Through The Brief Depths

Another update from my good friend and athlete Bryan Larsen.  It's been a year of challenges.  But, he embodies the philosophy of Semper Porro.

Through The Brief Depths

Simply put, it’s been a rough year. I hope to finally be able to talk about it. To talk about me breaking down. To talk about me lying in bed unable to move in the most pain I’ve ever experienced. To talk about nearly coming to terms with quitting and walking away forever.

It’s been a rough year. My last post discussed the horrors of Mexico: a great yet horrific story. I wrote that post with the intention to explain the amount of suffering that cyclist can encounter. As it turns out, Mexico was an appetizer for the main course that has been this season. I sampled the pain and suffering, discussing the many complexities of my own mindset while trying to swallow my own sadness.

I took a week off after mexico, I had lost nearly 10lbs while there, sick and weak. I rested as best I could, still relatively positive and looking forward to the next events: Chico Stage Race, Redlands Classic, and Sea Otter. I started to actually come back and feel what I suspected was the rewards of all my base training this off-season. I was excited and eager to race Chico. This year’s event consisted of an opening circuit race on an auto racing track, which I placed a respectable 5th or 6th. Beyond the result, the positive news was that I felt strong and was never under pressure. The next day, a long road race with multiple times over a dirt section. Eager to show my experience from the previous year’s European Classics, I hit the front very early on. The wind was ripping hard from the north - a 10 mile direct crosswind section right from the start sent me right back to the Netherlands. The pack was schredding as we powered down the straight and exposed road. I was at the front point of the pack, 3 or 4 wheels back in an echelon when the rider two places in front of me crossed wheels and crashed in front of me. I hit him hard.

I found myself laying on the ground. My head throbbing. Surely I had a concussion. I got up and attempted to find my bike. It was broken. No spares meant my race was done. Then my attention turned to myself. If I wanted to help out the team again, I needed to get healthy first. I took another week off the bike completely.

I’ve heard the stories of Redlands Bicycle Classic. I’ve heard how tough it can be. I’ve heard how strong you need to be just to finish. I sat there telling myself it’s going to be tough enough to finish if you’re strong and healthy. Coming off a concussion and residual effects of Mexico still haunting me, I knew what I was signing myself up for. 5 stages later. I finished Lantern Rouge. Dead. Freaking. Last.

I was very focused before Sea Otter. Desperate for a good performance.

The good news was those days of suffering on the bike did help me feel revitalized for racing once again and we took off for Sea Otter. Luck was against me again though.  In short, my brake cabled slipped or broke on the descent mid corner causing me to hit a parked police car. I sat there on the ground in disbelief. I’ve had nightmares of my brakes going out when I needed them most. It would wake me up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night. The season was shaping up into a living nightmare. Fortunately, my injuries were not much more than a couple scrapes and bruises. They forced me to take it easy for a couple days but it could have been MUCH worse. In fact, the police car looked far worse than I did.

I still sat there, questioning my perseverance and rationalizing my fitness and performances with the rocky quote rattling in my head, “It’s not about how hard you can hit, it’s about how hard you can GET hit. How much you can take and keep moving forward”. Onward and upward I told myself...

“You suck” I told myself following my performance at Winston-Salem Classic. “I don’t care what Rocky says, you downright suck.” I returned home and didn’t touch my bike for another couple days. After a LONG conversation with my coach, Jordan Itaya, he managed to screw my head back on relatively straight. I grabbed  my bike and left for a ride. One way I looked at it was that, while I’ve had the worst season imaginable from crashes and luck, I simultaneously felt invincible. After all, nothing had truly hurt me. Sure, cumulatively I had to take a few weeks off the bike but maybe that was a blessing in disguise so I didn’t burn out too early. Heck, I’d crashed multiple times, been chewed up at Redlands, spat out (literally) while in Mexico, but I was still riding! “Shit man, I’m not 100% but I’m still riding. That’s got to count for something,” I told myself as I rolled out for my ride…

That turned out to be a very short ride. 1 minute and 30 seconds, in fact. It only took 1.5 minutes before I found myself flying over the windshield of a car. I laid in the intersection. My neck tightening and my hip bruising. I wasn’t angry. I was just sad. Really sad. I looked to my $12K bicycle, now in pieces. “That’s it,” convinced myself and took off my helmet. I spoke with the police and went to Urgent Care thanks to my girlfriend, Ashley, whose house I had started my ride from just around the corner from the curb where I now sat, still in disbelief.

Car punched me in the face.

4 days later, I woke up to my neck completely seized up. I couldn’t move. I laid there trying to self-console myself while also kissing the rest of the season, and possibly cycling as a whole, goodbye. I had muscle spasms from the whiplash that were more painful than anything I had ever experienced. The throbbing began underneath my skull and spread down between my shoulder blades. Your neck is THE foundation to everything I soon found out. My neck and back pain was so debilitating that just picking up a book made me depressingly lethargic. I didn’t touch my bike for weeks.  Once again.

After 20 hours of PT over a few weeks, I felt significantly like my old self - excited by this positive turn to simply not be in agony 24-7. That didn't last long thouh, the neck re-locked up, sending me back-stepping to weeks before. I was in the same place. Stuck on my bed. Unable to move freely.

