Pushing Through..and Finding that "Extra Gear"

As you all know, I broke my clavicle just over 4 weeks ago (to be exact: 4 weeks and 3 days), and I was doing my best to continue training through all of it. At points it did hurt a fair amount - and when it did I listened to my Doc's instructions of "Do not do anything that causes pain". So whatever actually hurt, I had to hold off on. Luckily, this was really only walking fast, running, and things that required range of motion (ie: reaching bike handlebars was way out of the question). Basically my biggest issue was sleeping and keeping comfortable throughout the day; putting on clothes and showering were more like a challenging game than a problem...and keeping a lot of tasks as independent as possible probably was my own form of early recovery PT. I quickly learned how far I could reach and what rate it was progressing at and also what I could carry in that arm and what I would be able to hold without pain in a week's time.

The one thing I did not let up on, was keeping myself active...even if it meant I could only withstand 25-30 minutes of high discomfort while on the trainer. Sometimes it isn't what you do, it's why you're doing it. I kept going because that's just a part of me and I've never let anything get in the way of what I enjoy on the most fundamental of levels. That is not to say nothing is more important (clearly, that is a different story), but usually a half hour is viable regardless of situation.

So I kept it up. And I progressed pretty damn quickly compared to what I expected - and what I had heard from a lot of other people. I was on the exercise bike the day after I crashed (and couldn't walk faster than 25:00min/mi without pain), I awkwardly jogged 0.5 miles for the first time 15 days after the crash, did my first bike workout on day 16, and ran just 23 days after the break. Today I did a brick and it was my third run of the week...my arm swing is even coming back!

What surprised even me (I usually have pretty lofty goals of recovering from injury and returning to good form) was a workout yesterday. A few of us at Maine Running had a Time Trial race on the CompuTrainers, it was a 19.7mi moderately hilly course with a noticeable net elevation gain overall. I knew I was going up against Ryan and Adam, but figured out once I got there that Doug Welling would be participating...so instantly I thought I was going to be absolutely destroyed in this race. It was all out of good fun, so I welcomed the challenge and I will be the last one to ever not want someone to push me to a new level. I had a pretty solid cold and little use of holding onto the handlebars, so it was going to be difficult no matter how I cut it (unless I dogged it, but that option is deemed erroneous before even being contemplated). I figured I should at least go out with hitting my date FTP, and then go from there. (For those of you who don't use power...FTP is functional threshold power: a wattage that was estimated from a workout a couple months back, and is the expected power output I can sustain for an all out 45-60 minute effort). I had never done a 1 hour TT and was both excited for it as a whole and a bit nervous for how the last 15 minutes would feel.

We took off riding pretty solidly, and about 15 minutes in my Avg Power was in the low-mid 290's...elevating a bit on climbs, dropping a bit on descents. I had developed a good lead, but Doug had been holding in the mid-280W range (despite having done a murderous bike workout the day before) and I knew he wasn't going anywhere. I hit the last good descent to the lowest elevation and was averaging 23.6MPH, but knew that a lot of climbing was ahead. I tried to hold above 23.0MPH. That quickly was out the window. Then, like I should have been doing all along,  I turned my complete focus to my power - even effort yields the best result. Sadly, as I suspected, it started to burn pretty bad with 15 minutes remaining. With about 3.5 miles (mostly climbing) to go, Doug tells me to go for 300W...this means I would have to average somewhere over 320W, something that was unmanageable for much time no-handed. So I sucked it up and held the bars, with surprisingly no pain and some moderate (but bearable) discomfort. I kept pushing with all I could, and the 295W jumped to 296W...and was miserably slowly working it's way up. With just over a mile left it was at 299W, so I started giving it my last surge. It hit 300W with about .3 miles to go, and with .2 left I started pushing all out and sprinted with .1 left. Only issue...in my effort I think I became slightly delirious and though the finish was at 19.3 miles. I literally had just blown all of my reserve and had just went far beyond my red line...and I had .4 miles to go. I forgot about everything else and just gave every last bit I had to keep that power over 300W. It dipped into the 280's and 260's a couple times, and I got to the point where I actually was putting out less power when I tried to stand up. I was about to pop. Finally I crossed the line (and thank goodness we were on trainers or I may legitimately have fallen over before I stopped) and stopped pedaling. My legs were shaking more than I could ever recall.

I ended up averaging 301W for almost 55 minutes, well above my expected value of 291W. I was very surprised to see this after a lackluster few weeks of training. One thing stands, I would have been nowhere near this level had I just taken time off...looks like I saved myself a month or two by training through for a few weeks.

That TT was pure joy. I had never before given my all for a final effort, then somehow dug deeper and continued pushing. For the first time in all my athletic experiences, I have proof that there is always just a little more to give...I guess the thing is you have to bypass logic (or trick yourself) to find that it's there.

The picture below is the results for the race: I'm rider #2 AKA Dexter.