Some Days the Racing Is Rough

Last Saturday we left our idyllic camp and headed to the frontage road for the road race.

Ethan has recently started working for a landscaping company and eating, as well as not drinking enough, caught up with him at the road race. His race was 25 miles long and he had a headache (most likely from not being hydrated enough for the altitude they were racing at) even before he started. I was proud of him for working through it and racing anyhow. It had to be a bit of a pain - literally. His outcome was not a great one, but it does seemed to have provided one of those important life lessons. He saw what that lifestyle nets, now he is going to focus on eating better food, more fruit and drinking a whole lot more - just like he used to do.

Ellie's race went better than her brothers, but not as well as she usually does. She came in 6th place. Her main problem was knee pain. She has mentioned it in the last few weeks. It gets worse when she does hill climbs. At the end of this race it hurt so much that she was nearly in tears. I was concerned so we talked to her coach about it. He says that it is a common problem, especially for young ladies. It could be that she rides toed in (kind of like walking pigeon toed) or that with the near onset on puberty she may be developing hips can changing how she sits on the saddle. These issues can be taken care of, usually with ease. Sometimes it is as simple as changing the cleat position on her shoe or adding a special wedge to her cleat. If that does not work you can see a sports medicine specialist who can look at it from a medical/skeletal way. Luckily we have an Olympic Bike Fitter as one of our coaches. Another parent runs a sports medicine clinic so I was feeling like that would solve the problem. On Thursday we had Bruce adjust her cleats. That seemed to help. Then at practice she got new shoes. Pearl Izumi ( a top end company with lovely gear) donated shoes to junior cyclist and both of the kids got a pair. We transferred the cleats and she was looking like she was back to her old, fast self again.

After all of the awards were given out we went back to camp and resumed life as if we had not left. We broke out the fun cookies and Hanson's soda after a bit of romping around. Life was good again. Ethan was already planning how he would change his ways and regain the power he lost recently.