Blanket's Creek

I forget the exact day. It might have been before riding Noontootla. One of those night, when I rolled around, I was always able to find another position to go back to sleep in. I made it through the entire night, in bed. Same the next night, and the next. After like 3 nights of that, I felt sane all day. I was able to work without breaks. I got on a road-bike kick last week and rode all over the place. I went for a run on Friday and it didn't redestroy my ankle. It rained on Saturday, but I got Glen to tune up my mountain bike.

Woo!

Sunday, I was shredding Blankets Creek!

Five laps around dwelling like we used to do back when it was the only trail at Blankets, and when Blankets and Yellow River were the only trails in Atlanta.

Apparently, I felt pretty good, setting a PR for the loop clockwise, AND a PR for 2 laps of the loop clockwise.

No jumps or drops yet, but nothing Dwelling could throw at me hurt at all.

Actually, come to think of it, sitting here right now, nothing hurts. Nothing is even uncomfortable. If I try to take a really deep breath, then my ribcage feels inflexible, which sucks, and definitely hinders my breathing during exercise, but that's the biggest problem I have at the moment.

I guess, also, I sustained a sleep injury. Having to lie in the same position for so many nights f-ed up my right shoulder, but even that is starting to improve.

I might be more or less knitted. I don't want to take any hits to the chest for a while, but things are looking up.

Noontootla

Two weekends ago I felt well enough to try some actual climbing in the actual mountains. Actual trails didn't strike me as a good time, but I felt like I could handle some gravel.

Noontootla!

I don't remember much about the drive up, except that there weren't any massive delays, which struck me as unusual.

I parked at the church, and while peeing around back, noticed a bunch of Organized Rocks.

There were piles and piles of them.

Eight piles, in fact, that I could see, arranged in two rows of four each, about 50 yards downhill from the church. They appeared to be footings for a structure that was about twice as wide as the church, and maybe 15 feet deep. I didn't see the remains of a chimney anywhere. The shape didn't make sense for a barn. It would be very small for a chicken house. Could have been a set of coops though. IDK, it was interesting though.

I took my time getting on the bike and getting going. Now that it gets dark at like 9pm, I don't really feel rushed any more.

There were a million cars descending FS58 on my way up. Despite recent rain, it was a really nice day, and the roads were in good shape.

At Noontootla Falls, I could see a couple climbing the trail to go see it. It was just the right time of year, and just the right amount of recent rain for the falls to be really visible from the road too.

So often it's either a trickle, or super obscured by leaves.

I was able to outclimb a jeep for about a mile before he finally caught me. He had a share-the-road plate and a bunch of mountain bike stickers on the back. He parked at Three Forks and waved to me when I passed him there.

I always remember there being 2 kicks at the top of Noontootla, but the last few times I was up there, I didn't recognize the first one. Same this time. I don't know if that's good because of improved fitness, or bad that I haven't been up there enough to recognize where I am.

There were a couple of humvees parked at Winding Stair Gap...

...and several more at pretty much every campsite across the top. One set had a dozen or more jerry cans lined up next to it, presumably full of water. The Rangers were apparently training, but I never saw them.

The rest of the route went by really fast, and it didn't even occur to me to take more photos.

From just above Hightower, all the way to Rock Creek Lake, I was really moving. Like, I was surprised when I realized that I was at the lake. Some folks were parked at Little Rock Creek, presumably on their way up to the falls, and it reminded me that I've never actually seen it. I passed a guy on a gravel bike around the next turn. I got to the church more quickly than I expected too.

Old Rock Creek Road was as rough as usual, and there were enormous puddles everywhere that I was usually, but not always able to skirt on the inside.

When I got back on pavement, I felt really good. My ribs hadn't given me any noticeable trouble all day. For weeks, it seemed like if I was out for more than an hour and a half, I'd really start to feel the one that was busted on my back, but not this time. It felt about like it had at the beginning of the ride.

I pushed pretty hard up both climbs on the way back to the truck, and felt ok both times.

Woo! I'd been taking it easy for weeks, and could finally kind-of push it.

Turned out later that I set 6 PRs, including one for the entire loop.

Not bad at all!

Mableton and Dirty Sheets

On March 18th, riding high from recent improvement, I got back on the mountain bike and did some very light trail riding. I'd spun around the neighborhood and ridden part of one super gentle trail the week after getting busted up, and both had been pretty uncomfortable. This ride, however, felt ok. Every little bump was a uncomfortable, and breathing deeply especially hurt, but it wasn't undoable.

