Its Been A While

I have been super busy this term with my school work and my training schedule, and haven't found much time to sit down and update. Quick update on the knee: its definitely a problem with the nerve near the groin. I can feel some discomfort with a really tucked in position. Im going to work on stretching it, and slowly work on bringing my position back down. But for now it translates to no slammed stem. Bike looks slow :(
For training I was able to head out to the forest city velodrome to complete track 1 with the McMaster cycling club. FCV is always great place to go if you get the chance. It definitely beats riding on the trainer.
I have got outside a few times to make sure I will have some bike handling skills come time for the Paris to Ancaster, but definitely not out as much as I would like. Most of my rides are done during spin classes at the school. Great for motivation, and it keeps it fun. All I need is a heart rate monitor and I can still do my scheduled workouts, while having a million times more fun that if I did it on a trainer.

I will leave you guys with a pic from the velodrome. Ps race schedule is updated!! With races starting at the end of the month I will be posting much more frequently.

Cured!

Finally free of knee pain!
The physio clinic at McMaster tried one more thing that fixed me pretty much immediately. I don't know the anatomy that well in the area, but there is a nerve that runs near the groin, through the psoas muscle (hip flexors). Basically they thought that being bent over on a bike compressed it, and that was adding to the pain, and potential muscle weakness. This made sense to me as the pain only occurred while I was biking. So to treat that, they wanted to stretch out the muscles in the area with active relief, and they gave me some hip flexor stretches to do at home.

Since then I have been doing my spin classes pain free, even did a 1hr 45min trainer ride fine!

Today I braved the cold and conquered my first ride back outside. Went with three other strong riders for a nice 2hr cross ride. I have definitely lost most of my form from early September :p Good thing april is still a couple months away because I am going to need a bit more work before I am good to race again. This is an easy building stage in my training anyway so I think I am right where I am suppose to be!

Once I get a few more rides in I will let you know about the Northwave Celsius boot. Wanted to do some winter riding to stay away form the trainer if I could so I picked these puppies off of Chain Reaction Cycles. So far so good!

Knee Update!

I took two full weeks off of cycling, even gave up my spin classes on doctors orders. I went to the sports medicine clinic at McMaster for a second opinion because I didnt want to spend extra time off the bike if I didn't have to. They told me patellofemoral syndrome, which is just a big word for knee pain. I signed on for some physio there as well. Here they told me my adductors are tight but not weak, by my glutes were really weak. They used active release on my adductors and gave me some strength building exercises for the glutes. So I am currently comboing physio and active relief treatments.
During my off period I cut squats out, and swam for cardio. Still not good to go on the bike full time but I can use the elliptical with a knee brace keeping the patella in place. Today I added squats back into my workout routine and as of yesterday I started doing my spin classes again (taking them easy). I definitely feel a lot better since I added the extra glute work so we will see how much longer I need!
Once im good to go ill be out riding in the cold and will hopefully have some porduct reviews up or at least something better to read!

Fighting knee issues

Hey guys,
Havent been up to a whole lot of riding due to knee problems. I'm writing to tell you a bit about it, in case you are experiencing similar problems,  and also so I can remember exactly what I did if it comes back.

Its been about a month of this pain and it has been getting worse. I went to a walk-in and the doctor was stumped and settled with the idea of pinched ligaments in the knee. It kept getting worse up until now where I can only bike for 15-20mins before the pain kicks in (huge drop from the 5hrs I did at the centurion mid september!). The weird part is, is that it is only biking that hurts it, I can run, swim and do weights (squats and other leg exercises) pain free. The symptoms were similar to chrondomalacia so I knew I had a misalignment problem.

Today I went to the active relief centre in hamilton on referral from the great Steven Baker. Here they told me that my glutes were not firing, and my adductor wasnt completely firing. This creates a situation where the quads have to work harder, and it puts added stress on the knee joint.
So how do you get them to fire, and how much power have I missed out on in the season with this problem!? When they mentioned the glutes I was not surprised. I had issues with them earlier in the summer and went for a massage. Lesson learned, completely take care of a problem or it will come back to haunt you. So to fix it, I have been given some easy exercises that specifically target the nonworking muscle groups.

