll be interesting to see how my body handles some of these positions without the benefit of steroids.

Colonoscopy

Earlier this month I had a colonoscopy. The doctor found three abnomalities. He found one to be obviously innocuous. Two were suspicious. He biopsied the baddies and removed all three. Today, he showed me the results from the pathology lab. My two suspect polyps were adenomas, the kind of polyps that can develop into colon cancer. Had I not had this colonoscopy I might have been in for a rather rude surprise in 2020. Long story short, I’m good to go, so to speak, for another three years.

The Last Ride

After a 20-minute meditation session down by the river, I went for my final bike ride of the year. It was a 28-mile gentle meander on the Mount Vernon Trail aboard the Cross Check. My back did not much like the bumps on the trail. After the ride I lowered the saddle a couple of millimeters. We’ll see how that feels next time. (Later in the evening my hips and left leg were sore from stenosis. Hmm…)

Fleet Miles

I have four bikes. The end-of-year odometer readings are pretty cool. Clockwise from top left: Little Nellie, The Mule, The Cross Check, and Big Nellie. These are only outdoor miles. I put some miles on Big Nellie in the basement every winter so its odometer reading is probably short about 1,000 miles. Grand total: 135,050 miles since 1991.

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December Miles

In December I rode 667.5 miles. All but 44 miles were outdoors. I rode 24 out of 31 days. My long ride was during the Hains Point 100 when I did 37.5 miles.

2019 Miles

I rode a total of 10,618.5 miles in 2019, 2,978 of them during the No Name Tour from May to early July. During the tour, I climbed over 150,000 feet. I rode 188 miles indoors, evidence of a mild winter. I climbed 0 feet indoors. Boredom has its advantages.

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Miles by Bike 2019

2019 Events

In addition to the Hains Point 100, I squeezed in a few other bike events this year. I did my 11th Fifty States Ride, my fifth Cider Ride, another Great Pumpkin Ride (I can’t recall how many times I’ve done this one), a ride looking at murals in Alexandria, and still another with a George Washington theme.

A Decade of Riding

I rode 84,531 miles in the 2010s.

Miles by Year - 2010 to 2019

 

Happy camper on a bike

For the last six days I’ve been taking a declining dose of the steroid prednisone to calm the irritated nerves in my back and legs. Prednisone pills taste gross but they are very powerful. My pain became tolerable after a day. Although I didn’t notice, they improved my mood and, my wife and daughter report, even made me chatty. As I said, it’s powerful.

Until I took prednisone, I couldn’t tell where in my lower back my nerve problems were coming from. Now I can feel tension above my left butt cheek. Hello, you little bugger. I’m coming after you.

The best part of this pill party is that I am riding my bike like it was the summer of 2018. I have nearly zero discomfort, I am accelerating like a boss, and can cruise 20 percent faster with practically no effort. In five days, I’ve ridden 159 miles. Each day I stop long before I get tired. I could easily have ridden 50 miles today but decided to err on the side of caution and quit after 36. The Mule abides.

My leg ache comes and goes and the hot spot outside my left hip is still there, but otherwise my body is so much happier. I go up hills without a care. My back, arms, and shoulder feel relaxed as I pedal.

All of this makes me wonder if my hip and knee problems have been a side effect of stenosis, rather than in addition to stenosis. If I’ve been in low level pain for months, it’s no wonder my riding has suffered. Not the mileage, but the enjoyment. Riding across Kansas this year was work; riding across North Dakota and eastern Montana last year was play.

While I have the pain at bay, I have been blending yoga with my physical therapy. Up until now I had been doing PT in a very regimented fashion. This many repeats. Hold for this many seconds, etc. The idea was to build strength in particular muscles, mostly in support of my hip and knee.

Now I am letting my body dictate what to do. I am flowing from one position to the next, concentrating on keeping my motions fluid.  The regimented aspect has been one of the reasons I hate yoga classes. (And don’t get me started on yoga teachers who physically move you into the “proper” position. Must not kill!)

Instead I’ll hold a position for as many seconds as seems helpful then go right into another one without stopping. If a posture causes something to ache, I stop and move on to another posture.

A typical sequence might be (PT exercises in italics):

  • Step over a horizontal pole for 25 repetitions (A warm up that helps me getting on and off the bike.)
  • Stretch hamstrings
  • Stretch quads
  • Stretch iliotibial bands
  • Runner’s calf muscle stretches
  • Shoulder scrunches
  • Add standing yoga positions
    • Rishi’s posture
    • Chest expansions
    • Deep breathing
    • Toe touches
    • Side bends
    • Trunk rotations at the waist
    • Neck rotations
    • Squats
    • Dancers posture
  • Lay on the floor and do
    • Open book shoulder exercises 
    • Pull knees to chest, first one leg, then the other, then both
    • Ankle over knee and pull legs toward torso
    • Sway back and forth with bent knees at the hip
    • Hurdlers stretches
    • Groin stretches
    • Neck pushes
    • Toe touches
    • Back bridges
    • Side planks with torso on ground
    • Side planks with legs on ground
    • Bird dog
    • Cat/cow pose
    • Planks
    • Cobra pose
    • Locust pose
    • Twist torso while lunging
    • Lunges
    • Child’s pose
    • Shoulder stand
    • Plough
  • Sit ups (or crunches)
  • Set of super six exercises on a foam roller

That’s over 30 different exercises. And I left a few out. I have all of  them written down but I tend to do whatever seems to make sense in the moment. If I’m doing a pose while lying on my back, I might pop into a shoulder stand, for example. Then I’ll gradually fall into a plough (legs extended over head while on my back) and roll out of the plough and do a back bridge.

I’m trying my best to be gentle and not strain. Some of the positions are a little beyond my ability right now but I’ll get there.

