Seeking Peer Support & Motivation!

[NW_Meg]

I'm 32 and used to bike avidly. After an accident and injury a few years ago, it's been a challenge getting back into biking consistently. But something inspired me to go for it. I just bought my first road bike (I LOVE this bike! god I love this bike!) and am starting to ride again and training, slowly, for a couple of short events in 2003.
For inspiration, I taped the words "Breathe" and "Believe" on my handlebars... and the quote "THIS is women's work" on the back of my bike light to help me up hills and through pain.
What I need now is this: other women who are passionate - even zealous - about biking to check in on me every now and then to make sure I'm doing it -- riding -- training -- perservering! Really, email me -- be my support buddy. And if you're in the PacNW, email for a weekend ride. I definitely need more riding partners just getting back in the saddle...
Thanks!

[pennys]

I'm passionate to the point of being crazed about mountain biking, I'm still riding 2x a week even with this arctic cold weather. I was up in the snow on Mt Coeur D'Alene yesterday.

I suggest you join a club in your area (Washington is a big state)and make some connections and commitements to ride. If you have riding partners, that's the best way to make sure you get out.

Either that, or the passion forces you out to ride, no influence of others needed. That's how much I need my rides, I go alone if I dont' have a riding partner.


penny s

[goddess1222]

just remember, you can do anything. you are a woman, of course you can. what kind of bike do you have?

i am a fairly new rider myself and i have such a hunger to learn and ride more and more.

what keeps me going is having watched lance go through chemo, being so sick, and then seeing him defy everyone, including the french team that dumped him when he had cancer. of course you know the rest.

never quit. keep going. one more mile. one more hill. it's all you honey!!!!

ride on!!!!

goddess1222

[pennys]

Originally posted by goddess1222
just remember, you can do anything. you are a what keeps me going is having watched lance go through chemo, being so sick, and then seeing him defy everyone, including the french team that dumped him when he had cancer. of course you know the rest.

sometime you don't have to look so far for inspiration. One of my mountain biking pals had a partial mastectomy this summer. Then she broke her collar bone. Has she quit? Not on your life. Riding is what's keeping her sane. We meet after her radiation treatments for rides. Sure some days aren't so great for her, and some days she walks the hills, but I am so glad to have her to ride with. She says she'd feel like **** whether she rides or stays at home so why not keep riding...

penny s

[NW_Meg]

Thank you girls! Yes, there is definitely inspiration all around me -- big and small.

Penny -- did you know Missy Giove has had several compound fractures in her pelvis and still races mtb?...

And Goddess, your clipless-pedal stories are killing me! This weekend will be my maiden voyage clipped in... I think I have the basics down, now I just have to put it all together.

[NW_Meg]

Wow! I didn't know anything about MG other than her career performance and her pelvic injuries (my injuries were also pelvic)... that sucks that someone 'positioned' to be such a great women's role model is the opposite....

Your friend who rides after treatments is a far greater hero/role model in my book!

[missliz]

[note from forum administrator: the posts by Pennys that Missliz refers to have been deleted at Pennys' request]

I too am just back on the bike after three years of injury and being put back together in multiple surguries. It's hard. And every time I've been to this forum looking for support and advice you, pennys, have been a catty *** with no clue so why don't you lay off Missy? So what if she's a *****? So what if she's a ****? She has a history of acomplishment nobody here can even comprehend. I know from reading your posts that you certainly aren't a *****, pennys, you're a wuss, and that pathetic female "Oh lets get dishy with somebody we don't even know and call her a *****" is such a mean load of crap. Go back to Junior high. Or better yet, go to an inner city emergency room on a saturday night and you'll see that even Sunday school teachers go bananas after trauma. Missy is a legend, and she's kind of goofy, and every trip to the first aid tent is the possible end of her career. Since I'm pretty sure you've never made your living off of racing bikes, much less been world champion, what the hell would you know about what drives Missy's actions? It just sounds petty and jealous.
Every time Little Women like you start up with that kind of nastiness you chip away at the hard fought gains women have made to get out the house and onto a bike and into the workplace. The fact that a Missy Giove can race downhill proffesionally is a freakin' miracle to Title Nine generation women like me who weren't allowed into weight rooms and had to put up with a level of harrassment you all can't imagine. You should show respect.

[NW_Meg]

well, uh, ok, I feel compelled to get us back on track...

Sorry one woman (Penny) felt let down by someone who could have been a role model to her, and I have to concur with the last post: ***** or not, I have immense respect for anyone who fractures her pelvis and gets back on her bike. I'm sure anyone in the ambulance with me after I got hit would have had much worse things to say about me... and I didn't have a bike career at stake...

So, enough about that... MissLiz, are you still doing PT? What else have you done to get back on your bike? I just started pilates with a coach, and it's so much harder than it looks... but unless I rebuilt some strength in my lower back, riding any distance will continue to elude me...

