The Glacier’s Shadow

Part II: preparing for the longest brevet of the year took discipline only an injury could bring.

Hills like these. It’s pretty much up hill all the way to Montana. If I was going to ride to Glacier Park, I would have to heal my Achilles. Triple Crown record holder Linda Bott on the climb out of the Columbia Gorge.

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Training for a one-thousand kilometer ride is difficult enough. How could I possibly do it with an Achilles tendon so raw that it flared after climbing a speed-bump?

I injured my Achilles riding in a 600 kilometer brevet in September 2006. Despite three months of physical therapy, it was not getting better. Mentally, I was totally committed to this ride. Physically, I faced a challenge so daunting that I often doubted I would be capable of it. If I wasn’t able to ride around the Lake without irritating the tendon, how could I possibly pedal 620 miles and climb 26,000 feet on the road to Montana?

Although I didn’t see it this way until after The Glacier 1000 was done, the injury that threatened to ruin my 2007 season was responsible for making it the most successful one ever. It forced a discipline on my training that I have never had. It kept me from pushing too hard too soon. It kept me moving forward, making progress gradually, incrementally, sometimes painfully.

Achilles Tendonosis is a degenerative condition of the tendon and surrounding sheath. According to Sandra Stryker, the physical therapist that treated it, my Achilles had decreased in thickness by about 25 percent. The result was a loss of strength and susceptibility to re-injury. In order to regenerate the tissue, I had to stick to a program that included stretching to increase flexibility, and exercise to stimulate blood supply to a region of the body that doesn’t get much. To keep from re-injuring the tendon, the intensity of my training had to be gradually increased at a rate of about 10 percent each week.

The rehab program Sandra designed was strangely consistent with a long distance training approach developed by Ed Burke, called periodization. Soon, I understood why. Before starting a family and her Life’s Work Physical Therapy clinic in Portland, Sandra was a triathlete, so she was quite familiar with the rigors of endurance cycling. She regularly asked questions about my training program. She monitored it closely and integrated the therapy with it, though it often seemed the other way around.

Over the winter holidays, using the Ultra Marathon Cycling Association Preparing for Long Rides handbook as a guide, I mapped a six-month training regimen. I periodized the 2007 season into three phases, each with a distinct training objective. I allotted 16 weeks to build base miles, followed by eight weeks of intensity training, then, two weeks to taper.

Flying low. Sometimes, when I describe what it is like to ride to someone who hasn’t done it, I say, “it’s like flying low” in a small plane, or riding a big ocean wave, where you can feel the wind on your skin, and the force of gravity as your make your turn. Nate Armbrust caught my descent into the Oregon side of the Gorge.

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My tendon reacted to even the smallest change in exercise intensity. Too much climbing, or too much speed, caused it to flare. Problem was, it didn’t signal me during the ride, so post-ride pain was my only form of feedback. I usually had to wait until the next day to know if I had pushed too hard. If was able to walk downstairs without pain, then I knew the ride had been within limits. By the same token, if the weight of walking sent shock waves up the my leg, I knew I had ridden too hard. I would be off the bike for as many as four days, coaxing it with ice packs, Advil, self-massage, and twice-weekly PT treatments.

Each week Sandra and I discussed the plan for Saturday’s long ride. She was adamant about controlling the rate we increased stress on the tendon. She argued for balancing intensity and distance, holding one constant in order to increase the other. If I wanted to climb in the Cascade foothills, she asked that I decrease total mileage. If I wanted to do a long endurance ride, she suggested I stay in the farmlands. Then, we waited to see how the tendon responded.

And that is how it went, week after week through the winter and spring, analyzing the training data and correlating it to the pain. Sandra was just as interested in the numbers as I was, but for different reasons. I focused on the miles, the altitude, the speed. I had a schedule to keep. I needed to show progress.

She, on the other hand, saw the world in another way. Healing the tendon was the center of her focus. She said from the start that the process would take from six to nine months. While I often became discouraged, certain that I would never ride again without pain, her faith was unwavering. She said that it would heal in time for The Glacier if I didn’t over-reach, or cave-in to an impulse to sprint with the pack or hammer up a grade.

Dreamscape. The final leg to the finish line ran up the west bank of Flathead Lake. The results say I was here. But the ride has taken a dreamlike quality that makes me question whether it is really true. Photo by Nate.

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ProTrainer 5.0 from Polar informed our dialog with facts. I laid out the training plan from January to June, following John Hughes’ recommendations to the letter. I included two options for every event, one early and one late. I wanted to do the Super Randonneur Series in Washington, and the PAC Tour Desert Camp with Fred Matheny in Arizona. But as the season unfolded and we analyzed those dates against the year-to-date trend lines for mileage, altitude, and hours on the bike, it was clear the Washington Series and the Arizona Camp were coming four to six weeks too early for me. If I hadn’t been rehabbing the Achilles, I might have gone for it anyway. Sandra reminded me that was an approach that was responsible for my injury in the first place.

Though I found it painfully difficult to make those choices at the time, it was worth it. Even now, when I share the story, I find it hard to comprehend that I could ride a bicycle from Portland to Montana in 70 hours. Mostly, I don’t talk about it, because I feel like I am lying when I say that I did it. The only thing that I find more extraordinary about the experience is that woke up day after the ride not feeling any pain, and thinking that taking a walk on the glacier at Logan Pass was a perfectly natural way to spend the Fourth of July. So we did.

Miss an installment of The Glacier’s Shadow? Click here to read the Introduction, Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V

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