Being the science student I am, I had to do more research on this. Turns out weak glutes are an all too common problem in athletes, with repercussions such as knee and lower back pain. From this I found out two more good exercises to add to my arsenal, one legged squats and one legged dead lifts! A study was done that showed that these had one of the highest glute activation percentages.

The knee is a very complex joint, and if you are having problems I would highly suggest you see a professional to diagnose the issue. Having a functional knee is very important, and making sure it works right now, will save you from worse issues down the road. I will provide updates as I progress, probably every week. Any questions or words of advice feel free to comment!

University MTB Cup Series

Hey guys, sorry it has been a while since an update. Ive been super busy with school, biking, and some unfortunate events that have happened. But I've cleared some time to write to you now!
An update on my last three races of the year. There is a sweet inter-university (and college) series that is hosted by UofT. With UofT, guelph and queen's being the big teams, mcmaster is trying to get ourselves a presence out on the trails! If you, or someone you know rides bikes and is still in school get them to come out! Its tons of fun and super laid back. Everyone is just there to have a good time and get rid of school stress. Info can be found here: http://mtnbike.sa.utoronto.ca/oumrc/oumrc_mission.htm Of course if you want to get involved with the McMaster Cycling club you can join the facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/groups/mcmastercycling/

The first race was a weekend of events at Mansfield that I missed due to the centurion. I did it last year and it was tons of fun, i would suggest anyone that has the opportunity to come out to the Mansfield race to do so. There's a time trial, crit (mtb spin on it which is tons of fun) on Saturday, you camp out for the night and race Sunday.
The second race was at Boler mountain in London. This venue was to try and get more western riders out, but they weren't coming so we will be saying good bye to this course next year. It was a lot of climbing, each lap we went up the ski hill, and there were no shortage of climbs once we got to the top. There was a sick little jump and a lot of fast single track. An awesome course overall.
The third race was at hardwood. Unlike boler, this course was wet and slippery. Being a 'roadie' I was immediately at more of a disadvantage. I took it a bit easier on the technical sections and just had fun with it. Hardwood has tons of fun singletrack, I always love riding here!
The last race was at Ganaraska Forest. It was pouring rain the day before, and the morning of. It was a mud bath! I had been having some problems with my knee since thanksgiving weekend and was hoping it would be better. This and a few other factors led to my first ever DNF. My body went through a lot in its first real season of racing and training and it called it quits. Lap times were super slow and I didn't want my knee to get any worse so I pulled the plug a lap early. It was a really fun course just wish I felt better.
You might notice I didn't mention my results :p Last year I tied for first in the Mens B division. (last year I tried my go at mtb ocup racing so I was a bit more familiar with the trails). This year I moved up, and wasn't as fast on the mountain bike as I hoped. Just an excuse to train harder for next year! If your still curious I was at the bottom of the list :p I will post some pics from boler under the pictures tab.
Results of all events can be found here: http://mtnbike.sa.utoronto.ca/results.html 
Congrats for McMaster taking 5th in the team standings! No garmin data (if you really want to see it im sure you could get to it from my other links). The edge 800 didnt track in the woods so well. Maybe I have to take it off road only or something. Just didnt get the distances right but ohwell!

Well this is it for my race season, I will keep you posted with some of my off season shenanigans and maybe some product reviews. Have to thank my coach Jeff Kehler for all the help this year, I've grow a ton. And of course couldn't have done any of this without the support of my family and friends!

Im a Centurian!

