March | 2015 | Steve Tilford

Okay. One cool thing about this website is that I can usually get a fairly accurate answer about just about anything I need to know about.

I’ve got one of those questions. For a long time now, probably close to 10 years, I’ve had this lack of energy, sore leg, weird feeling during March, sometimes all the way up to the end of May. It seems to always be when I’m in Kansas, but a few years ago, when I went out to Redland’s in California, I was horrible.

I am pretty sure it is mainly allergies. I think when tree allergies start in early spring, here in Kansas, I start feeling weird and then it just stays for a long time.

The one symptom that I can’t explain, and this is the main issue I have athletically, is that when it happens, my tendons seems to tighten up. Like all my tendons.

It’s sort of hard to explain, but it is like my tendons are like guitar strings and that my muscles are doing isometric exercises trying to stretch them out. I have a built it in internal resistance, thus am doing a ton of work and not going forward very fast.

I really noticed this yesterday. It is the worst it has been so far. I rode over to Lawrence on the River Road, gravel, and I was struggling the whole way. It was spitting down rain and the gravel wasn’t too bad, but I was pretty much done by the time I got to Lawrence, which is 35 miles.

How can I be done at 35 miles when I’ve ridden nearly 3000 miles for the season and thought I was pretty recovered from being sick a couple weeks ago? My right leg was nearly cramping. I hobbled home, in a complete downpour, at 45 degrees, on the gravel. It wasn’t as bad as I thought, but I was completely blown.

There must be some explanation for the phenomenon. It has happened so often that I have sort of surrendered to the fact. The last couple years I’ve avoided it by not being around Kansas in the spring, when the allergies kick in, plus when they are burning the whole state, which obviously doesn’t thrill me much. I don’t take any allergy medicine, it never seems to make a difference.

So, I’m wondering if anyone else has had this problem, and if so, have they figured out a solution for it? My solution has been to just wait it out. Sometimes it takes a few weeks, sometimes more than a couple months. I don’t really feel like I have that long to wait it out this year. I missed all the early season training races around here, so I’m already behind the curve.

Dennis got here a couple days ago, trying to escape some of the Northern Wisconsin winter, and had planned to get a jump on miles. He rode out the bike path on his bike path and was making a U-turn, when his front tire folded under, or something like that. Anyway, he fell to the inside, going like no speed, and hit his elbow on the pavement.

He didn’t have any pain and had been icing it a ton, but it kept swelling like crazy. So yesterday, he went by minor-med and got an x-ray. It is shattered, like broken into little tiny bits.

So, he needs surgery to repair it, which is going to happen tomorrow, in Lawrence. I was pretty surprised how smashed it was, considering, still now, he says it doesn’t hurt at all and he pretty much has full movement.

What bad luck. I’m sticking with the injury was because he was going so slow. It’s the angle you hit the ground, not the speed you are going forward. I know a few guys that have broken their elbows riding and all of them have been going very slowly, less than 5 mph. I think that is the reason I broke my hip last year. Faster means less of an impact angle.

I went by and got some spark plugs, oil etc. to “tune-up” Dennis’ van. There really isn’t much to do with a car tuning it nowadays. The computer does that, so changing the plugs is just about it.

I changed the plugs in the “new” AWD van I got in California. I’d already put in a new transmission. The plugs were horrible, like maybe the original plugs. 15 years old. The gaps were all over .10, when the called for gap is .050. I know the computer will compensate for that, but that is crazy.

It was raining yesterday at the end of my mind. I was riding gravel, again, to Lawrence and figured it was just my destiny to be wet and cold again. Anyway, after, I was driving around to get plugs and oil last night and the windshield wipers on the InSight were pitiful. The driver’s side especially. I had changed the wipers last fall.

So, I looked at them and they were toast. I‘ve been changing wiper blades a ton recently. I don’t remember them wearing out so fast historically. It doesn’t seem to matter what brand or how much I spend on wiper blades, they seem to shred way too fast. I’m wondering if they are making them to wear out now? I have no other explanation.

I pretty much fix everything that breaks myself. I very rarely hire anyone to do anything for me. I do this because, one, I can, and two, I nearly always can do it better than whoever I find to fix it, and three, of course, it is just a fraction of the cost of paying someone else.

There isn’t much you can’t fix, but sometimes it is just easier, and sometimes cheaper to replace it. I hate it. Seems like such a waste. But, that is our society now. I can’t see it ever changing back.