Calvin and Hobbes

Guster - Careful

Cycling, Saddle Pain Explained, Knee, Life

Last Saturday I did the GMR-39 loop. I was supposed to join the club for an easier ride but of course I slept in. It's so hot and dry nowadays that I wake up out of thirst during the middle of the night, and it didn't help that on this particular night, my neighbors were constantly slamming doors. Until this point, I didn't know that doors could make such loud noises and send shudders throughout the whole building. You'd think that people in their 40s would have learnt to talk calmly and have some respect for others. Anyways, during the GMR climb, the muscle above my left knee started to scream and I was dreading to have to turn around. Then it stopped all of a sudden - so relieved. I wasn't particularly happy with my time, it increased from 2 h 32 min (one month ago) to 2 h 33 min. This was because I didn't push very hard for fear of aggravating my knee. But I was doing some low profile descents, speed increased so much by just being aero! And it felt so good too! :) So I thought I could make up for the time lost....oh well...Each time I go up GMR, there'd always be a lot of motorbikes racing up and down. Whenever I hear them come I'd get shivers. Sometimes they'd pass by pretty close, but apparently they pass by others even closer. There were cyclists complaining that the motorists gave way to me but scraped passed by them. Well, I guess there are some benefits of being a female cyclist. As I was descending and passing by GMR-GRR intersection, I came across a few motorists resting there to begin another round of crazy driving. A motorist dude stepped out and held out his water bottle for me as if I was a pro cyclist. hahaha that made my day, that time will come in the not too distant future :)

My new saddle with the huge cutout is great at relieving soft tissue pain, however, all the weight are now rested on an even smaller area - the pubic bones....and they started to protest pretty soon. Apparently keeping this up could lead to degenerative bone fracture :X So I tried to seat on my seat bones by moving the saddle forward and seating more backwards. Now I can say that I am finally privileged and lucky enough to experience seat bone pain (or at least some versions of it). Throughout my search for the perfect saddle and seeking the answer as to why it is that for women there is much more pain compared to men, I have concluded with the following. There will be some words used that maybe offensive for some people (aka bix) so be forewarned.

1. Female soft parts are located further down than males resulting in greater chance of seating on them.
2. This is worsened since the clitoris contains 2 times more nerve endings than an entire penis.
3. As well, the female pelvis is shallower than males meaning that even if you were seating on your seat bones, the soft tissues could still support your weight.

So there you have it, mystery solved.

Yesterday I went to physical therapy again, sigh, when will my knee be back to normal!? I was given more exercises to do including one with a flexible rope that you tie around yourself which was quite interesting. One of the exercises which involved supporting all your weight on one leg and doing 'leg presses' hurt my knee so much. I guess I will know when my knee is fully healed by using this exercise as a baseline. During the exercises, the lady who was helping me asked whether I still go to school and which grade I'm in. hmm seriously?! Do I look like a kid?! (though I do act like one when I'm happy :D) Before when people asked me if I'm still in school or not, I just assumed they meant whether I'm still in college, now I guess they must have meant whether I'm still in high school! I can't remember these days nor do I care to recount them....In 10 years time if I look 10 years younger then THAT would be flattering.

I wonder what life would be like in the future. I hope I'll be happy. I am content now but sometimes I feel like I am the only person in this world. I feel like no one understands me and that's a very lonely feeling. I'd feel less alone if I'm standing in the middle of the desert than in a place full of people who don't understand me. I'm looking forward to getting out of here. I think I have made a good choice career wise to come to this school, but not personally. Most people here are arrogant and place self worth by how smart they are and how many papers they have published....I think studying for so long have lead people to become tunnel visioned, because there is so much more to life than this. I long to be around normal people who have balanced life and who understand me.

Miike Snow - Animal

this song always lifts me up

Knee and Scary Stuff

sigh....my knee is still not good. I went to physical therapy last week and they suggested icing which has helped a lot. I also went to take a MRI to see if there are damages that were missed by the X-ray. The images didn't show anything peculiar except for the amount of fat I have. The fat content is absolutely amazing and strange because I don't think my legs look fat and they feel firm which lead me to believe that they were full of muscles - lol how I was wrong! After gaining this knowledge, I realize that people who have bodies that are considered skinny but with no definition actually have tonnes of fat beneath their skin. And people who have bulging muscles that are not defined means that there are also tonnes of fat beneath their skin. But when you can see individual muscles, that's when fat is at the minimal. Today I saw such a person (I make it sound like I've seen a miracle haha)....I went up for a ride in the mountains, something I haven't done in a month! Because my knee is getting better in that cycling no longer aggravates it if I don't stand up to pedal. I left early at 8 am (early for me these days) to avoid the heat to climb the 2. But it was already so hot. It took me 55 min from the bottom of the 2 to reach the intersection station. When I got off from the saddle to rest, I noticed that it was wet! And the instant I stopped moving I could feel that I was bathed in my sweat. As well the ledge that I sat on got wet from the sweat in the chamois. Yep it was a hot day. I have to say that I'm in love with my new saddle, sure there is still pressure (the weight has to go somewhere) but there is absolutely no chafing - so awesome! Oh yes, as I was cycling, I was passed by this dude with long curly hair. I've seen him a few times before and I think he has to be one of the fastest cyclists out there in the mountains. Omg I could see the individual muscles so clearly. I now look at my legs and they have some definition but with a lot of fat to give them a soft and supple look....so sad :( Yet I'm amazed that with so much fat I'm still faster than everyone at RB except for the pack. When I started cycling I remember being passed by most people at RB and getting a kick out of passing others. Now passing others has become routine. I don't know if other cyclists kill themselves each time they go out cycling. Because each time I cycle, I give it my all. I could feel that my heart couldn't keep up. It always takes a good painful 15 min for me to win the fight against my lazy body to go at a speed my mind considers to be decent.