This past weekend I was at Blue mountain for the centurion. I did the provincial hill climb on saturday evening and the C100 on sunday morning. The weather was nice, but a little chilly at night and in the morning. I took a lot of time off this past week because my legs felt like hell the previous weekend, so I was hoping to have something to give this weekend.
The hill climb was done on scenic caves road. It was a 3.5km course with a 1km lead out. The hill averaged a gruelling 12%. This was my longest hill climb yet so I was unsure how hard to go at the start so that I didnt blow up before the finish. When I started I went hard on the flat to cover more ground while it was easy. Once I hit the first corner, it got steep. I felt like I wanted another gear! I tried my best to avg 14km/h up the hill but I fell down to 12 towards to top. I finished the longer (than last year) course with 10:23! That was good enough for 7th overall and second for u23!
Sunday was the C100. A long hilly 170km loop through the area surrounding Blue Mountains. It started with a slow leadout around 5km, moving around 20km/h. The race kicked off with a cat 3 climb, and the leaders werent holding back. It was a struggle to hang on, and it tore the field apart. At the top of the climb there may have been around 90 people in the peloton, down from a couple hundred. It was a struggle to hang on to the fast group but I was able to for 80km and conquer two more hills with them. After that I blew up. I figured id last around that long because all my training this year has been for races around 80km. For the rest of the race I had to watch groups bike past me. I had nothing left in the legs to jump on and hang on to their pace (which wasnt overly fast by any means). The last two big climbs were brutal for me. The one was a KOM and I watched tons of people go by me. I consider myself to be a good climber but I was not able to showcase my talents here. At the end of the race there was a guy about 25m ahead of me, and I was going to sprint for the crowd and get him at the line. As soon as I stood up my legs were screaming! Needless to say I sat back down and rode across the line. I finished 10/23 in my age group, and was 203/954 overall. 170km took me just under 5hrs, and without the lead out avg 35.6km/h.

Overall I think I had a great end to my road season and look forward to kicking some but in cat 3!
Garmin data:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/223625527  (C100)
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/223117566  (hill climb)
Results:http://www.sportstats.ca/displayResults.xhtml?racecode=103133  (hill climb)
http://sportstats.ca/displayResults.xhtml?racecode=101443 (C100)

Hill climb pic will be posted soon under photos, and maybe centurion pics if they post up some of me!

CRITASTIC!

This past labour day weekend I went with my family down to Windsor where I raced in two criteriums.  The first one was the provincial crit, and the second was the tour via Italia. The weather was great for both courses and both were closed off. I haven’t done well in the two crits I had done already this year so I was hoping to change that. 

Starting with the first one, which was 40 mins plus 3 laps (sportif). 3 Laps in I worked to the front and started attacking on the small hill on the course. They let me go and I stayed away for 3 laps before I coasted until they caught me. I kept attacking just to tire out the bunch and to have some fun. No one wanted to work (what a surprise) so I found myself chasing all the other attacks. Finally I said I wasn’t going to cover the attack and save energy for the end. One guy then gets away and had a decent gap going into the last lap. I moved to the front in hopes of salvaging the possible first place. We caught him at the final corner, but then I got boxed in for the sprint giving me a 9^th place.  This race was just for fun for me anyways and practice.

The second one was 20 laps of a 2km course in the little Italy section of Windsor.  On the third stretch someone parked their car on the road which startled the group. Someone ended up wrapping it in caution tape and after our race it was towed for the women's race.  Again I found myself attacking early in the race before sitting back in. No one again wanted to work, so when Niles attacked I found myself having to move up to reel him back in.  I played it safe trying to stay out of trouble for the race. The last lap it picked up and I made sure I held my position into the final corner. I took the corner a bit wide setting me back a bit. I opened up and flew up the side into 7^th spot and 3^rd in the elite 4! My brother said, "From where we were we thought you were going to win, you flew right up the side passing people!" The only problem with this race was it was very disorganized with the podium. Everyone that had to wait, was waiting for several hours. OCA officials were getting frustrated with all the questions and im sure they will have something to say to the organizer. Other than that it was awesome!

First podium for a crit, and my fastest sprint at 57.2km/h on flat ground and no wind! Definitely have had huge improvements this year.
Next year I look forward to racing with Coach Chris and having a team to support me and work with. Also next year I look forward to moving up into cat 3!
Pictures should be added soon! (I have not forgotten about the pics page :p )
 Garmin data! And results
Italia -- http://connect.garmin.com/activity/218388358

http://www.ontariocycling.org/web_pages/results/20120902-232251-tdviresults.htm
Prov--- http://connect.garmin.com/activity/218388378  

http://www.ontariocycling.org/web_pages/results/20120901-224832-wpcresults.htm

Now I look towards provincial hill climb, and the centurion road race in barrie. I will finally get to race with my buddy, the one and only Andrew House!  Hopefully I can hang on to him.  After that my mtb season starts with the university cup!