On the 19th, I felt like giving Dirty Sheets a try, and I ended up running into Patrick Jones at Cochran Mill. I chased him for maybe half of the route, before he went off to do an extra loop that I definitely didn't have the stamina for. It wasn't any worse than the day before, even with the extra distance. Wowards the end I felt a pop in my back, and the busted rib back there hurt for the rest of the evening, only to feel a lot better than it yet had, the next day.

Adhesion tearing loose, maybe? Who knows?

On the 20th, I went for a "run" at Heritage. It was my first "run" in over 3 weeks, but I'd been jogging back and forth on the bocce court at Siracusa's a bit, and it didn't feel like I was shaking my torso apart, so I figured... maybe. At first, it seemed to turn out great. No PRs, but 10:36 miles were kind-of average for me there. I was expecting way worse. That evening though, my right ankle felt fragile and the next day it hurt terribly, like I'd sprained it.

On the 22nd, I tried spinning it out on local roads and the Silver Comet, but it didn't help. I just had to take a few days off.

On the 26th, I did an easy spin on the Dirty Sheets again. No Patrick this time.

That turned out to be a great day!

I discovered a toilet in the woods.

My second favorite thing to discover in the woods, the first being a boat.

The roads were serene. The sky was overcast, and the temps were perfect.

I also noticed a chimney up in the woods, that I'd never seen before.

Double-sided, no less.

And a dangerous old well nearby too.

I ended at Cochran Mill Falls, and it was really raging from recent storms.

My ankle didn't feel any worse after all of that, but it wasn't better yet. It was actually pretty much fine on the bike, but walking around enough would eventually piss it off, and jogging was out of the question entirely.

On the 28th, I rode Thomson Park, the Silver Comet side trails, and North Cooper Lake Park with no less discomfort than I felt just existing. I ran into Steve Spence at North Cooper Lake. He was actually recovering from a knee injury that he'd recently sustained skiing. Goodness.

On the 29th I hit the Vomet trails along the train tracks. Also, ok.

During all of this, I'd been doing half or 3/4ths of my morning routine. On the 30th I went for the full thing and didn't suffer. That afternoon, I hit Nickajack Park and the trails on the south side of Nickajack Creek.

On the 31st, I rode about 22 miles on the Comet with Beatriz.

That was actually really fun. I hadn't been on the road bike in forever, and other than sitting on the rivet, chasing Patrick, I can't remember the last time I'd ridden with anyone else. It's also really trying hard to be spring now, everything was just starting to leaf out, and there were azaleas blooming everywhere.

On April 1st, I helped my youngest move all of their remaining stuff out of Kathryn's house. Up and down the stairs all morning with busted ribs and a questionable ankle wasn't my idea of a good time, but Kathryn somehow had 800mg Ibuprofin tablets, and they really helped. In fact, the next day, my ankle felt pretty normal. I remember that from the skateboarding days. I'd sit around for weeks waiting for an ankle to heal, and it felt like it never would totally get better, but at a point, if you'd just push through it, then it would be fine from then on. It's like it was inflamed while healing, healed slightly out of place, and needed to get adjusted back into place. Or something. IDK. Used to happen all the time, and just happened again recently.

I had a bocce doubleheader that evening, and it was great to have a working ankle for it. We lost both games though, so maybe not so great after all.

Through all of this, my ribs didn't feel materially better. I'm sure they were healing, because I could do a little more every day without any additional discomfort, but they hurt the same amount, sleeping was still murder, and I still had that constant intercostal cramping. Previous times, they'd just gotten steadily better. This time has been different.

Cooper Lake

When I was three weeks out from busting my ribs, the healing really seemed to have stalled out. For the past week, I hadn't noticed any improvement in how I felt, how much Ibuprofin I needed, what I could do during the day, or how well I could sleep. I'd been able to hike, but riding the bike really sucked, and I'd been able to do a pull-up or two, but only very carefully. Anything else seemed completely out of the question.

That morning, I gave my morning workout a try though, and to my surprise, was able to do various pull-ups, push-ups, and leg lifts without any additional pain. I didn't want to push it though, so I only did half my normal routine, but it made me really happy, and that afternoon I figured I'd see if I could do a little rougher hiking than I had been doing.

At Heritage, if you go right at the dumpster, instead of left, you can go under the bridge and run around on some trails behind Cooper Lake. There are various right-of-ways back in there, that I explored on my bike once, but I'd seen some trais too, and figured I'd see where they went.

Turns out they mainly lead over toward Cooper Lake proper.

There was apparently a house back here at one point.

Or at least a blockhouse of some kind.

I eventually ended up on what appeared to be a fishing trail around the back of Cooper Lake itself.

In one direction, it led past the dam...

