Poor Memory.

I had been starting to worry a lot lately that the Remicade treatments were starting to fail. I have been getting them every 8 weeks for the last two years or so. At about 6 weeks into each of my last two treatments, I would start to get belly pain and that led me to believe that the Remicade had worn off.

I knew that Aleve would mess me up if I took it for pain, but I did not realize, or I had forgotten that Ibuprofen was an NSAID too. During training for the Pan Ohio, when I would do intense training and would get muscle pain from the workout I would occasionally take Ibuprofen. Then in August, I pulled a muscle in my back and took more Ibuprofen. A few weeks after that I hurt it again, this time bad enough to go to the ER. After the cortisone shot, the doctor mentioned to be careful and not take the Ibuprofen too long because he took it for a knee issue and if he took it for more than a few days, he would get stomach pain.

It was then, that I realized that I shouldn't be taking it at all. I went online and looked it up and basically found that the only OTC a person with Crohn's should take is Tylenol (Acetaminophen). Since I stopped taking the Ibuprofen, I have had at least 8 weeks with none of that type of belly pain, I have had some pain due to gas issues, but that is a different type of pain and I am at least able to differentiate between the two. I have had another Remicade treatment, and no symptoms of it wearing off. I had a Colonoscopy in which the biopsies showed inactive Crohn's and a CT scan that the doctor said showed little difference from one taken two years ago. I didn't ask, and may I should have, if it meant actual remission, but that is how I am taking it.

I still my issues with narrowing to deal with, but they seem under control lately. While I still have "off" days, I haven't felt this good overall in a long time.

Pan Ohio Hope Ride day 4

Day four started out like most of the others, up really early for breakfast, pumping up tires, dropping off luggage and heading out. There really isn't too much to say about most of the ride. It was mostly trail riding today.

Had a couple water stops along the way, and things didn't really get familiar till we got to Morrow, where lunch was held. It was awesome. As we arrived, the volunteers had several grills going. They had all sorts of burgers. Turkey, black bean, regular and a couple other types. I had a turkey burger and it was great. I think I also had some fruit and a banana, but I don't remember.

The official route had us getting off the trail a little south of Morrow, at a place called Foster. Instead, Matt, Adam, Ricky, Jennifer, and I all chose the flatter option of taking the trail all the way to Mariemont and then rejoining the official route again at the water stop in Mariemont. That water stop was sponsored by CR Architecture. There was a group of riders from that firm, I want to say 8-10 guys, they rode with us sometimes on our Tuesday training rides and I met some of them at one of the networking events. A whole group of strong riders, they managed to be towards the front of the pack all 4 days. We still had to climb that beast of a hill on Erie, but we managed to avoid some others in the Kenwood area.

I had not been resetting my trip meter on my bike every morning like I normally do. We passed the 300 mile mark just a couple miles before Morrow. That was an awesome feeling too. somewhere after the last water stop, I don't know where, but my trip meter reset itself! I don't know if I had an elbow on the button when I got down on the aero bars, or if I set my helmet on it at a bathroom stop. I do know from another rider in our group that the 4 day total was actually 345 miles, not 328.

It was a great feeling, leaving that water stop and knowing that we were almost home. I rolled into Eden Park right as the first police escort was about to leave. Two hours before I expected to be there and 1 hour ahead of my goal. I never imagined I would make it that far that fast. I even got there before the CR team! I wasn't expecting my parents to be at the finish line until 2pm so I decided to wait for the next departure at 2:30. I'm glad I did, not only so my parents could see me finish, but I was among the first ten riders in that group. It is hard to describe the emotions, when you are riding in a pack of 200 others and you are right behind 6 police motorcycles who are stopping traffic as you go through the city.

It was great having family and friends at the finish line. It was a great experience and maybe one I'll be repeating next year or sometime in the future.

Pan Ohio Hope Ride day 3

Compared to the previous two days today was largely uneventful. It was the shortest of all four days, and there were no major hills to conquer. I got lucky in that aspect, because my left knee was extremely sore from the day before. I had to get smarter about how I was riding my bike and not just power through the gears but work my way up to speed, pedaling as fast as I could in each gear before advancing to the next. Pedaling fast did not bother my knee but putting pressure on it did. I had to put forth a conscious effort to unclip my left leg when I came to a stop, so that I could then start pedaling with my right when starting back up.

