Myrna CG Mibus - Idyllwild

This post was also published on my Writing Space blog as X-Ray Follow up . I figured I should write a quick post to follow up on my  X is for X-Ray post  to let you all know what’s going on with my heel pain. I went to the podiatrist and have the official diagnosis of Plantar Fasciitis and Peroneal Tendon Injury in my left foot. The bone spur I have in my left heel has likely been growing for several years but probably isn’t contributing much to my heel pain. That said, I’ve been stretching that foot a lot and may have been irritating the tissue around the spur which would contribute to the pain. It’s likely that the root of the pain came from clipping in and out of my bike pedals so I have loosened the tension on my pedals a lot so that clipping in/out is much easier to do. Other than that, I’ve had a tendency to carry my left shoulder higher than my right. I’m not doing that so much now but that might have also caused me to be off balance and put undue pressu...

This post was published in a slightly different format on my Writing Space blog as X is for X-Ray . The information in X is for X-Ray pertains to my bicycling life so I am posting it here at Idyllwild as well.  Yeah, I know that writing about X-Rays for day “X” of an A to Z Blogging challenge is predictable because “x-ray” is the first thing people think of when they think of a word starting with X. Thing is, I really do have a reason to write about x-rays because I had two of them taken today. So, even though I was hoping to come up with something really swell for my “X” day it makes more sense for me to write about what is on my mind – and today that’s x-rays of my left heel. Here’s the deal – I’ve been struggling with ankle and heel pain on and off for, well, about a year now. I haven’t been too worried about it because the pain hasn’t been consistent or that bad. It started out with some muscle discomfort in my left ankle and I found that ankle to ...

Well, it's time for an update so you don't all think I'm still crying while riding a gravel road somewhere like in my last post . Things are going much better with my gravel riding now. Here's why. Last Saturday I took my Vaya to Milltown Cycles where I purchased it about a year ago. I called ahead to make sure either Todd or Curtis would have time to help me get my bike fitting better. Todd said he'd be around all day. So, late in the day Owen and I stopped on by and I explained what's been going on. I told Todd: I'm really heavy in my hands and feet but not sitting much in the saddle at all I feel very unstable when riding gravel like the bike is almost skipping all over the road if I hit a rock, certainly unstable on loose gravel I have trouble with wrist pain when I'm riding when I try to shift my weight back in the saddle, I'm way off the back of my saddle and my knee hurts to boot  We decided to put my Vaya in the trainer so Todd ...

I set off on a ride this morning with Owen with two goals: get more gravel miles in pay attention to my position on my bike to see if I'm putting adequate weight on my seat to help keep me stable on gravel You see, based on feedback I'm getting from my Gravel Fears post , two things that should help me feel more comfortable riding gravel are 1) time in the saddle riding on gravel (hey, that's sort of poetic) and 2) my position on my bike. In short, if I have all of my weight on my hands instead of on my butt I'm not going to be very stable on the bike. My goal was to figure out how to get my weight shifted aft. Anyway, we set out for our ride and hit our gravel (fairly loose stuff and a hill right away) and I realized pretty quickly that I put almost all of my weight on my hands and toes but hardly any weight on my sits bones of my butt. Basically, I'm really not sitting in my saddle. Doh! I was glad for the revelation. Seems like all I need to do is st...

I went out to ride this morning with the simple goal of riding more than 5 miles.  I've done three, 5 mile rides on this new saddle (the Serfas Curva ) and have felt pretty good but know I need to increase my ride length to see if I have any soreness on longer rides. For this morning, I figured 8 to 10 miles would do especially since I have to leave the kids home alone when I hit the roads. Rose is almost eleven and good at watching her brother but Ryan recently learned how to start grass on fire by channeling the sun through his magnifying glass. Though he knows he's not supposed to do this without adult supervision I think it's wisest of me to limit the time I'm away on sunny days. You just never know what an 8 year old boy might do. Ryan trying to start a fire. Part of the reason I don't go on long rides when the kids are home alone. So with a final reminder to the kids to behave, I set out to ride the roads around my home. It was windy, not the best day for r...

Well, after a two week break I’m back on my road bike and glad to be riding again. I can’t believe I spent two weeks not riding - it was a struggle because I missed biking so much. Some of the break was vacation related but the other part of my break was self-imposed to get some healing time for some bike-related bruising. I realized the smart thing to do was to take some time off, heal and then start over again and see if I can figure out why I had troubles. Here are the theories of what might have happened to cause my discomfort gathered by bicyclists, my doctor, the people at my bike shop and my own intuition:  1. I’ve been slightly misaligned on my bike all along and over time irritation and bruising built up. Perhaps the saddle is the wrong size for my bum. 2. My bike got bumped of adjustment therefore I am sitting the bike differently. 3. As I’ve gotten to be a better rider (faster, more aggressive on hills etc.) I’ve changed my position on the bike (ie: leaning more forward ...

Owen just got back from his first group ride with the Northfield Bicycle Club . He had a great ride, 33 miles with an average of 16 mph and I’m so happy for him but, I confess, I’m also a little jealous because I didn’t get to ride with him. I’m not just jealous because he got to spend the morning with eight fit guys in bike shorts, it’s because going on a group ride has been one of my goals since I started cycling and I stayed home. And it’s not that staying home is all bad. In fact, I had a great morning and flew my airplane. The real issue is that I’m forced to sit on the sidelines for awhile. Why? because I have a sore bum and, well, other “girly parts” for lack of a better way to say it. To be honest, talking about my sore “girly parts” is kind of embarrassing and I’ve wondered if I should blog about this at all. But most bicyclist deal with some soreness issues so I’m not alone and I’m hoping writing about mine will help someone else. I’ve been riding my road bike, a Giant Avail,...