A Return to Dirt

     The last two years and seven months have been a blur of various injuries that started with heart break in Feb 2010. The next was a sprained ankle in June 2010 that just wouldn't get better. One wouldn't think the heart and the ankle had much in common other than being part of the same body, but if you continue to use them while injured they are both subject to not healing or functioning properly. Last summer came a diagnosis of medial epicondylitis as well as a rotator cuff impingement, and a sprained wrist that I procured at Fort Custer. My father also died last summer. Add to the list more heart break to an already festering wound. A culmination of a series of unfortunate events led to me writhing on the floor unable to get up. My summer was capped off with a broken back. Yesterday marked six months and two days from that miserable day. It also marked my return to the dirt from which I came.

      Driving to the trail head I felt like myself again. I haven't felt that way in what seems like a very long time. Although I was scared of what was to come it just felt right to be going where I was going so I could do what I do, but it wasn't without fear. I was scared that somehow every technical skill I had ever learned had somehow vanished along with my wasting muscles. I was scared a tree would reach out and throw me off the trail and I would be once again writhing on the ground with a broken back. I was scared that it would take me 3 hours to get around Yankee. I was scared that I would be so discouraged I wouldn't ever want to ride my bike again. I was scared it was going to hurt. I am happy to report not all of those things happened. I do still have a little muscle under the fat that has gathered on my body like cumulus clouds in a summer sky. After a mile or so into the woods my soul remembered what my mind and body feared were lost forever and I was able to maneuver the Q over rocks and roots without much difficulty. I was able to head off at the pass the motivation of every evil trail side tree as they stood naked watching me. What I feared would take an eternity to complete only took 1:29. A far cry from my lap times the last time I was healthy enough to race there in 2010, but there is nowhere to go but up from here right???

      Just as I thought though, there was pain. With every drop, rock, or root I was acutely aware of the break that was once in my T-12 vertebra. The muscles along my spine tightened and burned in a protective response to the weakened area in my back, and many times it almost seduced me into giving up. Almost. Somehow, (and I don't exactly know how this works when I am on my bike) I was able to turn that pain into fuel to finish the lap.  As I rode memories of what brought me to this point in my life tightened and burned in a protective response to the weakened areas of my broken heart, and I knew I never had to put myself in that position again.

      As I pulled out of the parking lot with my jelly roll pushing down the waistline of my lycra shorts, I turned on the radio. Feeling much less that hot unless of course you count the sweat rolling down my spine into my butt crack, my ears tuned into the irony of life playing on WYCE.
 

      I don't have much but James reminds me I am going to have to use what I got to get what I want. This requires putting on my Hot Pants, jelly roll or not.  For the first time in a very long time, I want the life I am living right now in this very moment and I want to ride my bike.    I think I will play in the dirt again very soon.