Operation 2014
Like the rest of my life, the 2014 cycling season was a big pile of extremes.
I started this year on a high, receiving the silver lifetime achievement pin that the Pan-Mass Challenge gives to riders who surpass $100,000 in fundraising for cancer research. Just a few weeks later, the world changed forever when my hero and charity ride mentor Bobby Mac succumbed to pancreatic cancer. Up and down.
By mid-June, I was happily on pace for a record year, with the Outriders ride to Provincetown constituting my fourth century ride of the year. That night, on a one-mile ride home from the ferry dock, I had a bad solo crash that left me with a mild concussion. Even worse, the ER nurse botched an IV insertion, which left me with a huge hematoma and an unusable right arm. It was six weeks before I was well enough to do another long ride. Up and down again.
I wasn’t fully healed-and certainly not fully trained-when I completed the Mt. Washington Century in July as a final warm-up for my 14th and final Pan-Mass Challenge. By riding with my buddies Paul and Jay from the New York state line, I extended the PMC to a third day and 290 miles. I felt strong again, and was both proud and sad to ride in Bobby’s memory and to finish my PMC career having raised $111,222 for cancer research.
Shortly after the PMC, I noticed lingering pains in my abdomen. Eventually I was diagnosed with a balky gall bladder. I put myself back on a restrictive low-fat diet, and stayed off the bike in the interest of halting the accompanying weight loss. That pretty much put an end to my season, while I waited (and waited) for a surgery date. Up and down again!
Yesterday I completed my first ride post-surgery. It was nice to be out on the bike again, but it also sucked. It feels like I’ve lost all my conditioning: strength, endurance, cardio, speed, sprinting, climbing, bike handling, everything. Looks like we’ll be starting 2015 from scratch. Fortunately, since I live in the fucking tundra, I’ve got three and a half months left to hibernate before I have to address the fitness shortfall.
Despite my health problems blowing two gaping holes in my season, 2014 was still a great year. My 3,500-mile total was the most I’ve ridden since 2010, and I did set a new lifetime record of nine rides in excess of 100 miles. In fact, nearly 30 percent of my riding was in century+ rides! It makes me wonder how much more was possible if I had not run into so many health issues.
A lot of that was possible because I wasn’t working this year. Having just started a new job at Buildium, my opportunities to ride next year will be curtailed quite a bit. And I won’t be commuting, because it’s not worth riding the mere one mile to the office.
On the other hand, my new employer fields a 40-person team for the Cape Cod Getaway MS ride, which I’ll participate in. Like my annual Outriders ride, it goes from Boston to Provincetown, and it usually falls on the weekend after Outriders. Unlike Outriders, which goes 130 miles in one day, the MS ride wanders around, taking two days to do 175 miles. So it should be a walk in the park for me. It’s kind of nice to have a bit of cycling culture in the company, and to be able to step in with some instant cred. And as compared to the PMC, the fundraising is trivial.
So I guess I’m happy with 2014. It was a very eventful year, with many extreme highs and lows. But I still did a lot of riding, and enjoyed myself quite a bit.
At this point, there’s no saying what 2015 holds, save that I won’t have as much time to ride. Hopefully my digestive system will adapt to my new gall-bladder-less reality without inhibiting my riding. I think we’ll have to take the 2015 season day by day. But I’m eager to get through the winter and back out on the road!