Just like the other 2 days we got up  extremely early so we can get our luggage and bicycles and everything sorted out before breakfast.

Breakfast was good today, but not as good as yesterday. After breakfast we got on our bikes and had a 1 mile ride just to get to the start line. We started to line up, but Matt was a little impatient so we went ahead and left about 7:15 am. A half hour before the police escort and most of the group. There were a few other writers also went out before us. The drawback was that we had to wait of course for stop lights and obey all the traffic signs instead of just breezing right through. The bonus was that we got to the water stops and lunch before the rest of the herd.

Before lunch we had some basic water stops, one downtown at the Ohio State House, it was just water and Gatorade only no food. The next water stop was only 10 miles later. That water stop only had protein bars, no fruit.

Lunch today was only 32 miles into the course, and it was much better than yesterday. It was still sandwiches but they were much better than Subway. We also had pasta and salads.

I can't count the number of bananas that I had eaten over the previous  two days. But today I didn't manage to get a single one. The only stop I saw that had bananas was the very last one and I wasn't feeling up to eating.

Even though the center of Ohio  is largely flat and we were traveling on back country roads We had to deal with headwinds ALL DAY LONG!! Anyone who has ever ridden a bike into the wind knows that you have to pedal harder just to maintain speed. 

After lunch it was a 23 mile ride through flat country farm land with the wind in our faces the entire time. Matt was in such a rush that he left us at lunch and took off on his own. Alicia and Jennifer both got rides in SAG vehicles so it was just Ricky and I for this stretch.  Thankfully Ricky is a much better rider than I am, and I was able to draft behind him most of the way. Somewhere along the way we picked up another rider who is having a tough time of it going solo, so he got in a draft position behind me. We managed to get in behind another pair of riders in draft behind them for a couple of miles until we lost them on a turn (they either slowed down or stopped). Once we got going again another pair caught up with us and began to draft. Ricky got low on his handlebars to help with a headwind and just started grinding it out. Soon the whole pack was going along at 19 miles an hour into the wind! We managed to keep that up for a few miles but it's a tough thing to do at that pace going into the wind. We still managed to push a pretty fast pace for the next few miles, and then I started to fall behind.

Eventually we made it to the next water stop, Jennifer rejoined us and as we were about to leave Michelle showed up. We hadn't seen her all day. We left breakfast before she showed up, she didn't respond to texts so we didn't even know if she was riding. We stuck around a while longer so she could take a break and then join us on the rest of the trip. Only 20 miles to go at that point.

I can't really say that anything eventful happened over the next 13 miles. I would fall behind and then manage to catch back up on a downhill. But eventually we made it to the last water stop, and only 7 more miles to go. The last 7 miles to Wittenberg University were nice, I managed to keep up and the 4 of us rolled in together sometime around 3pm.

Pan Ohio Hope Ride day 2

You never know your limits until you really push yourself.

Today's ride was 100 miles. We got up at 5 am, Dropped off for luggage to picked up our bikes. Breakfast was at 5:45 and was worlds better than yesterday. We had actual scrambled eggs instead of powdered eggs, bacon, cereal and lots of other goodies that we didn't have yesterday.
We got out on the road at 6:20 am when we were really cruising for the first 20 miles, which was the first water stop. We made it there by 7:30 and only 10 other riders had been there before us.
At about mile 28 a monstrous series of hills of course the first one had to be the worst. Extremely steep, it would put most of the climbs in Cincinnati to shame. I made it about halfway up before I had to dismount and walk the rest of the way up.
Water stops weren't much different from yesterday,  although there were more and they were closer together today. I was can't even count the number of bananas that I've eaten over the past two days.
We made it to the lunch stop by 10:30 or so. Lunch was at mile 46 and was pretty lame. Just Subway sandwiches today.
I was already feeling pretty worn out by this time, but continued to push on.i don't really remember much about the timing of the water stops over the next 50 miles, but there were lots more hills and things finally started to flatten out around mile 85. 
I was wondering just how much longer i could continue and so was the person I was riding with. Fortunately for me, i had found my breaking point just 5 days earlier.  When I rode by myself on Monday, I made it 50 miles before my legs had started cramping up. I made it another 25 miles cramping most of the time until i was just a few miles from home and had a huge hill to go before I called for a ride home. That ride gave me serious doubts about being able to complete the Pan Ohio, but it also gave me tremendous insight into my capabilities and limits.
At every water stop I ate something and knew that because I hadn't started cramping that I could continue and definitely couldn't give up.
About a mile and a half after the last water stop,  I turned to look behind me to see where my two riding partners were and I happened to run over a huge rock, causing my rear tire to go flat.  I changed my tube on the side of the road and we were back on our way. We made it another 5 miles or so and were almost to the finish when i spotted a rider off on the side of the road. We asked him if he was ok and found out that he had gotten dizzy and crashed. His biggest mistake was that he wasn't drinking enough and he only had one water bottle with him. We flagged down a couple more riders and one went forward to try and find one of the support vehicles to call for help. Fortunately we had passed a fire station just a half mile back and the other person went back there to try and get help. They sent out an ambulance which met us at the next intersection. We then went on to the finish line ourselves and rolled in a little after 5pm. 
I am happy to report that I saw the guy who crashed a little while later walking in to the registration area to check in. 