...and eventually ended about halfway up someone's driveway. The street dead-ends at the woods there, so you'd think that the trail would go to the end of the street, but it doesn't, it goes directly into someone's yard. You'd have to walk up their driveway and cross like 5 feet of their grass to get onto it.

In the other direction, it led around the lake, behind the neighborhood pool, and eventually became so choked with deadfall that I didn't continue following it. I've got some friends that live next to a little wooded patch in the neighborhood there, and there's a trail through that. My guess is that if I pushed through the deadfall, it would lead to that same trail, but I wasn't in any shape to go climbing over deadfall at the time.

On the way back, I went a slightly different way and found this old fire hydrant out there.

I know that Cooper Lake Road once crossed the railroad tracks where the northern section of North Cooper Lake Road now ends, continued through what is now that neighborhood, wound around the lake, somehow, then joined what is now the southern section of North Cooper Lake Road. I have a map that shows that. I'll have to see if I can correlate it with the roadbed that I found that fire hydrant on.

I felt kind-of ok after that bit of Adventure. Ribs were no worse after that than they'd been after lighter hiking. So, progress, maybe?

No progress yet, at that point, on the sleep front, though. Sleep had been equally awful, and the accumlated lack of it was horrible. There were times, every day where I just couldn't think straight. It made me feel insane. I just had to sit on the couch, doing nothing, until I felt recovered, and try again.

Just horrible.

Heritage Park

A little more than 2 weeks out from breaking my ribs, I still wasn't up to much more than light hiking, so I went back to Heritage to look for some stuff that a buddy of mine, Jon, told me about, but that I'd never noticed myself.

I was primarily going to look at the Woolen Mill, but on the way I noticed this rock with tool marks on it.

Except that it's not a rock. It's a couple of bricks held together with concrete. The old road has a drainage line running under it these days, and there are raised manholes here and there along it. They're often constructed of brick and then covered in cement. This appeared to be a discarded chunk of one. Maybe one of them got busted up at some point and had to be repaired?

Whatever the case, this was modern.

When I got to the mill itself though, I found what my buddy had been talking about.

There was a wheel against the west side of the mill, fed by Nickajack Creek, via a raceway composed of underground pipes.

Some of the pipes are now exposed, but the majority are still buried.

There were various retaining walls near all of this as well.

And what might have been an axle, just sitting there, stuck in the ground, around where the wheel would have been.

The orientation of the pipes and the wheel were pretty confusing though. Jon had mentioned this too, but I didn't really understand until I got there. The race was really low, like right at the basement level. The wheel must have been undershot. But, the last bit of existing pipe was really close to the west wall of the mill, and very near to the center of it. I'd expect the wheel to have been parallel to the west wall of the building, with a shaft leading inside through the wall, but for that to have been the case, the water would have had to make a 90 degree turn to feed it, in like 3 feet. Jon speculated that maybe it was a turbine, but I didn't see enough room for that either. It's not impossible that the wheel was inside of the building itself, and that the raceway ran through the basement and out the other side. If that was the case though, no evidence of it remains.

It was weird and confusing, but then, so is the raceway at Ruff's Mill, and both were built by the same people, so maybe they were just showing off in both cases.

On the way back, I noticed this half-buried cable sticking out of the trail.

If I'd seen such a thing up in the mountains, I'd immediately think logging, but in an urban area... who knows?

The ribs were still quite busted, but weren't terribly unhappy with me jostling them around. I ended up going back the next day and doing a proper hike, cranking out miles, as opposed to just strolling around and looking at things, and it wasn't any worse.

The lack of sleep was starting to catch up with me though. I remember that after you turn the corner, the lack of sleep is the worst part, but I forget the details, so here they are for future reference...

Ther was like one or two positions I could sleep in - on my right side in bed, or on my left side on the couch. I could fall asleep in those positions, but I'd end up moving in my sleep and after about an hour, I'd wake up in pain. I could sometimes get back in the same position and fall asleep again for another hour, but usually it just hurt and I'd have to get up and move to the couch (or to the bed if I was on the couch). Then I could sleep for another hour. I'd repeat this until morning for maybe 3 or 4 hours total each night. At a point I'd just have to get up and start my day. Then I'd be drowsy all day, and anything that didn't just require autopilot seemed like a huge mental effort. Around 4 or 5 in the afternoon, I'd perk up a bit, do some excercise, and eat dinner. Then I'd be more productive for a few hours. I'd hate getting sleepy again though. I knew I needed sleep, but I also knew exactly what kind of suffering was coming.

"Maybe tonight it'll be better."

Every night.

Awful.