It was a good weekend (Day 1)

This was the most fun I’ve had riding the MS150 tour from Houston to Austin. Oddly enough it was the only time I had an injury. My family took me to the starting line which is the furthest of the three starting points. Everybody was in great spirits for having to wake up at 5:15am. It was nice seeing everybody in the early morning. Usually I sneak out into the morning dark while everybody is asleep.

We arrived on time and I started getting all my gear ready. I ride with team Sun and Ski and they do a great job taking care of the riders on the team. This starts with taking my overnight gear and having it ready in the team tent when I arrive.

The weather was great, the route was a little crowded but everything moved along at a decent clip. With the great weather came more people than usual on the route cheering us on. Speaking of which, no matter how many times I see it, when someone is on the route with a sign that says “I have MS, thank you for riding for me” I can’t help but get choked up.

I left lunch at 10:30am which is earlier than I’ve ever finish the half way mark by a long shot. I felt great and was riding strong. That all faded around 11:30am when my knee started hurting me. I had suspected that my seat height had dropped in the past couple of weeks but chose to ignore it. I thought that since it wasn’t hurting me that it wasn’t that big of a deal. Well that was true up to mile 75 when my left knee started having sharp pain in it when I pushed down on the pedal. The more I pushed the more it hurt. This was during the hilly part of the ride so it was a double wammy.

I pushed through and was able to make it to the next rest stop. I had my seat raised, took some advil and applied some biofreeze. I only had about 11 miles left so I laid down to let the meds kick in. I gather myself and headed out and my knee still hurt but it wasn’t as bad. I took it very easy and while I didn’t finish in the time I wanted, it was earlier than I’ve ever finished by around three hours.

I setup my enormous air mattress, left for the showers and felt like a new man. A 20 minute massage, followed by dinner and I was a happy camper. Resting my body and knee while listening to my ipod was a great way to end the day. Seeing people rollilng into the finish after I had been in camp for several hours reminded me that even with a bum knee I had a great day.

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