I still brought myself to PT 3 times a week. Not thinking about racing anymore. Just thinking about how nice it’d be to not be fatigued, lethargic, and in pain. I sat on the sidelines at Dana Point Grand Prix. I watched my BMW teammates race on the circuit that I had walked to. It was great to watch them and offer my support while cheering (and heckling) each lap. But personally, it crushed me. It crushed me watching them ride, thinking I might not be racing for a very very long time.

We won’t go into specifics (this blog is far too long already!) but over the course of the next 2 months, I steadily returned to my old self. I was able to ride on the tops of the bars with my stem raised and my bars facing upwards so I didn’t have to bend over as much or strain my shoulder blades or neck. The fact that my stem was not slammed as low as possible disgusted me.

I started to feel okay for riding again, some 2 months later. So what do I do though? I can’t bend over into the drops. I can’t go hard. So Instead, I just rode. I rode for as much as I could. On the tops of the bars, just rolling around at 10-15mph for 4-8hours. Honestly, I still wasn’t thinking about racing. But it sure as hell was nice just being back to riding. It felt great to feel the wind in my hair. My leg hair, that is.

Shockingly so, I started getting some fitness. I couldn’t sprint to save my life but I could ride all day every day if I needed. What I realized was that in the time off, the time I spent flat on my back in agony, the time I spent forcing myself to move my head despite every fiber of my being telling me to stop immediately, my legs were resting. I wasn’t physically fatigued for the first time in a LONG time. The result? Insomnia. It honestly felt awful to not be “tired”. I’d lay in bed not tired but not awake either. This nightmare just turned into purgatory. I had to get myself tired and fatigued just so I could sleep. So, I started riding a lot. Just, if for no other reason, so I could sleep.

After a few chats with my girlfriend, I ultimately decided I needed to continue. “I firmly believe you make your own luck,” she kept insisting despite me telling her all this shit was a result of me and my coach breaking a 10ft mirror in January. So then I looked to the local scene with my first race back being the Orange County Cycling Classic: A 2 day omnium event on the old El Toro Airfield. The courses were on the runways, wide and exposed to the wind. But the big feature of the weekend would be on day 2 which included a handmade 1km dirt road. “Wow! How cool is that?!” I told myself so excited by the fact that Ryan Miller, Russ Aimes, and Travis Wilkerson had actually put together a European styled course right smack in the center of Orange County. “Too bad I was in no shape to be competitive” I told myself down playing any chances I had. I figured having no hope was better than being let down yet again.

There really was a 10ft mirror…I wasn’t joking.

The first day was hard. REALLY hard. I felt like when everyone dug deep and attacks started coming it took everything just to hold the wheel in the draft. The difference was that I actually wasn’t too tired near the end of the race. Those long days of riding just so I could sleep had boosted my endurance. KHS threw down some serious horsepower putting 2 riders in the front 3 man winning break and then placing another just ahead of me in 4th. But I finished 5th!!! Wow.

Going into day 2, I looked to Kyle and said it was “possible” that we could podium. I’m not sure how convincing I was or if he knew I was talking out my ass. Knowing how hard KHS hit everyone the day before it was going to be exponentially harder to beat them on a harder course. Plus, I needed luck on my side, something that hadn’t happened for the 6 months before that day.

We took off and I actually felt amazing. I was covering moves and riding up to breaks. “I just want a podium,” I told myself each time I was in a small potentially dangerous move. With 3 laps (1 lap=4 miles) to go, I still felt amazing rolling in a 4 man group. We got caught with 1.5 laps to go. Sure enough, as I suspected would happen, KHS teamed up and drilled it, splintering the already small group in the process. Unlike Saturday, I was able to cover it. But then I heard the sound of a flat tire. I didn’t know whose it was. I scanned around. Brian McCulloch, who had won Day 1,  had a rear flat tire. Shawn Daurelio gave him his wheel, sacrificing his own chances in the process. Due to the previous attacks I found myself in a group of 3 guys going into 1 lap to go. I looked around. Hunter Grove, an incredibly strong rider from Incycle, was pulling through. Then the 3rd rider came to the front to drill it. It was my BMW teammate, Kyle Torres! I told Kyle again, “We can win!”. This time, I wasn’t talking out my ass. Kyle drilled it with 750m to go forcing Hunter to respond. Then, despite how much pain Kyle looked like he was in, he attacked again! Hunter hesitated briefly but then chased him down allowing me to slot in nicely behind Hunter. I attacked with 350m to go. A long way, but hoping my early sprint would catch Hunter off guard. It worked and I took home the win for day with Kyle placing 3rd! Two teammates on the Stage podium. I dropped my bike to the ground and jumped to Kyle, hugging him so hard. We both had smiles ear to ear. He rode out of his skin and it paid off. Then we started doing the math. I had won the overall Omnium in the process. My first race back and I had won. I couldn’t wipe the grin from my face.

Kyle Torres and Myself on the podium at OCCC.

It was a good day and I needed it. I was no longer at rock bottom.

 ONWARD and UPWARD.