Looking Up!

For those of you that I haven’t talked to lately, I am racing again!

Over the summer I surprised the doctors with my progress, (In my stress test I was able to go from 100 watts last November, to 250 watts, and 20% lung capacity to 40%!) and was able to ease myself back into a training program at the end of the summer. I definitely had a few speed bumps along the way, but by the time school started at the end of august, I was actually feeling pretty solid.

On a side note…. Durango hosted the start of the Pro Cycling Challenge in August and it was an awesome experience! The team got a lot of volunteer hours in, and we got to interact with the riders a bit, which is always fun. It’s cool to see how the sport is growing in the US. Not a bad way to start off the school year ;)

I also went to the track to play around before mountain bike races started. I haven’t been to the velodrome in a few years, and given that the closest one is in Colorado springs 6 hours away, I probably won’t go back for a while again haha. Nevertheless, it was fun, but I’ve probably got to make my quads about 3 times bigger if I ever want to be a track racer.

So on to what you really want to hear about :) The first mountain bike race of the season was our home race, which eased my nerves quite a bit. In the short track it took me a little time to get back into the flow of racing, and I started to move up at the end and even with a crash in the last lap I pulled off a top ten finish. In the cross country the next day I felt really good, and finally got back into the zone after a long year off. I finished 7^th, just 30 secs off of 6^th, and when I came across the finish line so soon everyone was celebrating. I was stoked on how well I did right off the bat, but even more amazing was how excited my friends and teammates were, who have watched me go through this and supported me so much!

All smiles :)

After the first weekend it was back into the routine of pack, drive, camp, race, drive, every weekend, and taking clothes out of my duffel only to wash them and throw them back in. I was completely exhausted after the first one but I wasn’t complaining. I really missed this crazy lifestyle that revolves around racing! (oh and homework too I guess haha) I was able to pull a top ten finish in most every race, and even had a few top fives. By the end of the season, racing every weekend was staring to catch up with my body, and I was more tachycardic than I’ve been in a while. Everything else was acting up too, so I enjoyed the last couple races, but didn’t perform well enough to make the nationals team. It was probably for the best, since I still need to work on learning how to manage my symptoms with my training. But no matter what I am so so so happy at how far I came in such a short amount of time! It was honestly more then I could have hoped for. And I hope that my body can still improve more and more until I am back to where I was, or even faster :) But even if not, I am just enjoying all the riding and racing I can do.

Conference Championships STXC

So right now I am riding as much as possible and getting ready for cyclocross! This is predicted to be a hard winter so it will be a really fun season. I don’t know why I enjoy it so much when the conditions get crazy but I do! We started to see snow on the peaks in September, and I can’t wait for it, but I will miss my mountain bike for quite a long time. And that school thing is going really well too. Working on designing my senior seminar project, which has been an interesting process. It will be fun when I get to start researching! I am also working with my doctors to see if I can start to wean off some of my (way too) many medications in the next few months. So all in all the recovery process is going well :) 

Love these two!

Keep on going

It has been quite a while since I've written anything, probably because this is my race blog, and I haven't been able to race for a long time. But we finally know why. And now that we know, we can fight it. I say we because although I have been physically fighting this battle, I have been amazing at the unwavering support of those around me who are helping me fight every step of the way. I can't thank you enough.

On to the diagnosis... last week I finally got the official diagnosis of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome type III. Since most people have never heard of EDS (including me before all this started) I'll explain it as best I can. EDS is a rare genetic disorder that affects the connective tissues of the body, which acts like the glue holding our body together. So it affects the joints (hyper-mobility, joint pain, and accelerated joint damage), organs (gastrointestinal issues, organ rupture), skin (easy bruising, tearing, elasticity), and circulatory system (veins are lax reducing ability for blood flow) among other things. Different people have different symptoms and issues because of this. So this is the root cause to the issues I've had all my life (like injuries and pain) and most likely why I struggle with dysautonomia, gastroparesis, the recent heart issues, and everything else.

So when talking to the doctor about my future cycling career he was uncertain. There is little research on EDS and every patient responds so differently, and so we will have to see how exercise affects me. He was encouraging in that a lot of EDS patients go through phases of "remission" in which symptoms, especially the dysautonomia which is the biggest obstacle to riding, can subside. But if I find a trend in which intense training makes me more symptomatic then I might have to completely stop. Also, the risk of joint damage is very high, so no crashing! (haha I would definitely be okay with that) and we will have to see how riding wears down on my knees, etc.. So long story short I am going to try my best to overcome this and I am still optimistic about a pro racing future :)

Right now I am functional, making it to school everyday and very slowly building on my activity level and riding. I got my new road bike and it is BEAUTIFUL so I can't wait till when I can finally ride it outside! Collegiate road season is just around the corner and my hope is to "race" in the crits as part of my physical, but mostly mental recovery ;) Heres to hoping for a race report soon!

C'mon who can be sick when you get to live here?