The broken Toe in Toeniskoetter
My last week of hard training has come a slightly dramatic end.
Yesterday, teammate Dan Mennel and I took on our last hard ride of training before July 11th. To date the weather has been surprisingly cool this year which has allowed for very comfortable 6-8 hour weekend rides. Not this last week though. Almost in keeping with the potential heat we will encounter on the Death Ride the temperatures increased all week, reaching 100 degrees both Saturday and Sunday.
We headed over the coast for the majority of the ride and while it wasn’t cool, for the most part it was shaded. Starting in Los Gatos we headed over the Santa Cruz mountains to Soquel, turning left towards Corralitos. We climbed Eureka Canyon (where one of the big fires crossed last summer at this time) and made it back to Summit Road. Our second decent towards Soquel veered right to take us to Scotts Valley where we climbed Mt. Charlie in the heavy heat of the day. Dan and I split at the junction of Bear Creek Road and Skyline and I headed towards Hwy 9 and Saratoga. I arrived back in Los Gatos around 4pm, after 8:45 hrs of riding. I was spent.
It was good to spend a day training in the heat to remember how draining it is, but how essential aids like electrolytes and cold water really help.
On Sunday I took a short recovery ride to keep the lactic acid from building in my legs. I did not get out until almost 11am and I was definitely sore and tired from the day before. I cleaned my bike to prepare it for its final tune-up to Hyland Bikes and finally got out of the heat around 12:30pm.
In my tired haste, I miscalculated how far away I was from a door frame I was passing through and just like that I had put my bare foot into the corner of the frame. I felt a pop in my fourth toe and then waited for the pain to come, which it did. While I was hoping I hadn’t done anything too drastic, I continued on my way of getting myself ready to head to the bike shop and to our TurningWheels for Kids BBQ.
As soon as I put my foot into my sneakers I knew I had done something to my toe. I dropped my bike off at Hyland, ran an errand and then had to go home to change shoes because the pain was becoming worse. Lucky for me, the Turning Wheels crew is full of brilliant, experienced nurses and when I arrived at the team BBQ nurse Donna set to taking care of me.
From what I gather, if I had it x-rayed the resulting treatment would be the same – tape it to the next biggest toe, ice it, take ibuprofen, rest. If it is broken, it sounds like a 6-week time frame until it is without pain. I have no idea what this will mean when I put my cycling shoes on this Wednesday, but I’ll let you know. For now, it’s nurses orders – ice, rest, elevation.
Never a dull moment, but it’s difficult not to be inspired to keep going when surrounded by the incredible members of the TurningWheels for Kids board of directors (all volunteer!) and riders.
Fingers crossed that this won’t be too painful…
