I just had a need to express my disappointment and frustration

I was hoping to ride my first century/charity ride this weekend -El Tour de Tucson but it's not to be.

I started riding in June 2009 at the age of 53, after many years of couch potato-ism. I had no problems for 9 months or so... but last spring I started having pain in my IT band, which turned out to be due to a hip that gets out of alignment. I still don't get why it does that- 3 months of PT and backing off of riding got me back to being able to ride 100 miles a week by the early summer. But then I stopped keeping up with the exercises....

This fall I started riding more intensively, training for El Tour. I had 3 weeks off work and doubled my miles, and added in interval training. By the end of the 3 weeks, the symptoms were coming back and though I have been doing the exercises regularly, I'm still having problems. I had such a hard time cutting back, and kept riding some.... so that probably set me back too.

It's not just a bike problem- it's with me almost all the time, but moves around- hip, hamstring, knee, etc, although sometimes it's much less noticeable than others.

I don't know if it truly matters why it happens, if the exercises do get me back to riding, although I am curious as to the real cause. For what it's worth, I found out last spring I have advanced osteoarthritis in my back (L4-L5)- much to my surprise, as I hadn't really had pain from it. I also had a car accident about a week before my first knee pain, which I didn't think affected me at the time. I have had muscle/soft tissue problems for almost 15 years in my neck/shoulder/back. Flare ups seem to be related to playing a lot of fiddle and sometimes using a computer mouse- so maybe I'm just predisposed to these kinds of things.

Anyway- I'll be watching for my husband and friends on the ride instead, and hoping I'll be starting to get back to riding in the not too distant future....

Thanks for letting me get it out of my system.