I'm throwing things wide, wide open because, for one, there isn't much for me to post about that relates to my own knees.
They continue to be great (knock on wood), especially considering I hit the dreaded milestone that begins with the number "6" this year (believe me, when you get there, you'll stare at yourself in the mirror for a while, saying, "Nah, can't be, really? Seriously? Am I?")
By the way, this winter, after I had a bad Zwift ride on my bike, I decided to do something a bit different for me: training. My idea of "training" has typically been: ride as hard as you can one day, then the next day, take it "easy" by riding not quite as hard but still pretty hard.
This led to the predictable results. I rode hard a lot, in an unstructured fashion, and sometimes was close to that overtrained, burned-out feeling.
I finally got mad at myself after a particularly miserable Zwift group ride that I should've done well on. And I said to myself: "Hey, you were disciplined enough to beat knee pain. You can be disciplined enough to keep to a training schedule that lets your muscles recover, then grow stronger."
My goal was to finish a flat-stage century with the "B" level riders on Zwift. This is no easy thing. They crank out from 2.8-3.2 w/kg for almost four hours. I kind of wondered if my chance to reach this goal had passed, considering I wasn't getting any younger, you know.
But training made a difference: I finished not one, not two, not three, but seven centuries with the Zwift B riders this winter. I'm not dumb enough to think I'm as good as them (sometimes I'd sneak a peek around the pack and most of them had lower heartrates than mine by 10, 15 beats per minute).
You can attain your goals, no matter your age! That includes vanquishing knee pain from your life.
So: How is everyone doing out there? What's the problem you have right now that you need help solving? This is a wonderful little community of problem solvers, I will say, and I've enjoyed browsing through the comment section recently.
Please drop a comment below; I would love to hear from everyone, cheers.
