Gloomy Days

This past week has been a mentally tough one indeed. Not a terribly lot of stuff went down as I suffered through the gray days of spring. With the onset of April coming Mother Nature thought it would be funny if she played a week long April Fools joke on all of the local weatherpersons, sending in gray clouds all week filled with rain. However, despite the ominous outlook she only randomly opened the bottom of the clouds up to drop the rain on us.

A week ago Friday, the anchor bolt on the front derailleur stripped during my commute home. I was left to spin the little ring home at a much higher cadence than the legs usually like to go. I compared my average cadence of that ride to one I had made earlier in the week and it was 14 rotations higher. That doesn't sound like much until you do the math, which I have conveniently done for you, and figure out that my legs did over 1500 more rotations in the same time frame as a normal commute home.

About 3/4 of the way home, I could start to feel my left hip flexor which has been giving me problems since the fall. I knew it was not a good thing but hoped it wouldn't linger for long once I got off the bike. The next day, I met up with the TNT crew for a ride through Goochland. It was a nice day and great ride but it did nothing but inflame my hip. Laid off of it Sunday and Monday and then did an easy ride with TNT on Tuesday night. My hip felt a little bit better but I could still feel tightness. For the rest of the week, I took full excuse making advantage of the predictions of wet weather and took the next 3 days off of the bike.

Yesterday, I met up with the TNT crew once again to lead the Saturday morning training. I was a bit worried as to whether or not my hip was going to behave itself with the ensuing climbs, not mountain climbs but some of the bigger climbs in the Central VA area. The only downside to the whole ride was breaking another spoke on my rear wheel. Each time it happens, I vow to get a new wheel but I just end up replacing the spoke and continuing on for the next few weeks until another breaks, meh.

Still not sure what I am going to do this time, I may end up replacing all of the spokes this go around. Until then, I may just throw on Jenn's pink King wheel since she isn't using it now that she is rolling around on the Reynolds for the summer. Hopefully, the high winds of today and tomorrow will blow the gray away and with it take my hip.