300K, check. Bad knee, also check.

I completed the Boston Brevet series 300K ride on Saturday.  Total time, 15 hours 50 minutes, which was 10 minutes faster than what I was hoping for.

At the start:

 The route:

The elevation:

Overall, this brevet didn't have as steep hills as the 200K, but for long stretches there were no flats.  It was up, down, up, down, etc.  Nice, but sometimes the downhills aren't so restful.  Descending at 30-35 MPH (with some braking - I am not a fast downhiller) keeps you on your toes, and not so much in the saddle.

Chuck couldn't make this ride, so I went out solo.  My wonderful wife Jane drove me to the start in Concord MA for 3:30 AM.  This means we had to leave our house at 3:00.  I wonder how many of those 3AM rides I can buy by doing various house projects.

The ride officially started at 4:00.  It was really cool to be riding through the deserted roads of Concord, Lincoln, and Sudbury in the pitch black.  I was one of the last riders (as I am the Slow Randonneur) in a group of about 30.  It was great to be rolling along silently, just watching all the red lights of the bikes ahead moving through the darkness.  One interesting point was when I all of a sudden I noticed the line of red dots start to break apart into individual little dots moving side to side.  It was soon apparent that the cause was a huge tree branch across the road.

I was dropped by the pack after 5 or so miles, by my best guess.  Riding in the dark really seemed to block out time and speed.  I couldn't see my speedometer/odometer, and was just navigating by the backlit screen of my GPS.  It was quite wonderful.  Everything was so calm, quiet, and peaceful.  No cars, no hassle, just gliding along through the cool night.  I think I am going to enjoy the night time riding aspect of the longer brevets. 

The 300K was certainly the most challenging ride I have done to date, brevet or otherwise.  It ended up being 189 miles (I put in a little bit of bonus distance), 39 miles longer than my longest ride.  However, as I have stated before, these brevets are a completely different ballgame from rides I have done previously due to the amount of climbing.  During this ride, my back hurt, my butt hurt, and most of all, my left knee really hurt. 

The term "pain management", which I believe I heard in a great documentary I just watched called "Bicycle Dreams", kept floating into my thoughts.  When something started hurting, I would concentrate on it, and then something else would take its place in the pain line.  This isn't too say that the whole ride was painful, but the end sure was.

I have had a sore back and butt before.  It's no big deal, it's part of the whole package, but the knee thing is new and very disconcerting.  I went to the doctor today and she said I most likely have patellar arthritis.  She prescribed 3 Advil 3 times a day and gave me a referral for physical therapy.  In week or two, if still hurts I go back for an MRI.  I think the pain will go away in that time frame, but am very worried it will rear it's ugly head if I get back on the bike.  When I asked the doc about the probabilty of being able to ride pain free in 3 weeks, she did not seem too confidant.  This could put the 400K on June 5 in jeopardy.  Major, major bummer.

Lessons learned:

1. Rides will have ups and downs - I felt good for long parts of this ride and felt bad for long parts of this ride.  Then good, then bad, etc.  Getting through the bad will get you to the good, and the good will be that much better for it.
2. Getting to Paris just got a whole lot harder - 'Nuff said.

At the end: