Today is January 29th, 2025, and the first day of the Lunar calendar. 新年快乐, 蛇年.

My morning consisted of a 75 minute bike ride, going 17.5 miles with 1,500 feet of vertical gain. Most of my cardio work has been on the bike recently.

In the weeks after my 100 mile run in late November 2024, I experienced small pains in various tendons and ligaments around my ankles, knees, and hips. Most of these pains went away after a day or two. However, now, about one-and-a-half months later, my left glute area and left knee have been expressing lingering pain. It seems a bit more serious than the other pains I experienced.

Knowing I have the massive goal of running a 200 mile race in mid June this year, I feel uneasy about this knee pain. I will need to start increasing my running volume in the coming months in order to build a base level of endurance for the race. At the same time, I know that running through the pain will only make the inflammation worse. I am no stranger to knee/ankle/hip/foot/whatever-other-leg-part pain. The inflammation just needs to calm down. The difficult part is knowing how long it will take to reduce the inflammation. It could be weeks or months.

I recently purchased a road bike. I do not love the idea of biking for exercise; I much prefer running. But for now, I will learn to like biking. My joints seem to have no pain after a bike ride, so I will have to build my cardio fitness by spinning wheels and enduring tailbone pain.

The coming months will be an experiment in training. Will I be able to build endurance fitness for a multi-day foot race by training primarily on a bike? This will be an experiment without a control variable because I also need to maintain my run streak. Will running one mile everyday prevent the inflammation from going away? I’m betting that it will not, but maybe I will lose that gamble.

There are some steep mountain roads here in Santa Barbara, California. There is the famous Gibraltar Road climb. It is something of a right-of-passage for SB-area endurance athletes. Now seems like a good time to check that route off the list. Maybe I will even enjoy it. The paved roads and bike lanes will be my training grounds for the time being until I can get back on my running feet.

Let the uncontrolled experiment begin.

My music selection for today’s bike ride was a recent Umphrey’s McGee show in Jim Thorpe, PA. There was some nice jams featuring nice guitar interplay between Jake and Brendan. Show info below.

Music Selection: Umphrey’s McGee 1/24/2025 Jim Thorpe, PA. Thanks to taper: Nick Blockus. Link to Internet Archive page for audio tracks.