step one: awareness

I've been battling this knee tendonitis for a couple months now..it all started with the fixed gear bike I was riding all winter, I think. I never got the bike fitted and was too stubborn to use the brakes on it (dumb!)..now, I'm paying for it as it seems to flare up whenever I try to work really hard as I did in the race last weekend. I went in to see Dr. Josh Glass again today and he worked on my knee and my alignment and kinesiotaped me back up. He also suggested I see the athletic trainer Kyle O'Day who has recently moved to Atlanta from FL. Lucky me, he happened to be in the office today. He enlightened me on what might be contributing to my issues...I appear to have some muscle imbalance in my glutes and quads and have been overcompensating. Makes sense. I also talked to Tom Coleman, the genius behind Wobble-naught bike fitting and he gave me some pointers on what to do with my cleat adjustments on my Speedplays as well as my foot position through the pedal stroke to keep my knee from pulling inwards. Like he said, you can have the perfect bike fit but if your technique is off, it doesn't matter. So, today I went in to 55nine Performance to see Eddie. He adjusted my cleat tension and got me up on the Dartfish Video Analysis. Sure enough, my fit was just fine but I was doing some funky things with my left leg trying to "overcorrect" for my knee issues. I think we are onto the root cause now, and now that I'm aware of it I can focus on fixing it. It's a lot to think about, for sure!!