25th Annual MDR

The MDR...the 4 day Memorial Day Ride from San Jose to Santa Barbara.  I did it!  Again!  Well, most of it.  It's a fabulous annual ride and now that it's complete, that 25 years worth in the books.  (A mere 15 for me......I started in '98, but missed a couple along the way.)

The 25th MDR gang at the start

How was it??  Well.....the damn foot did act up.  I can't believe it's still not healed, 4 weeks since the minor surgery.  But I have to look at the bright side.  I plugged along for much of the ride, doing 289 out of the total of 350 miles.  Admirable, but I was hoping for the whole thing!  Instead, I did my duty of driving a 25 leg out of Carmel.  But that wasn't my only down time.  It warmed up on day 4 and I had some pain during the 3rd leg, so I packed it in at mile 68.  Too bad....I didn't even get to descend down to Gaviota Pass!  It really did hurt.  And as much as I wanted to continue, when I saw one of our cars stop for someone else, I hopped in too.  A little bit like sticking up your hand for the Team car in a race.  The ego hurt, but the foot hurt more.  I know.....I should have had it checked before the trip.  But you know how it is!  If you have something like this trip planned, you don't want to ask someone who might tell you to sit the whole thing out.  No f*ckin' way!  I will get it checked again, but really wanted to go on this ride too. 

In any case, it was a lot of fun!  Riding great roads, eating good food, drinking tasty beers, being with fun friends.  And repeating 4 times!  Here are some more fave pics so far.  If I see anymore, I'll post them too.

Bixby Bridge, 13 miles south of Carmel

At the "Quad C" - the Central Coast Coasting Competition on Turri Rd.

Mike on Big Sur

Mike and Jeff nearing SLO

Mike on Hwy 1 south of Carmel

Mike bike on Turri Rd.

The beginning of the Gaviota Pass drop to Hwy 101 (2 miles @ 7%)

Tour de France!  (Cheese store in SLO)

MDR group south of Carmel

Bixby Bridge

South of Lucia on Hwy 1 through new avalanche protection tunnel

The Best and "Not So Best" of Times? We'll See......

Well, maybe the title sounds worse than it really is...but what does that all mean?  Simply, I'm in pretty good riding shape, but having trouble riding!  Huh?  Yeah, I've had a great year for mileage (almost 3K miles) and looking forward to this year's ride to Santa Barbara, the annual Memorial Day Ride (MDR - just days away).  But foot issues are slowing me down!

I had some minor surgery a few weeks ago to get rid of some bursitus, which is like a callus under the skin that can hit a nerve or bone.  Right on the ball of my right foot!  Eek.  It's probably from old cycling shoes (rub rub rub...) and I've had it for well over a year.  But until recently, it's been very manageable.   Then, about a month ago, it starting getting inflamed and then during a particularly cold and wet ride up in Chico (the Wildflower century), it really started to flare up.  To the point where I couldn't deal with the pain and thought maybe it was getting infected.  It was almost like stepping on a nail.  Yikes!

So, off to the hospital I went May 2nd for the surgery...but even now (2.5 weeks later), it STILL is not fully healed.  I wore a "boot" to keep the pressure off (no fun), did nothing for 5 days (no rides, no walks, no showers).  The after about a week, I slowly got back into walking and some short rides...dealing with things, thinking it would get better.  And I suppose it has, but way too slowly.  The doctor never said it would last this long!

The post-op bandage

The "boot"

 Last weekend, I may have pushed it too much.  We went to Sacramento for a crew race, and I rode 62 miles on the bike path, thinking no climbing wouldn't bother it.  The good news is that I saw many of the Tour of California (TOC) pros out there training....yes, on the bike path!!  Double pace lines, passing grannies and kids on bikes.  WOW!  That was unexpected!  But also unexpected was the pain...it really hadn't gotten much better yet.  I really pushed it three days later by going up Diablo to watch another stage of the TOC.  It was an exciting stage (!) and I had no real pain going out there.  But returning was pretty damn painful. 

 

"Sir" Bradley Wiggins leading up Diablo (He ended up winning the whole race!)

Turned out to be an 80 mile ride.  40 miles out ok and 40 miles back in pain.  Ouch.  Not from the miles, but from the damn foot.  But looking at the bright side, the race was cool!  Here are my pics and 4 videos from that stage....TOC Stage 3 up Mt. Diablo.

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=112371152910629742937&target=ALBUM&id=6014258831752019921&authkey=Gv1sRgCKCPhfrk3aD1wQE&feat=email

The high temps (90-100) that day probably made things worse....expanding feet, etc.  I thought it through and said WTF...new shoes must be part of the answer.  So, off I went and found a pretty good price on the same type of shoes (Sidi Dominator 5) and crossed my fingers that they would be better.  So far, it seems to have worked.  I suffer a bit after riding from my foot expanding a bit, but not like earlier.  I rode two 40 milers (Sat/Sun) and didn't do too bad.  With three days until the big MDR....I'm hoping we are there.  If I keep the incision clean and take it fairly easy, maybe I can do it.  I'll report back....hopefully with good news and not a need for another hospital visit.  ;-)  Because the big event of the year, the MDR, starts Thursday, May 22nd and I don't want to miss it!!