Crick

I really want to tell all of you about the Death Ride, but right now my mind is occupied. The short of it is “Wow, wow, double wow”.

The day before the Death Ride I woke up with a crick in my neck. You ever get one of those? Most people have. So, I was dilligent and went and got a massage at the expo. The pain was better for a few hours, but returned. I had a friend massage it, my dad put some biofreeze on it, and before I went to bed I threw on an IcyHot patch another friend gave me. Oh yes, Advil as well!

The morning of the Death Ride it didn’t feel great, but I got going and within hours it was fine. I rode all day (10.5 hours) and that evening I was a bit sore but not too bad. Sunday it was getting better, and Monday I swam at the pond and went for a run. Last night when I went to bed I thought that it would be gone when I woke up, but upon waking it was still there a bit. I meet with PIC Michelle to swim and the first 25 was painful and felt very off. As I continued with the warmup I was having trouble turning my head enough to get a good breath. I was inhaling some water. I did a flip turn and tucking my chin sent big shooting pains down my neck, back, shoulder.

I talked to PIC and we both agreed if it didn’t warm up, that I should get out. 100 yards later I knew I needed to get out. I went and changed and emailed coach with what was going on. Then it started to happen.

My whole neck, shoulder blade, back area started locking up. Extreme pain was happening. I got in my car to head home and I barely made it, crying and moaning through the last 5 miles of the drive. I dragged myself up to the apartment and kneeled on my bed, tears of pain streaming down my cheeks, and labor like moans coming from my throat. I was having back labor in my neck!

I called Troy and begged him to come home. I made an appointment with my Chiro Ken Sheradin at Active Care (who I haven’t seen in forever because I’m healthy as a horse). He could see me at 3pm. So I had 4.5 hours to wait. On one bathroom trip I looked in the mirror, totally hailed, eyes puffy and saw that my shoulders were two completely different heights when I was standing flat and trying to keep both of them relaxed.

Thank goodness for twitter. It kept my mind occupied while I hunched over my pillows going through waves of pain that had me seeing black when I tried to move wrong.

Troy helped me through those hours and dealt with the tears, and the bad attitude. He drove me to Ken’s, feeling bad with every bump he hit, having to endure my screams. Waves of nausea would wash over me with the slightest wrong move.

This is my pathetic picture. See, I’m not all smiles and bubbles all the time (if you ever thought I was). Just thought you would all want to see me in my messy hair, puffy eyes, gloriousness.

We got to Ken’s office and he adjusted me. crack crack crack crack. I walked out with even shoulders and instructions as to what to do for the rest of the day. It involved a lot of this (which coach had told me to do, so I was already on it):

But at least the shoulders look better. Here is what they looked like after I got home from Ken’s. Although it made all the muscles around my spine feel like somebody took a baseball bat to them. But they are not so lopsided.

So, I get to ice 20 minutes on, 40 minutes off, every hour until bed time, 5+ times is ideal, says Ken. I get to take a walk at 5pm and at 7:30pm for 10 minutes each to get the blood flowing. Then I’m back in his office at 9am tomorrow. My new training schedule is now this…ice…walk…cry.

The crying has actually calmed down. I find that the crying is proportional to the icing. By the time 35 minutes had gone by of not icing, I’m about to start weeping. Then the 20 minutes of ice is wonderful, then it wears off and I’m back to pain. Repeat repeat repeat. You can image that this emotional roller coaster has put me in a fine mood!

On top of that, my fun training buddies are going riding with coach tomorrow, and I get to stay home and ice, walk, and cry. Talk about feeling like a dog that is getting left on the porch because he only has three legs, I get it, but it hurts none the less.

So, there ya go, a blog post full of complaining and moaning. If you skipped this one, I totally understand. Hopefully I can get some Death Ride sweetness posted soon.