I woke up knowing I was in trouble. It didn’t take long to identify the location of the pain. The knee, level 8 or 9, throbbing, and I can’t move it—yeah, something bad happened. Shoot, just twenty-four hours earlier I was going on about how I found the energy, the will to keep showing up on my journey (the left turn), and I was going to ride with the crew Sunday. I had just thrown down a banger effort on the new SB140, it was all looking so good. But sitting there in bed it was pretty damn clear at this point I couldn’t walk. Sunday wasn’t happening.

This injury isn’t new to me. Patellar tendinitis—inflammation of the tendon connecting kneecap to tibia. Same injury I had in 2023, but opposite knee, same mechanism: prolonged hyperflexion at the desk, weight loaded wrong through the joint.

Yes, after all those miles, all those climbs, races, watts pushed through my legs since July, I hurt myself at the desk. Not that tricky rocky descent at Emma, not that moonscape technical at Reveille Peak, not any of that, just sitting there in my chair typing. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

The fix? The good news is this isn’t super serious, nor super prolonged. As long as I rest and heal. Standard protocol: rest, NSAIDs, stay off the bike minimum two weeks. The tendon needs time to calm down before any load goes back through it. So it’s rest, ice, that kind of thing.

swollen knee right side bigger than left, bad news

I’m not sure about you, but I believe in fate, and god, or both at once. It’s like when your chain breaks on a ride and you walk home. Maybe that walk was needed because you were going to eat shit on some technical feature. Or when you’re unloading your bike at the trailhead and you realize you forgot your helmet—ride done before it’s begun. Maybe you were going to get mauled by a mountain lion that day. I’ve always believed in divine intervention here—bad day, maybe disastrous day averted. Shrug it off, get a coffee or beer, and reset. I’ll ride tomorrow. You know what I mean? Been there?

That’s what this is—I’m sure of it.

I got some time to think. Some good old couch time watching the Arizona Trail Race single speeder accounts (holy shit those folks) and Bentonville trails (trip coming up), and some good hot tub time, and so on. But all this thinking time helped something more happen actually.

I was moping around being a baby (as one does when they can barely walk and can’t ride), bitching and moaning about things. Crying to my wife that I don’t want to slide backwards, the journey can’t be over, I wanted to give up writing, cause who cares, and so on. It got dark. It’s a potential negative spiral—you can’t ride so you get sad, you’re sad so you don’t ride, and so on. It piles on. It’s how people give up things. Danger zone.

It was at this moment my wife stepped in—simple words, as she does. She knew just how to pinpoint the issue, and how to snap me out. I’m not sure of the exact words—that’s the effect she has, so cutting, so clear, that it’s only my interpretation of the words that I remember, how that shit landed.

This is your journey—just for you.

I suspect my face changed. Instantly x or y didn’t matter. I wasn’t glum about my blog readership or my weekly wattage numbers being zero or any of it. It’s amazing how loving that sentence is, how supportive. How perfectly crafted and timed to fix my broken mental shit. Damn I’m lucky, she’s such a gem.

The spiral reversed. It is just for me. I have a journey to complete. Beyond this setback. This isn’t about other things I can’t control or anything else that I was moping about. I need to fix it, stay in it, make it right. The way to ruin this is to stop moving—keep pedaling, physically and mentally forward. The way to avoid the danger zone is to not stop in it—keep going. Fuck this setback. Focus inward, remember why I’m doing this. Never give up.

I’d love to tell you god intervened, my knee miraculously healed that night, and I entered the Tour Divide, but that’s not what happened. What did happen is I reset. My wife reminded me to ride for me, get back to Telluride. Don’t sweat the race results, or weekly wattages too much. Now I have a fire in my belly. This injury could have been much worse, and I wasn’t mauled by a mountain lion. Jacking my knee is like forgetting my helmet at the trailhead—I needed this reset, it was for a reason.

Now if you don’t mind, I have 22 more hours of Colorado Trail Race and Tour Divide videos to watch.