Pan Ohio Hope Ride day 1.

Today was a great day. The ride started at 7:30 am with a police escort through Cleveland. The first 20 miles were fairly flat and some was down hill. I filled my bottles with Gatorade instead of just water. At the first water stop (20 mi) there were plenty of power bars, clif bars and food available. I made sure to eat a banana and some frozen grapes even though I wasn't hungry.
Lunch was at the 40 mile marker. Grilled chicken strips, penne and Gatorade. It wasn't much, but I was still feeling full at that point.
I caught up with two other Cincinnati riders at lunch and rode the rest of the way. Jason had cancer in his left leg and they actually had to remove his left quadricep muscle. So he is doing this whole ride with only one good leg. His brother Joe is riding with him and pacing him and being a windbreak so that Jason can draft behind him in windy conditions. Another water stop, more food. At about mile 58 were riding through farm country. While it may be pretty, the smell is another matter. Dairy farms and pig farms reek especially bad in 90° weather. While riding along we could actually see a wall of water crossing the field before it hit us. It was cold and it was wonderful. We rode through some moderately heavy rains and lighter stuff for probably the next 6 or so miles. In some ways it felt like being a kid again, riding through the rain. 

We made it to the last water stop sometime around 2:30 and only had 7 more miles to go. We had dried out for the most part. All except our socks.

I don't know what time we actually made it to our destination at The College of Wooster, but I got all checked in and just in time too. While i was getting settled in my room another torrential downpour came through.  My dorm room isn't all that, but I really feel for the people who chose to camp out in tents. One of them, another guy named Joe pitched his tent and an hour later it was flooded. He is going to be sleeping on the floor of someone's room tonight. At least he had some sort of pad to go under his sleeping bag. I wouldn't want to be sleeping on a concrete floor with a 100 mile ride tomorrow.

Dinner tonight was actually better than last night. Yay for carbo loading. Going to bed early tonight so I can be up at 5am.  Rolling out of here at 6:30 so we can hopefully avoid some of the heat tomorrow.

The Big Ride.

Well, tomorrow is the start of the Pan Ohio Hope Ride. I cant get any more ready than this. I am extremely nervous about being able to finish, but others keep reassuring me.

On Monday, I rode 75 miles. 75 tough miles. They weren't tough because they were hilly, they were tough because of my Crohn's.  After 50 miles I was cramping up and had to really slow down my pace. Then I called a friend to pick me up 3 miles or so from home because I couldn't make it back up the hill.  I had to deal with leg cramps for another 4 hours after the ride. If I can barely make it 75 how am I supposed to make it 100?

Tomorrow should theoretically go better because there is a support system in place with food and water stops every 20 miles. I'm going to try a few other things in the nutrition area that hopefully turn out better.

Granted this is no race, and winning is the money that I have already raised for ACS, that fear of failure still haunts me. 

Erlanger to Milford and back. 57.88 miles.

Erlanger to Milford and back.  

Today I had planned to push myself on a long distance ride. I really liked the route that we had taken on Tuesday. I left the house early enough, and rode the 8 easy miles along Dixie highway down into Covington and crossed the river. I then followed our Tuesday route from Downtown to the Milford Trail-head and back. I crossed into Newport and stopped by Mom's shop for a water refill/break. I was exhausted and still had one major hill to climb out of Covington going up Dixie again. I made it about halfway up before I had to get off and walk the rest of the way. I stopped at a Subway for lunch and forgot to restart my watch when I was done for the remaining few miles home.