[missliz]

So sorry about that rant, Meg, but cattiness and mean gossip is so un Bike. Being in exactly the same place I can totally understand the enormity of coming back, It's scary to get back on the horse and ride. A good club is a good idea. Go around and check them all out in your area. I used to ride with the touring club before I got run over, but I've been talking to guys from the hard core road racing club in the gym (I'm back in the real gym!) and they're really supportive and have a beginner development program they think would be right for me. Other slow fat awkward people. I would never have thought to talk to that club, but they've got a big non racing membership and stress individual potential. And they go mountain biking. So check around, you want the group with some structure AND people who are nice to you. I'm still at the barely makes it eight miles stage, but these guys have a coach who can tell me how to use the gym over the winter to come back faster. The body remembers. Also, if you do some upper body strength work it'll do wonders. Spin class works the heart, but on the road you need the strength to manage a moving bike.
I have two and half years invested in reconstruction and PT, so the gym was a doctors order. He was right- I'm coming back really quickly. A few days ago I went out for a whole hour and rode well, good leg speed, good bike handling from all those crunches and bench press, hopped a hole, I'm so sore I can't move. But I'm so happy!

missliz

[NW_Meg]

Congrats on the hour ride, MissLiz!

I'm doing a half hour tomorrow, and a longer one Sunday... I don't even care how fast yet, I'll just be happy to keep upright and going forward!

Don't know if you've tried this, but hot baths with Apple Cider Vinegar take the edge off muscle ache for me (especially help stave off spasms).

[missliz]

You posted while I was writing! Pilates comes very highly recommended at my PT outfit; but I'm starting on "spinal stabilization" for a bad sacro iliac joint next week and it's supposed to be similar. I figured out something cool- the curvy saddles we've been riding act like a wedge pushing the ilia apart, wich may be why every rider I've talked to has an SI experience. When I wussed down my cross country bike I got a flat cushy saddle and wow! That flat across the back business doesn't shove the ilia out of place! Is this making sense? So I talked to Adam, bike merchant extrordinaire, and he said everybody is going to these flat tail saddles. Terry bikes concurs. So think about this if you had a lot of pelvic injury. I had to have both knees rebuilt and they're doing well. Actually, I had the best knee surgeon in the country (luck!) and he said I had some patellar misalignment that he fixed, and my knees may actually be better now. My feet are pretty ruined, have to wear ugly mens sneakers and I'm a stilletto heels kind of girl, BUT cycling is the most recommended activity for my injuries, wich is pretty cool. At least I get to wear beautiful silver and red shoes on the bike.
I got hit by a cane truck, and am told I tried to kill the driver when he stopped. I was completely losing it nasty belligerent all the way back into New Orleans in the ambulance. Yelled my head off. I'm told this was actually a good thing- ranting adrenelin pumped pissed off patients are in better shape than comatose patients. The big whack to the head I took wouldn't have helped.
So I'm finding the hardest thing is the habit, especially with the time change.I think about it, and I rounded up some riding clothes that fit, but actually getting out the door is tough. I hope the Guys With Cute Butts Bike Club will help.

missliz

Buy your bike a nice peice of jewelry, like a nice anodized brake cable hanger. She'll appreciate it, and the Bike Gods will smile on you both. Those BMX skull valve caps are good too, especially with ruby eyes.

[pennys]

Originally posted by missliz
I hope the Guys With Cute Butts Bike Club will help.

LOL

Thanks for the smile. If only MTB guys would get that baggy is NOT flattering. Except when they hang a little low on a nice flat belly....

penny

[goddess1222]

hey missliz!!! i had to write to say that i admire you. it sounds like you have had a serious time with injury. it also sounds like you are doing all the right things to get back on track. you have such a level of courage to get back on the bike after being hurt for so long. i want to personally congratulate you on your courageous journey through a tough time.
if i ever get injured, God forbid, i hope i have as much courage as you to get better quick, and get back out there.

ride on!!!
goddess1222

[missliz]

You're a sweety, Goddess, 'cept you poached my own true name... Well lets all be a pantheon.
Courage is kind of a movie of the week word- useful for PR but the supposedly brave have no idea what it's supposed to be. I only recall stark terror and trying not to panic and bolt in pre-op. At PT it was tedious and onerous and half the reason I always went was that it was the only thing that got me out of the house. And I could only find one article of faith to hang on to, that I would ride again. I had some exquisite wheels hand built for my road bike just as a sort of offering to the bike gods. If you ever get sick or injured you'll find that there's no choice. What are you gonna do? Obsess on illness or obsess on health? It's always there. And daytime TV is SO awful.
I figured out early that cycling was the only sport I did that I could keep, so I focussed on it. Now is the really hard part- actually going out the door on the bike. If anybody wants to explain courage, tell me 'cause I need it now.
Course maybe just struggling along chasing The Guys with Cute Butts will work better than courage. Sex is more interesting than philosophy.

missliz

[goddess1222]

you are right about courage being easy to say yet tough to practice. so cool about your custom wheels. it gives new meaning to a girl's best friend. i started a thread on this website a few weeks ago because i am a new road rider and had been practicing in a park clipping in and out to get ready to try it on the road. i titled the thread "fear". i had the most wonderful responses from women on these boards. encouragement, advice, and a bit of cheerleading. it was great!!! you have obviously been riding a lot longer than i, but you may find a few of the responses encouraging. check it out .

good luck to you!

goddess1222

p.s. i am more than willing to share my namesake. the word "goddess" is meant to be shared.