Continuing On...

(I would like to apologize for my lack of updating here. At times it was not the easiest to get internet access as you all likely heard and when there was, it didn't seem as important. By that time I was out of trying to keep things updated and rather just focused on the tour and community living. )

Wow, I never thought writing this first blog after stopping well over a month ago would be so hard. I have started writing numerous times and yet I still have yet to post anything.

I guess the best place is to give a bit of a quick update on whatever happened about my health with my knee.

First I have to say a great big THANK YOU to all those who were praying for me throughout this past summer, even when you didn’t know what was going on. I most definitely felt the prayers and I know they, along with God’s love and strength through me was helped me finish riding through the summer.

After my visit to the Sports Injury Therapist, I still had to take a few days off to recover from his therapy as well. Riding with the media crew for one day and riding with Betsy and Art in their SAG the next (Wed, July 30). I even had my own SAG water stop for 2 hours! Though I’ll admit I wondered if Betsy and Art (who had to go pick someone up) would ever come back for me J

I decided that once again I would start back in slow and so on Thursday, July 31 I rode with Walter in the RV to his SAG stop, which was 50km to our destination. The ride was absolutely amazing and I flew! Granted I also experienced the great tailwind everyone was riding with that day. I had my best time this day too even though I wasn’t even pushing that hard. I rode the 50km’s in 1 hr and 30min!

The next day I decided to ride about the same amount and rode with Julie this time to her SAG stop, once again 50km from the end. This was the day that I spotted that fire and wrote about it in the previous blog. This day as well had quite a massive headwind and even though I enjoyed myself I prayed for other cyclists to catch me that I could draft off of for a break. Unfortunately, I could tell I had overdone the ride that evening and once again had to take the Saturday into Nebraska off. It was fairly frustrating.

I didn’t start riding again till the following Tuesday, the section from Sioux City to Sioux Center. I rode with Betsy till she dropped me off once again at the 50km mark to the end. The beginning of the ride I was fairly sluggish and hooked up with Russel till our refreshment stop in Ireton. There had been a bit of a headwind so it was really helpful to have someone to draft off of now and then. After the stop I was feeling much better and left on my own to go at my own speed, expecting others to catch up eventually but I ended up picking up my speed and found myself flying into Dordt College, our stop for the night and also where I hoped a package would be waiting for me.

During the previous week, I had realized that the only way I was going to get the knee brace that I needed was to have my mom purchase it back home off of my Knee Therapist and have her FedEx it to me. So through the help of Erinn and Barb, my mom was able to send it to Barb’s house (which is right near Dordt) and thankfully it arrived on time!! I was set or so I hoped.

The next day was the first big 182km day. It was pouring out! Of course our first really big day of rain and it ends up on the longest day, lol. I decided since Tuesday’s ride went so well; I would get a ride in and start at the 50km mark and just ride as far as I could (plus a small part of me hoped the rain would be done by then, lol). Well, we got to the second refreshment stop and sure enough the rain hadn’t stopped and everyone there was drenched to the bone but in amazing spirits. I was really eager to get on the road so I put on all my rain gear and joined a great group of riders. I ended up riding with Nathan, Eritia, Katrina, Hilena, Joshua and Sarah (part of the time).

What an amazing day!! Definitely up there as one of my favourites. Riding in the rain was great, the weather was really perfect, everyone was laughing having a great time and my knees felt amazing with the new brace – granted I could feel where the knee cap was trying to pop out and the brace was keeping it in, so it was definitely doing it’s job. Things were going so well that I ended up even pushing it a bit and at one point raced up a hill at 40km/hr! It was exhilarating to be able to go at a higher speed once again. It was great being able to let others draft me for awhile instead of always the other way around.
In the end I ended up riding the rest of the day and rode 136km!!

The next day was also 182km’s but this time I decided to start right from the beginning to see if I would be able to do the whole day and if I couldn’t well then I’d just SAG it the rest of the way. But I was pretty determined. I left with Joshua trying to catch up with the group we were going to ride with but had already left. We caught them after a bit but found ourselves continuing on as we had been pacing ourselves at a great speed and were enjoying it so much we were not in the mood to slow down. The day turned into another great one and definitely another favourite for me. Would you believe I actually averaged 26.6km/hr! Though I will admit about 20km from the end my body finally gave out on me. Obviously I couldn’t go at this pace and distance forever. I had only ridden 150km in the past week and a half and now in the past 3 days I had ridden over 350km! My body began to rebel and we had to slow down quite dramatically. I was determined with only 20km’s left to make it in and what a reward when I did. Joshua and I went in search of an ice cream store but after not succeeding we bought a tub of ice cream and a bag of ice (for our knees) and headed back to camp to enjoy success. Would you believe we pretty much finished the entire tub between the 2 of us! Aaron Carpenter helped a bit but still! Lol.

The following day had a very large climb at the end that I didn’t even dare try after finding myself struggling for a fair amount of the ride and ended up riding 112 km of the 161km day. Still pretty happy with that.

From that point on, however, I was able to once again rejoin the riding portion in full. Thanks to all the prayers, encouragement, my knee brace and of course the all powerful and loving Lord I was able to complete every Km on, even the steep hills and long climbs the last few day! What a glorious gift.

I had promised myself that no matter what happened I would make sure I rode the last 2 weeks but in the end I was able to ride nearly the entire last 4 weeks! God is GREAT!
Obviously there were still some days that were more trying then others but everyone was experiencing that.

Well, that about wraps up the story (and questions) about my knee. Sorry it took so long for the update (which is now an essay :P).

I hope to continue writing about a few more Sea to Sea related items and I promise to not take another month to post them so if you are still in the need to read a cyclists blog, continue to check me out.