Quad tendon - apparently important for pedaling
Not sure if you’re training effectively? Have some ambitious goals for the season but feel like your racing has plateaued? Cyclocross Magazine’s Kenton Berg has been stuck in this situation and decided to seek professional help. This is his sixth entry. Read his previous entry here.
WARNING: TRAINING WITH POWER MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH!
In an unanticipated series of events, I have discovered the downsides of training with power. Due to the intense nature of building the watts up over time and prepping for cyclocross Nationals, the brunt of training with power has been unleashed upon my quadriceps tendon, rupturing it with a force so great it made me shiver and, yes, shed a tear or two. This just in folks, training with power is dangerous and my season has come to a very unceremonious end due to extreme wattage overload.
Actually, in all seriousness, training with power is great and it is not, in any way, the reason for my untimely demise. Unfortunately, my season has come to an abrupt end and the rupturing of my quad tendon is the reason why. It has nothing at all to do with the bike, as far as I know, and more to do with an ill-advised ski run. It all just leaves me wondering “what the f%#$!” ‘Tis the season of issues for me.
I had hoped to be writing a pre-nationals article discussing how my coach (Kristi Berg, Cycle University) had brought me to a crescendo of fitness just as Nats were about to arrive. I had visions of writing about my barnstorming through the season (after my first setback) in the Single Speed division and making a play for the overall podium. I would divulge how my training with power had helped me get to that point; it was to be a comeback with a storybook ending! But one single moment in time has changed all that. One left turn while trying to take advantage of an early powder day on Crystal Mountain, my first ski day of the year, changed it all.
So, as I march off to surgery today I hope that all of you who have two good legs and will be out racing this weekend, and then in Bend, savor the moment and enjoy that it all works today because, as I’ve learned, in one moment it can all go away. Happy pedaling and race hard for me!
Thanks for reading.