Ok onto some scary stuff. Last week I thought I contracted cancer. I pricked myself with a needle that had been used to prick the vein of a mouse containing human breast tumor. I don't even know how it could have happened, but the needle just came flying into my finger. Blood instantly started to pool. I was freaked out. I squeezed as much blood out as I could, washed and wiped the wound with alcohol. As a scientist, I know that cancer cells are not contagious because your bodies immune system would recognize them as foreign and attack them till kingdom come. That's if there were even any cancer cells on the needle. However, I'm super crazy about health so I admitted myself to urgent care. After waiting for 1 hour I was seen by a nurse, not even a doctor. The nurse hasn't dealt with this situation before and had to call a doctor. So I waited and waited. I was so cold (the room must have been at at most 20 oC) and starving and my knee was hurting and I thought that I should probably just move on to the next life. Cycling is the one thing that I know I really want in my life and if my knee doesn't get better, that will be the end of that. And now with a looming prospect of cancer, my future looks bleak. After waiting for a total of 2.5 hours and putting my immune system in jeopardy from the cold and hunger (I need it to be strong to fight off any tumor cells), I gave up waiting and asked the nurse to call me back on what the doctor has to say. Conclusion, there is a loophole in the system in that people do not know how to deal with this. Mostly because no one hardly reports these incidents and also because they rarely cause anything...phew

My Poor Knee

I'm getting very bored lately. My knee has been hurting for 3 weeks now so I've been cutting back on cycling to only doing RB every other day or less. This all started when I was using my trainer at home. I was pedaling out of the saddle to strengthen my muscles for standing up cycling when I felt a sudden pain in my knee. I didn't think much about it since the pain resided quickly. However, it never went away. So I got my bike fitted, cut down my cycling, tried the dubbed miracle cure 'castor oil with heating', foam roller and did plenty of stretching, strengthening my quads and loosening the IT band. I don't know if any of these helped since my knee was still hurting. I was concerned and frustrated so I went to see an orthopeidic specializing in sports injury. He did an x-ray and said that the bone structure is perfect and concluded with what I already knew, patellofemoral syndrome. I asked him many questions but his answers were always vague. Basically the visit confirmed what I already knew and so did nothing. I was pretty pissed. Instead of going to the suggested typical physical therapy where they assume everyones body behave the same and teach you simple stretching exercises that I can find online, I found a chiropractor/physical therapist who has a md and who would theoretically know the cause of the pain and tailor it to my own body instead of following text book protocols.

Today I went to see this physical therapist. It's not a very good day to go because the day before I half crashed my bike and the pain from the knee is covered by pain elsewhere. So this is what happened....I decided to go for a ride around RB yesterday afternoon. As I rolled my bike to the car park, I realized that my car wasn't there and remembered that I had driven to work and parked there! So I rode without a helmet (since it's inside the car) and in normal shoes to get my car on the road. Near the end I decided to ride on the pavement because I don't want to be struck without a helmet. Then I came around a corner. I was cornering too fast and my bike went into the lawn by the pavement. All would have being well but that area had no grass and had a ledge. So the next thing I knew, I was falling but didn't fully fall because I caught my left foot on the left pedal and the right hand caught the wall and the right thigh got scraped. My absolutely awesome bike handling skills on display. With blood from my thigh and my shin/ankle swollen I drove to RB and did my ride.....ok back to physical therapy, I told my doctor about my background and he performed some stretches and think that the pain is because I have weak ACL and maybe damaged meniscus. But I'll have to take a MRI to be certain and then he will treat me accordingly. He seems to really know what he's talking about with no BS. He told me that the orthopedics I go to classify their patients as surgery or no surgery required, and that they prefer to do surgery, if they classify you as no surgery, they will just hand you down to a physical therapist - it all makes sense now. While I was there, he asked if I want to try out body manipulation. I thought sure, I'm always up for something new. He told me to lay on my stomach and take a deep breath and let it out, then he pressed on my back so hard that it felt like I was being stepped on by an elephant - there was the accompanying cracking sound. And it hurt! He went on to straighten out my neck. He twisted it one way then the other, the same technique that one uses to dislocate someone's head from their spine. At this point I was scared for my life but found the whole thing hilarious. I accused him of trying to kill me and I even tried to get up and run away. But through all this, I was laughing so hard that I had tears in my eyes. I wonder if his other patients do this. Afterwards he asked me how I felt, I told him truthfully - that I felt like I just came back from the dead....I'm looking forward to getting the MRI and working with this doctor to fix my knee for good!