Ohio Cycling Disorder (OCD)

For the first time since my stress fracture injuries in 2020 I was feeling healthy and strong. My runs for the past few months have been great and I feel like I am starting to get some of my trail speed back. I have been wanting to get back to the bigger ultra races and this year things have been progressing rather nicely. I raced my first marathon trail race early in the year and followed that up with a 50k a month and a half later. I also completed a solo 40-mile run and some long runs out in Washington state with a lot of vertical gain. Thinking I was ready to tackle a 50 miler, what better than to do it in my back yard so I registered for the Burning River Back 50 which starts at 6pm and runs through the night. I really do enjoy the night running. Once Angie and I arrived at the start of the race we soon met my coach Sarah and her husband (I'm terrible at remembering names ... sorry Sarah!!). This is the first time I met them in person and what a pleasure. Such incredibly nice ...

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Post race treat from Angie!! It has been about two and a half years since I broke my body. More than just stress fractures. I had so much stuff going on that running trail races was a thing of the past. 2.5 years of working with a sports psychologist. 2.5 years of working with a Dietitian that specializes in REDS. 2.5 years of working with numerous physical therapists, doctors, that included several MRIs, dexa scans, and bone density scans. 2.5 years of countless niggles that would just not go away, get worse, and take weeks to recover from. 2.5 years of missing my trail running friends, missing out on the incredible fall weather running, the summer weather running, the spring weather running, and yes even missing the cold Ohio tundra weather running.  Out of the many, many lessons I have learned through this arduous and mentally difficult process, the ones that resonate the most with me are having patience with myself, patience with the process, and giving my self some grace. I am...

Let me repeat the same sentiments I had after doing my first Virtual Everesting on Zwift in 2021, Holy Hell! I should have spoken to my therapist before doing this again.  Mid summer I had the idea that I wanted to do another virtual Everesting on Zwift, but on a different climb. Having already vEverested Alpe Du'Zwift at the end of 2021, I decided that I wanted to give the biggest climb Zwift has to offer, Ventoux in France. Ventoux is an 11.8 mile climb with an 8% average grade. The grades are unrelenting with long sustained sections of 10-13%. I started testing out the climb to get a feel for it a couple months before I wanted to make my attempt on December 19th. The first thing I noticed was just how choppy the pedal stroke got after the grade hits and surpasses 9% and the difficulty setting set to Max which is the only proper way to vEverest in Zwift if you want it to be approved for the Everesting Hall of Fame . After doing an entire climb with the choppy pedaling I knew some...