Saving My Knees: How I Proved My Doctors Wrong and Beat Chronic Knee Pain Read Free Page A

also learning group-cycling skills and etiquette. Organized riders travel in long “pacelines.” Only a few inches separate their wheels as they accelerate to speeds up to thirty miles an hour. The rider in front does the “pulling” by taking the brunt of the wind.
    Our outings were usually courteous and orderly until we reached the designated sprint zones. Then all hell broke loose. After a few rides you became familiar with the finish lines: the speed limit sign, the highway turnoff—whatever arbitrary marker worked best at that spot. As we got closer, the speed rose and the paceline splintered.
    The last hundred yards were the most intense. You had to dig down deep inside for that last bit of strength. Your legs pistoned crazily. Your thigh muscles burned. Your lungs felt raw; your heart slammed impossibly fast. For a brief moment, your heart rate monitor might even flash its maximum, confirming that you had reached your physical limit, that you couldn’t wring out one more watt of energy.
    I loved it. Distance cycling was my true athletic calling, at long last. It was an aerobic, endurance sport. Anatomically, I was suited for it, with naturally large thigh muscles and a long femur, the upper leg bone that acts as a big lever with each pedal stroke. Though I didn’t possess a lot of raw talent, my body often managed to push beyond its own fatigue. Near the end of a three-hour ride in the subtropical heat, I would get out in front of the tired pack and just hammer for miles.
    The group rides usually turned into punishing, extreme workouts. Still, an even more exquisite form of torture awaited me: time trials. These races pit individual riders against the clock. The best time trial series in South Florida was held out in west Palm Beach County, at a remote site where alligators slid in and out of nearby canals. For miles, all you could see were sugar cane fields, acres of swamp, and electrical transmission towers.
    To gain a racing edge, I would bring aerodynamic equipment to fight air resistance and trim precious seconds. My rear wheel was a smooth disk that made a hollow whooshing sound as I brought the bicycle up to speed. My time-trial helmet looked like a backward-flowing teardrop. Rubber booties covered my shoes, to smooth out irregularities that would disrupt air flow. I even shaved my legs (a savings of five seconds on a forty-kilometer course, one online site claimed!).
    Once a time trial begins, you find out why it’s known as cycling’s “race of truth.” There is no one to hide behind and no letting up until it’s over. One time, I wore my heart-rate monitor. My absolute maximum was 183 beats per minute; during the race it constantly flickered between 173 and 174. Gradually I learned how hard to push myself without burning out. It’s like an art, keeping the needle for your internal engine constantly on the edge of the red zone.
    I rode fast enough to place second among the men aged 35-44 in the 2005 time-trial series. My best time in the 15k (9.3 miles) was twenty-two minutes flat. That averages out to 25.4 miles an hour. Plenty of South Florida’s elite riders could top that. A few even smashed the twenty-minute barrier. But that never mattered to me because cycling meant so much more than winning a race or sprint. It was about embracing an active lifestyle that lifted me to a new level of feeling good.
    It was about stumbling with wobbly legs off the bicycle after a long ride, exhausted in a wonderful way. It was about waking up each morning in my early forties with the energy of a twenty-five-year-old. It was about feeling strong and confident, taking long strides across the newsroom or bounding up a flight of stairs. It was about being healthy and not getting sick—not even a head cold—for almost five years.
    My only health scare came in April of 2003. I began to experience irregular heartbeats while sitting quietly or trying to sleep at night. My heart would noticeably skip a beat, then