knees suck

Two weeks ago I did, or rather I intended to do, the metric version of the Sequoia Century up in Palo Alto. A century is a 100 mile bike ride; a metric century is 100 kilometers or 62 (or so) miles.

The Sequoia is known for being a really hilly ride. I’d done some hills, and I signed up for the “moderate” version of the metric. Moderate turned out to be not very moderate at all. The first 20 miles weren’t so bad, but the second was just hill after hill after hill after hill, just endless amounts of uphill suffering, and then something started to go wrong in my right knee.

I’ve had vague knee pain while riding before, because of seat trouble or because of pedal trouble or because of just riding too much. But this was a different knee pain, not the low throb in the front; this was a sharp pain in the back.

Fortunately the lunch break for the ride was at the start/finish so I could take a break and stretch. I got back on my bike to do the last 20 miles, went about a mile down the road and the pain came back. Ouch.

So I gave up on that ride and since then I’ve been in recovery. No riding, some spin classes and some swimming. Lots of stretching, some ice, and drugs! drugs! drugs! I went for a ride yesterday, with the plan of doing maybe 15 easy miles, flat, to check out the state of things.

I made it six before my knee started hurting again, puttered around a bit longer and then limped back home again.

This really sucks.