When I got back from Ironman Coeur d’Alene, I stepped on the scale and saw 139.6 pounds. This was 36 hours after the finish, and I thought I would have regained any dehydration by that point. Now, normally, I wouldn’t have been too concerned about this, but I was facing my next oral surgery soon, which would be followed by an extended period of dietary restrictions. So I became a binge eater overnight.
Eight days later, on the morning of the surgery, I was back up to 146. Then, NPO for he next eight hours, 4 hours of anesthesia, a flood of IV fluids, and some really rocking pain in the jaw put kind of a damper on my new found obesity.
This time, Dr. La Rosa opened up my lower gums again, and removed the titanium cage and securing screws. Next, he took some bone from the “bone bank” and did a little allograft in some of the areas which had taken the biggest hit in my accident. He put in about 8 implants, or thin little screws, which would later serve as the base for me new artificial teeth. I won’t be getting those for at least 4-6 months, and even then it may be another 6 months after that before I get them permanently secured in. A long way to go, still, I guess.
During the past 4 days, I have had to shut down all my training, on orders from Dr. La Rosa, who think any significant activity will generate catecholamines which will retard the necessary healing process. I’m very concerned about getting the healing right, for several reasons. First, those screws have to get really secure into the still developing bone along the alveolar ridge of of my mandible. I don’t want to have to go thru any more surgeries to replace ones which don’t take hold. Second, the mouth is not really sterile, of course, and so infection in the gum tissue is a real concern. At my age, it just takes longer to heal, so I need close to a week to be sure that things are closing up the way they’re supposed to.
That’s why I timed this surgery for just after the Ironman, as I knew I would be in “downtime” training wise anyway. In fact, I’ve got 3 or 4 dental procedures lined up this month, all to work on those lower teeth which were so messed up. The Tuesday I got back, I had a root canal to my remaining bicuspid tooth, on the left side. Apparently, since it was right next to the teeth which were knocked out and the bone which was avulsed, that tooth had started to “die”, meaning the nerve was no longer working well. I could feel electrical tingles when stimulated, but not cold. So Dr. West, a very enthusiastic and hyperactive endodontist routed out the nerve, filled the space with gutta percha, and covered it up. I’ve had fillings which took longer and hurt more.
In two more weeks, I’ll have the first round of work to get on 3 of my 5 remaining lower teeth. So by the middle of August, I should finally be able to eat with some semblance of normality. As it is, I had just started getting back to eating nuts in the past week or two, on of the things I had really missed. Mushy food and smoothies is just not cutting it anymore.
Shutting down the training is really, really hard for me. This morning, Cheryl and I went out to swim at Horseshoe Lake, like we usually do Sundays in the summer. About 6 other triathletes from SST were also there, and it was all I could do to keep from jumping in. I knew I had to avoid getting all that yucky lake water onto my still healing gums. But the 71F water, the gentle sun and windless surface were all so inviting. And swimming is my biggest challenge. I am NOT going to give up on getting some speed and endurance back. For the next six weeks, I’m going to be building myself back up to 75 minute swims three days a week, while adding in some “faster” efforts 2-3 days a week.
Without the exercise, my brain just goes into some kind of hibernation mode, characterized by a trend towards sloth and depression. So for the past 4 days, I’ve been spending a lot of time watching the Tour de France on TV. Usually, the gentle rhythms of the rolling tires along the idyllic French country roads is soothing, while providing sufficient competitive entertainment to give me a little testosterone boost.
This year, though, the first 9 days have seen a daily diet of crashes, which many excellent highly placed riders getting knocked out (literally), banged up, and just generally tortured by what seems to be an overcrowded field. The piece de resistance happened this morning, when a TV car deliberately (with some reason, but no real justification) ran into the leading group of five riders, sending one sliding across the tarmac and the other flipped over into a barb-wire fence. Both were able to finish, but knocked out of contention. Seeing that was the last straw for me. It HURTS to fall off a bike, and I hate to go down. I can’t imagine what it must be like for those guys who have gone into ditches, down precipices, been hit by motorcycles and cars and pedestrians, breaking their noses, collar bones, and hips, getting knocked out and sent home. It’s not entertaining to me any more.
Nonetheless, here’s where we are in the Tour today. The list of exited contenders is longer than the list of those remaining: (highest previous finish) Wiggins (4), Vinokourov (3), Van den Brueck (5), Brajkovic, Horner. Those still remaining who have been knocked out of contention by crashes include Leipheimer (3), Van de Velde (4), Gesink (6), Kreuziger (8), Hesjedal (7). Previous stage winners/Yellow Jersey wearers who are gone include Zabrieski and Boonen.
Really, there are only 4 or 5 guys left who have any chance to win. Alberto Contador, who has won 3 tours, Cadel Evans, Ivan Basso, and Andy Schleck (all previous runners-up). At this point, I’m going to assume if you’re still reading that you have some knowledge about these guys and the strategies of the race, and give my prediction of how this will play out over the next week or two.
Andy Schleck has the best chance to win. His team, Leopard-Trek, is both the strongest and the deepest. Andy is 11 seconds behind Evans, and 1:28 ahead of Contador. His team is capable of putting on a strong, sustained charge in the early to mid portion of the next two mountain top finishes, which will cause the BMC (Evans) and Saxo-Bank (Contador) riders to drop off in the lower portions of the final climb of each day. He can hope to start the final climbs still with two riders of equal ability beside him, his brother Frank, and Jacob Fulgsang. Both of them are now at the same time, more or less, as Andy and Cadel Evans. So if either of Schleck’s teammates starts an attack up the road, Evans and Contador must immediately follow, allowing Andy to bring up the rear in the slipstream. Enough of these attacks will eventually tire out Evans, Basso, and Contador enough so that Andy Schleck can then use his climbing skills to ride away from Evans near the top, and so that Contador can not get around Andy.
Schleck needs about 30-40 seconds over both Evans and Contador going into the final day’s time trial, as he’s slower than both. He should be able to easily keep that margin over Contador, and gain more than that on Evans, over the course of the four remaining uphill finishes.
I just wish we had a few more guys in the mix, to give some more flavor to the final stages. At this point, the Tour is as much a race of attrition as it is of speed.