After reaching an epic low on Black Friday a few years ago, this year I find myself back in Atlanta visiting my sister and revisiting some old haunts along with everything that has happened the past year. Let's catch up. I was in the best cycling shape—and lowest weight—I'd been in over a decade going into 2022. That was short-lived. Because, before I was even halfway through January, a freak accident set me on a course that would impact the next two years. In almost 4 decades of cycling, I'd only had 2 serious crashes. Each of those occurred within months of each other in 2022. In addition to the broken ribs and fractured acetabulum I sustained in my initial spill, the orthopedist identified the need for my left shoulder to be replaced. I decided to go forward with the shoulder surgery, but not until the end of the cycling season.
Going in for a new shoulder.
The surgery happened on Halloween 2022. All medical professionals made it clear it would be a difficult recovery. But to me this was about riding for another 10 or 15 years. I wanted the thing on the other side more than any temporary inconvenience or pain. Whatever work needed to happen, I embraced.
Post surgery, it's now 2023.
4 Months after—Setback Number OneI trained to do Moab Skinny Tire Festival with my friend, "Spiz", in March. He was on his own Wayback, and this was the first time he was taking on a ride of this magnitude. My focus was making sure he could get through everything. I had the personal goal of coming back from the crashes and surgery to take on the distances and elevations, but it was a ride with which I was very familiar. I was happy to be back on the bike, but not worried about my ability to do the ride each day.
There was a complication, though, of the addition of a broken collarbone and the plate that it had
required. My doctor had assured me that I could "leave it in". But it took just a few days of riding longer distances for it to be clear that wouldn't be the case. Spiz freaked out when he saw the plate sticking up from my shoulder. I started to get this crazy bruising and, the more I rode, the bigger the bruise became. I went back to my orthopedist who told me "I think it'll be fine." It didn't feel fine, and it didn't look fine. It was creepy. I scheduled an appointment for him to remove the plate. 6 Months after—Setback Number Two Plot twist. My doctor acquiesced on removing the plate, but when I went back for my check up for THAT surgery, Donna and I could immediately see on the x-ray, before the doctor even came back into the room, that there was a screw still in there.
Again, he encouraged me to leave it in/live with it. After everything, I hated knowing it was there. And my physical therapists were scaring the shit out of me, "we don't want the liability of that screw moving down in your joint." And they said I shouldn't ride either. I can now say I'm happily devoid of all extra hardware, but the time it took to resolve both issues pushed my physical therapy back by several weeks, if not months, impacted my cycling, and messed with my head the entire rest of the year. While it wasn't all bad. It wasn't that good either.
8 Months after — Rolling with it
I was not where I wanted to be when I boarded the plane back to Italy—this time to Veneto— in July. I didn't get all of my climbing training in ahead of time so, while I was able to complete everything, and it was a truly amazing experience, I was nowhere near where I wanted to be performance-wise. Still, it was Italy! There was wine. Epic landscapes. It was all wonderful.
10 Months after—still rolling In August, I got myself back to SBT. But the reality was:- I'd ridden less gravel than I did going into the race the year before- I'd trained less overall- I was not in as good of shape - I hadn't improved my gravel bike skills
When the sign came up mid-race with the option to veer off to a shorter course, I took it.
Cycling aside, in 2023 I had also taken on more fractional CMO projects than I should have, and we had the joyful distraction of Spencer and Henry's wedding in September. As life goes, a lot of things happened that impacted my ability to get back on the path I had started down when I first Reclaimed My Story, Rewired my Brain, and Rebuilt my Body, two years ago. After spending much of 2022 differently than I had planned, I then spent way more of 2023 in recovery than I had ever imagined would be necessary. I recognize how far I've come in the past 4 years. However, I was not who I set out to be this year. I could let it take me down. Backwards. And, while for the most part, I've held steady, a little bit of that was probably going on, actually. Then I remembered...
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