Weekly Newsletter: May 6th-12th, 2024

This week, we stopped by Keith's favorite taqueria, enjoyed a date night in Provo, and Keith attempted to restart his outdoor cycling training. 🌮 🍕 🚵

Check out our new posts and videos 🆕 🎥 📝

Utah Adventures With A Friend: Part 3

Yi visits us in Utah for a road trip. This is part 3 of the multi-part series.

Keith and LindseyLindsey Huster

Keith's favorite taqueria 🌮 😋

In case you didn't know, Keith is a huge fan of tacos. He will make a taco out of nearly anything you can imagine. For example, he has been known to make a pot roast and mashed potatoes taco for lunch. 🤪 So, it's only natural that some of Keith's favorite local restaurants are taquerias.

Specifically, Keith loves the al pastor meat at The Holy Taco in Orem, UT. This is a no-frills restaurant serving up amazingly tender and juicy al pastor tacos. The menu consists of very few items but they are all delicious. The accompanying sauces allow you to choose between a small kick of heat (orange sauce) or a cooling cream (green sauce). Keith prefers to mix a little of both on his tacos.

Keith ordered three of the tacos with cheese and Lindsey ordered the "Gringa" which is essentially a larger, flour tortilla taco. We both left the restaurant very happy! 😋

Date night in Provo 🍕🚶

For date night this week, we decided to head to downtown Provo, UT to explore the area by foot and visit a local, well-known pizzeria; Two Jack's Pizza.

Two Jack's serves delicious, homemade pizzas in all the usual flavor combinations. They also offer a wide variety of "cheese sticks" to choose from. We both love traditional red sauce-based pizzas as well the non-traditional BBQ sauce-based pizzas. Since we couldn't decide on just one, we chose to order a Jack's Meats traditional-style pizza along with an order of Spicy Hawaiian BBQ Cheese Sticks. This was the perfect combination of our two favorite styles of pizza.

After having our fill of pizza, we boxed up the rest (which was enough for another two meals) and headed out on a stroll throughout downtown Provo. Provo is famous for its Center Street entertainment area. This is an easily walkable section of the city that contains several high-quality restaurants and entertainment options. We even stumbled upon some beautiful murals depicting several of the wilderness highlights in the area.

This was such a fun way to spend the evening. There's not much better than delicious food combined with a beautiful evening stroll.

Tour Divide training update 🏋️‍♂️ 😅

With the weather continuing to improve, Keith has been able to spend much more time on his mountain bike. This week, he focused on rebuilding his riding distance/duration to see how his knee would cope with extended, multi-hour exertion.

After a couple days of rest, Keith rode his typical route out to the local Valley Vista Mountain biking trail system. This route includes a relatively easy grade up from the valley to the benches area along the base of the Wasatch Mountains. This was a good test of 1-2 hour effort. The result of this ride was promising as Keith's knee showed very little signs of strain afterwards.

Keith then spent the next two days focused on rest and knee rehab exercises as he prepared for two consecutive longer rides. On Saturday and Sunday, he pushed himself harder than he has in a while to complete nearly 90 miles with over 2,200 feet (670 meters) of elevation gain. This included a 4 mile (6.4 kilometer) road climb! This level of training was necessary in order to determine his actual healing progression.

Unfortunately, this level of effort resulted in some lingering patella tendon pain. This is not the result that Keith had been hoping for. We aren't canceling any plans yet but things are not looking good for his attempt at the 2024 Tour Divide. Keith has a follow up appointment with his sports doctor on May 14th. We are expecting that his doctor will tell Keith that he won't be recovered in time for the race this year. 😔

Below is a breakdown of Keith's training efforts and an update on his targeted milestones:

Weekly Training Efforts

• Monday (5/6): Complete rest day
• Tuesday (5/7): Complete rest day
• Wednesday (5/8): 28.4 mile (45.7 kilometer) outdoor ride @ 172 watts average power.
• Thursday (5/9): Rest day with some light knee rehab exercises.
• Friday (5/10): Rest day with some light knee rehab exercises.
• Saturday (5/11): 37.8 mile (60.8 kilometer) outdoor ride @ 143 watts average power.
• Sunday (5/12): 49.1 mile (79 kilometer) outdoor ride @ 140 watts average power.

Milestones Update

• ✅ May 3rd - Must be able to ride the indoor trainer at 100W or more for at least 1 hour without any immediate or latent pain.
  • ✅ Keith has well surpassed his power and duration targets.
  • ⚠️ He is not experiencing any "pain" while riding. However, his patella tendon is showing signs of strain as his knee becomes red after he completes a ride.
  • ⚠️ He will continue to monitor the patella tendon inflammation as he continues with his training efforts.
• ▶️ May 15th - Must be able to ride his usual, 50-mile outdoor training route without any immediate or latent pain. Must also be able to hike on a relatively easy trail (Lower Battle Creek Falls Trail) without any pain.
  • ✅ Power numbers are looking great even as Keith increases his distance per ride.
  • ⚠️ Back-to-back long rides are causing some lingering patella tendon pain.
  • ❌ Keith has not attempted to hike yet due to concerns with the patella tendon pain.
  • ▶️ Keith has a follow up with his sports doctor on May 14th.
• ⏸️ May 31st - Must be able to complete the >100-mile Utah Lake Loop without pain. Must also be able to hike a moderately strenuous trail without pain (e.g. Grove Creek Trail).
  • Update coming soon...

Upcoming posts and videos 👷‍ 👷‍♀️️

Lindsey is working her way through the series of posts covering our friend Yi's visit to Utah last summer. Be sure to subscribe to our blog so that you don't miss out. Keith has been extra-focused on recovery efforts so he is unsure when he will be able to work on any posts in the near term. 🥺

We hope that you are enjoying our newsletters. Have you ever experienced patella tendon pain? Do you have any suggestions for Keith's recovery? Let us know in the comments section below.👇 💬