#Ragbrai 51

[itsbeenclaireified]

So at the end of July I did RAGBRAI, Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa. And it took a while for me to like…mentally recover from this one? Which was then like tough/disappointing to feel like I had to?

So what happened was on the very first day my dad and I crashed our tandem recumbent bike 3 times. We spend like 4-5 hours just trying to get the patch to hold and get rolling, but it just wasn’t working. And on the last crash we both got injured (dad some road rash and muscle soreness, me landed hard on me knee).

So we limped into camp (me literally limping) and my mom graciously drove several hours down to us with her bike and my dad’s bike. So we biked the rest of the week on those.

And that’s how I learned that I didn’t know a lot of stuff about long distance biking. I’ve always biked these long repetitive distances on a recumbent bike. But like day 3 on the upright bike I was experiencing a level of chafing I had never experienced before because I’m an idiot and didn’t know you shouldn’t have cotton underwear under your bike shorts.

So that chafing day I biked 45 miles and then my bike popped its tire, and that freaked me out and my whole body hurt and my knee was better but not great (it did okay on the bike but not walking around). So I bailed, and I’m both glad I did and also was like wow weak of you.

Which is rude of me to think??? Like I had biked 85 miles 4500vertical the previous day, but I thought I was like just not mentally tough enough to get thru it??

And the second to last day I also just decided to not bike because my hands were staying numb, and I just needed a break. And I had a great day recovering, but lord the ol noggin was like “are you listening to your body? Or are you a baby backed bitch giving up?”

And I think I was listening to by body, because here I am 5 weeks later and my fingers are finally not tingly anymore. And I’ve been to PT consult now and he thinks I have a bone contusion and that I didn’t fuck up my meniscus. Which is what I was hoping to hear, because I don’t want to fuck up my knee joint if I can avoid it. But also like …lol, what a weird vibe to HOPE for a bone contusion. And my knee still sort of aches but it’s still getting better.

So yeah there were good times, but mostly this Ragbrai was a fucking slog and was hard and then I was sad/disappointed that I didn’t have like a transformative happy experience. And a podcast I listened to used a phrase of “putting a ceiling on your suffering” where you can just…stop. Like you can be like my body is hurting and I don’t have to keep pushing. And I guess I’m glad I have learned that lesson. But it was tough.

And then I turned 32 and I was like dude my body and I did that together and it was scary that things could have been worse. Or like that could have been an injury that gives me a trick knee for the rest of my life, and so I’m thankful to past me that has done a bunch of pre-hab strengthening work to keep my acl protected etc.

Anyway, I avoided posting about Ragbrai because I had such complex feelings about it. But now I’m more ready to celebrate the accomplishment that it still was.