The same morning I published my last post about failing the first uphill climb on my new route I went for a bike ride. I headed south down to Sellwood and crossed the bridge like always. That’s when I had a decision to make, go north and call it a ride or keep going west into the cemetery and actually try that stupid hill again. I was feeling pretty good so I said fuck it and decided to hit the hill again.

Now the first time I tried the hill I started at what I considered a pretty reasonable gear and worked my way down towards the lowest gear as the climb became harder and harder. This time I tried a different strategy; I started pretty low to begin with and just accepted that this would take a while. I wasn’t athletic, I wasn’t quick, and I was by no mean impressive but I made it to the top! I wasn’t even in that much pain and I was feeling pretty damn good about myself.

Last time I got to this point I was walking; and when I got there I abandoned the rest of the proposed trip, turning right and headed home. But on this day I was still on the bike and at the top of the hill I turned left this time, to finish this ride. Stupid, stupid, stupid me.

It turns out that the cemetery hill wasn’t some silly biking challenge but rather the gatekeeper into some hidden chamber of hell reserved for morons who think they’re bicyclists. My vision of biking the hills west of Portland was not at all the reality that awaited me. These weren’t “yay, hills!” these were “holy fuck, I’m supposed to ride up that hill?” sort of hills. This time around I didn’t even feel bad when I dismounted from my bike. Which is good since I would dismount time and again during my ride. There were several hills that I’m not sure I’d ever be able to climb and one specific hill I don’t think any human being could ever climb.

The trip was supposed to be a little over 16 miles. My normal 14 mile ride takes me about 50 minutes. This ride took me 2 hours, 20 minutes. There were multiple places where I could have turned away from he planned course and go home, but I decided that ride or walk I’d finish this motherfucker (Unless of course I happened to run into an angry gang of mosquitoes). I was pretty disappointed when I got home and found that my phone had lost GPS reception and I was missing half of the ride or so. So unfortunately I don’t know what sort of elevation I reached on the climb up. That really sucks because I was pretty high up by the time I peaked.

I said in the last post that using google maps to plan out my routes isn’t ideal. Now I realize that it’s more than “not ideal”, it’s downright stupid. I need to find better tools for planning trips.

Having ridden/walked the entire loop I know for sure that this is more than I can chew at this point. If I’m going to ratchet up the rides I need to baby step it a little more. I haven’t looked at my options yet, but I’d like to find a ride which will incorporate cemetery hill still. Having summitted it once I think I can do it time and again, hopefully getting faster each time.

Maybe one day I’ll actually be able to finish a ride like this one. That would be something. That would awesome. But for now… baby steps.

When you’ve got the sad physical conditioning I do you learn to savor whatever little victories you achieve. One of those little keepsakes came a number of months back when I completed my first apartment-to-apartment bike ride without ever touching my feet to the floor. Hey, I told you it was a little victory.

Two days ago I tried a new route. Usually I just load up a map of Portland on google and trace out a new path that way. ` The problem with mapping a route using google is that there’s no real feel for elevation change. I think you see where this is going…

The first half of my ride is the same loop I’ve been doing for months now. I normally ride down to the town of Sellwood on the west side of the river, cross the Sellwood Bridge, and head back north on the river’s east side. This new route had me crossing the bridge like always, but instead of turning north I keep riding west into the hills. I expected the hills and the climbing, what I didn’t plan on was that I’d get broken so quickly.

The first hill was a never-ending upward trek which forced my gears ever downward. By the time I was in the lowest gear on my bike I was barely crawling along the switchback-laden path wondering why I was so stupid as to want to try a different path. In classic Portland style not one, not two, but three people would pass me at speeds which trivialized the epicness of my uphill battle.

Though I realized that the hill I wasn’t really climbing wouldn’t end I stubbornly proclaimed that I would reach its top even if I did the entire thing in granny gear moving 0.01 mph. But my legs didn’t listen and suddenly they weren’t moving in circles any longer. I was still pushing, they just weren’t moving. So I dismounted and walked to the top. At the top of the hill I decided I was done and cut the ride short. What was scheduled to be 16.2 (ish) miles ended up being 13.7 miles.

The ride broke me, but it felt pretty damn good. Walking my bike up the hill panting along I told myself that one of these days I’ll not only ride the hill but I’ll do it like that calf-intensive lady did as she passed me, asking “Are you ok?” without even hint of being short of breath.

One day, I’ll be a bicyclist.

Although it’s just as probable that I won’t.

My head’s been getting better & better. I’ve been sitting at 98% feel-goodedness for the last 3 days, so with an errand to run I decided to hop back on the the two-wheeled horse. After a fairly short ride I was done with what I was doing and was feeling pretty good. So I decided to go for more of a ride.

I went out a did the Sellwood loop. All I know with the concussion is that I’m supposed to not over exert myself while the head heals. Well 9 miles later I was feeling just fine. The only really stupid thing was that I started the ride at 4:15 and the sun out in full. By the time I got home I was drenched.