Hopefully, I can get this routine established quickly. I have only three more days of prednisone pills, and then the effects will wear off.  And they can wear off rather suddenly if my prior experience with oral steroids is an indication. Taking them for long periods of time results in side effects like osteoporosis, cataracts, and growing a second head. (Okay, I made that last one up.)

Cheers.

 

 

 

 

Left leg saga continued

On Sunday, I rode the Hains Point 100, the final event ride of the year (for me anyway) in DC. The ride is 30 laps of a 3.3-mile circuit in East Potomac Park, down to Hains Point and back. It’s about as flat a course as you can find. Serious riders form fast-moving pelotons. We mere mortals ride a few laps, socialize, munch goodies, and hang out at the raffle. (I won a gift certificate to a taco place a mile from my physical therapist. The burrito gods are on my side.)

I had no intention of riding anything close to 100 miles. It was pretty cold, in the 30s for much of the time I would be riding. The Mule and I took it easy, rolling along, mostly at 12 miles per hour, but, occasionally cranking it up to 20. My legs were holding up just fine. Until about 28 miles into the ride, that is. The ache in my left leg, formerly only present when I was walking, appeared. I managed to ride another 9 1/2 miles with plenty of rest stops but I was really not a happy camper.

Fortunately, I made an appointment with my orthopedist on Monday. I felt fine when I woke up. Oh, great. What will I tell the doctor? I decided to do some stocking shopping before my appointment. I lasted 50 feet before my leg started aching again.

I limped a few blocks to and from a store and my left calf, groin, outer thigh, and butt cheek were having a contest to see which one could make me drop a salvo of F-bombs. (The calf won.)

At the doctor’s office, I explained my woes to the doctor. He nodded and smiled. When I told him about hurting after 50 feet of walking his eyebrows went up. Forttunately, this was obviously a no-brainer to him. 

He examined my legs and back. He was impressed. “Push. Pull. Resist. You’re strong,” he remarked. Funny, what 30,000 miles in three years can do.

Then he checked my back for flexibility. I acquitted myself well for an 85-year-old. I did however manage to touch the floor from a standing position without bending my legs. I took about 15 second for my back to relax though. “I’ll only be a minute.”

The diagnosis was stenosis.The passages through the vertebrae in my lower back are narrowing as I age. The nerves emanating from my lower spinal cord are being compressed. Lucky me, I’m old. The good news is that I haven’t incurred appreciable muscle weakness in my legs. (And you thought I was nuts to ride so much, didn’t you?)

The treatment plan is pretty simple. I am on a nine-day declining does of prednisone, a steroid that will almost certainly calm the nerves down. (I was on a seven-day course prior to my back surgery. It worked well. It wore off just as I was being wheeled into pre-op.)

The doctor gave instructions to my physical therapy team to change my PT regime. He agreed that the gentle yoga exercises I have been doing would be helpful.

When I arrived home, I looked up PT-for-stenosis videos. As it turns out, most of the exercises are already part of the yoga/PT routine I discontinued last year.

The plan is to follow this exercise regime for a few weeks, unless the pain doesn’t abate in which case we amputate.

Just kidding. If I don’t recover, we’ll discuss surgical remedies. Time will tell.

Ironically, my PT team has being trying to improve my posture, thinking this would help with my general mechanics, I suppose. Well, it turns out that stenosis patients find that a forward lean helps to attenuate symptoms. When I ran back in my 20s and 30s, I had a pronounced forward lean. When I sit, I naturally lean forward. Riding a bike puts my in a forward lean as well. 

So I asked the doctor, can I ride my bike.

Yes.

Considering the fact that two years ago I was in a hospital bed on anticoagulants and trying to breathe with one functioning lung, I’ll take this year’s medical conundrum any day.

Merry Christmas, y’all.

 

 

Pictures of the Year 2019

Well, once again I wasted untold hours posting this inane blog. In for a penny, in for a pound. So here goes with the pictures of 2019. With one, regrettably from a few years ago.

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I finally made it to the Kenwood neighborhood in Bethesda. Cherry blossoms are one of the best things about DC in the spring.
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The bike valet at Nationals Park is the best. My bikes spent a lot of time here this year
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Nothing says bike touring fun quite like two weeks of thunderstorms.
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Springfield, Illinois just around the corner from the grave of the Corn Dog King
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Mark, Corey, and me taking shelter from a storm in a church in Kansas
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Kansas was an ordeal. Little did we know that the Rockies would be brutal. The sign was pretty neat though.
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Electrically equipped apartments in Pueblo, CO
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Flooding in western Missouri and eastern Kansas on the way west
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Part of a farm building that was obliterated by a tornado near Golden City, Missouri. Three people died here.
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I rode to the top of this beast. The ride down was epic.
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Indomitable French sisters in Boulder, Utah
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Rocks out west
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Stupidest sign of the year
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More rocks near Bryce Canyon
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Hoodoos in the Amphitheater at Bryce Canyon
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The Mule poses next to the Cedar Break National Monument snow bank in late June
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Survival indeed
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Gio and Christina from Italy in Eureka, Nevada
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I thought these climbs would never end
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Downhill through California wineries
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Salt flats in Nevada
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Morning view from my motel room – Caples Lake, California in the Sierras
Sugarloaf with sticks
Hiking Sugarloaf, Maryland
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Lotus blossoms at the Anacostia Botanical Gardens
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Apollo 50 on the National Mall
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The Mule comes home
Dinner view
They won the whole damned thing. Unreal.
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Tired? Not me. Emilia at the Great Pumpkin Ride
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Autumn in Fort Hunt Park near home

 

@darsal pool noodle man #biketivism #stoputurnsonpenn
A stellar human being killed by an out-of-control driver. Still hard to believe Miss you Dave.