Hamstrung...

Man, the past month on the bike has been excruciating. I've been nursing an injured hamstring that just wouldn't get better - as most cyclists know, once something like this gets in your head it can be a real impediment to enjoying your ride and it can in fact consume your very existence. The background on it is almost mindnumbing (for the reader!) but I'll give a quick synopsis. I changed from Keo Look to Speedplays X2 pedals roughly two months ago. About the same time the nose of my saddle broke and for some inexplicable reason, I continued to ride on it for a month. The broken nose caused me to sag in the saddle and put more pressure on my thighs relative to my hamstrings. Someone in my ride group pointed out the fact I was bouncing in the saddle and they practically laughed at me in disbelief that I was riding with a broken saddle.

Once I got my new saddle, all the problems started because I got repositioned higher and my hamstrings weren't ready for the stress. Additionally, because the Speedplay pedals/cleats have less "thickness" than the Keos there was even more stretch than I was used to. I spent the past month slightly lowering the seapost (like milimeters!) in denial. I'd ride slower and even take some time off to let the hammy heal. I'd even try to stretch it and still no improvement. So frustrating. Finally I figured two things out. It was actually my hip/butt that was getting stretched and my hammy was compensating. So stretching my hip would actually loosen my hammy. More importantly, I lowered my seatpost more meaningfully and shifted my cleats forward a bit to reduced the stretch in my stroke.

I finally did a ride on Saturday where my hammy didn't give out first and I was able to enjoy the full body buzz of a long ride. Wow, did I miss it. I'm also relieved to be able to figure things out with the Italy tour just around the corner - this was weighing on my mind as well.

I definitely took one funny little lesson/observation from this whole episode. While I knew it probably made the most sense to lower my seatpost, I was reluctant to in any significant way until I was able to rationalize that the pedal thicknesses were different. Amazing how stubborn we can be as riders and in life.

Ciao.