I am sad to admit though that in the couple of weeks I’ve not been biking I’ve gone from my hard-earned “slightly less pathetic” to my original “pathetic”. It’s time to start stepping up the miles again.

What a crappy week this has been. You may recall from my last post that on one of my nights out with Darius I fell. Also recall the next day brought me the worst hangover of my life.

Well two days after our evening running rampant around Portland I was still hurting and I began to suspect that my hangover was no hangover. I’m fairly certain cracking my noggin on the ground resulted in my first ever concussion. I went online and began to look up “concussion” to understand what I’m dealing with.

I love looking up medical conditions online. I bet if you looked up “paper cut” you’d find a story about some dude who got an infection after a wicked paper-powered incision which resulted in having to amputate his entire arm. So I’m looking up concussions and slowly accepting my fate. Soon my brain would fully hemorrhage, gelatinize, and leak out my ears and nose. The internet had spoken, there was nothing to do.

Eventually though I did find some good information on the NIH.gov website. Specifically a list of symptoms I should watch for when deciding whether or not I should go to the doctor. After my false alarm broken foot I wasn’t keen on spending untold more dollars on another doctor visit and, more expensively, a possible CT/MRI scan of da noodles if nothing would by gained by doing so. According to the National Institute of Health there was no reason for me to get medical attention so all that was left to do was to wait.

Now this is where things get fuzzy. A concussion can last anywhere from a couple of weeks to months or years. You’re supposed to lay low while your cranial tapioca heals its boo-boos. So for the last week I’ve been sitting in my apartment doing very, very little. So little that on several occasions I almost died from sheer boredom.

So was I smart with my time indoors? Did I crack open the calculus book (which I really need to be doing)? Did I catch up on the blog? Did I read a book? No, no and no. I’ve been a worthless bum. I’ve watched everything Netflix has sent me. I’ve hulu‘d like a madman. I’ve spent countless hours playing video games. Complete, worthless, bum.

But you know what? It’s getting old. After my last bike ride I’ve been itching to get back on the pedals. Delayed by the faux-broken foot and then Darius’s visit I expected to get some miles in last week. Obviously that hasn’t happened. Now I’m getting downright antsy.

My sidewalk headbutt is unfortunately also delaying my camping trip which I had planned to go on this week. Now I’m stuck waiting for the world to stop spinning before I head out into the woods.

Now my misadventures are cause for more than just self-pity. My week off of being off while feeling off has also given me some reasons to be thankful. The first, and most obvious, is that I’m sitting here blogging about a headache. The reality is that cracking your head against the sidewalk can ruin much, much more than your week. I’m hoping that by this time next week I’ll be 100%. It could have been way worse. Lucky me.

The trauma-induced hiatus has increased the contrast on several other points as well. The first of which is that this has really been the first week since I’ve moved up here where I’ve done so very little. Over this year I’ve been getting more & more active and the sudden shut down has made the activity much more obvious. Maybe Portland is rubbing off on me more than I realized. Along those lines comes the other thing I’ve noticed. I’ve been really itching to get back on my bike. I was making such good progress. I think a 20 mile bike trip was just around the corner and I’m really anxious to to get to a point where such bike rides commonplace.

After ridiculously inactive since Monday I’m feeling better. The headache has been constantly there, though it does disappear under the power of Tylenol. The loopiness though is almost completely gone, and in all honesty it was that loopiness that made the whole thing a little scary.

This coming week I’m going to play around with getting more active. Camping may be delayed but I’d like to be able to take the bike out sooner rather than later. But last week just sucked. I’m sure there’s a lesson to be learned from all of this. But luckily for me the skull-cracker knocked any lessons right the hell out of my head.

When I was out having adventures this last Sunday I, at one point, jumped off of a railing (I climbed up to get a good picture). I’m not positive, but I think this was the point where I tweaked my foot a little bit. I didn’t notice anything at first, but later on my left foot got kind of tender.

Well 2 days later I was still feeling it. It doesn’t like when I walk on it. I explained the injury to a friend of mine who’s a family doctor and he said it might be a metatarsal fracture, a.k.a. a broken foot. Being a long-distance diagnosis he can’t be sure and told me I should get it x-rayed. Ha! Who does he think I am, someone with insurance?!? Personally I’m not so sure that it is a broken foot, and I’ve got 4 reasons to think this:

1. It doesn’t hurt when I poke it or move it with my hands.
2. I don’t have insurance.
3. I don’t have a job.
4. I’m planning on going camping in a couple of weeks.

These obviously compelling arguments make it seem really improbable that I broke my foot. I’m taking his advice and taking 600mg of ibuprofen 3 times a day (starting today) to keep inflammation down. He also said I should wear stiff shoes to keep the foot from flexing which is ironic considering my recent praising of my new shoes.

All I can do now is hope that it really isn’t a fracture of any sort and that it gets better in a couple of days. If it doesn’t get better I’ll soak my foot in a hot water with Epsom salt, I’m sure that’ll fix a broken foot.