So this happened

[bpgreen]

I woke up Thursday and couldn't see out of my right eye. It seemed to improve as the day went on, but the next day still only had vision on the periphery, so I called to make an appointment at a clinic in my town. They didn't have any openings but have a walk in clinic in Salt Lake City. I didn't want to go that far, but they convinced me.

I thought it would take a couple of hours, and was hoping they'd tell me that it would resolve itself in a couple of days.

But at the end of the exam, they told me to immediately go to the hospital a few blocks away and check into emergency.

Apparently, it was a sort of stroke, but instead of blocking an artery in the brain and paralyzing me, taking away speech, etc, it blocked my retinal artery and I've lost most of the vision in that eye. Some of the lots is likely permanent, but it should improve over time.

As strokes go, this isn't that bad of an outcome.

I'm signed up for 3 Olympic distance triathlons this year, but the last doctor I talked with recommended canceling them to be sure I fully recover. He said the labor day sprint triathlon might be a possibility.

[swenocha]

Wow. Glad to hear you are ok. That is scary stuff. Keep posted with progress...

[Beer-lord]

Jeez, that's just scary! I'm happy it looks like you're on the mend but follow the doctors order and don't push yourself.
Wishing you a speedy recovery.

[bpgreen]

I'm also only going to be riding my bike indoors for a while. Probably not the best idea to be riding along unable to see what's off to the right.

[mashani]

Woah dude, that's scary. I hope things improve a lot over time and you regain most of that vision.

[John Sand]

Sorry to hear that.

[BlackDuck]

Wow....that's real scary. Thanks goodness it was mild and you're on the mend.

[berryman]

Sorry to hear this Brian, hope you get back to normal soon.

[Kealia]

Just seeing this now. Sorry to hear that, Brian.

Best wishes for a speedy recovery!

[bpgreen]

I had a followup appointment today.

The good news is that I've got enough peripheral vision that I'm cleared to drive, but they cautioned me to be careful and remain aware of my blind spot.

The bad news is that it's highly unlikely that I'll recover much, if any, more of my vision.

I'm still out for the season for triathlons, and will continue primarily cycling on my trainer indoors, but there's a trail I ride regularly, and I can drive to a section that's pretty straight and then ride.

[mashani]

I hope that over time your "perception" of things adjusts to account for the blind spot and you can go back to feeling safe riding. A big part of it is going to be looking further ahead to spot things and trusting your innate proprioception to steer you around things that you saw in the distance (it will, that's why MTB riders doing stupid stuff on trails don't all crash into giant boulders or trees and die).

[bpgreen]

I'm sure I'll adjust over time, I posted to a Facebook group (pathetic triathletes) and several people in that group told me they're blind in one eye and it doesn't stop them. I think my doctors were actually more concerned that I might fall and damage my good eye.

As an aside, I don't think I told you about my recent purchase. Somebody posted a coupon for a saris h3 for $700 off. I've got the cassette installed and just made room for it, so will set up my tri bike on that tomorrow (my road bike has been on the omnium since last fall). Or maybe I'll move the road bike over and keep the tri bike ready for driving to the trail and riding.

[mashani]

That's a good trainer, so you should enjoy it. It will be best if you use an online platform of some type so it will take advantage of the resistance changes and simulate outdoor riding better.

As far as outdoors, the only thing I would say is your road bike is likely more maneuverable if you have to make sudden adjustments vs. the tri bike and you'd be in a more upright position to give you better far ahead visibility, which is what you need, I think.

[bpgreen]

That's a good trainer, so you should enjoy it. It will be best if you use an online platform of some type so it will take advantage of the resistance changes and simulate outdoor riding better.

As far as outdoors, the only thing I would say is your road bike is likely more maneuverable if you have to make sudden adjustments vs. the tri bike and you'd be in a more upright position to give you better far ahead visibility, which is what you need, I think.

I think I'll like the trainer. I have it all put together, but don't have it set up, connected to my cycling computer, etc. I made room for that yesterday, so I may set it up tomorrow. I usually just watch tv while cycling on a trainer, but I may have to check out some of the apps.

Those are good points. Especially since what vision I have in my right eye is to the side and down, which is the opposite of what I get on the tri bike. I took the aero bars off the road bike to let a neighbor see if he could use them. I think I'll keep them off for now so I'm not tempted to use them. Since I'm basically taking it easy, I will probably spend all of my time on the hoods.

I had a problem with there tires on my carbon wheels and the LBS said I should replace the front tire over the winter. It's close to the gym where I swim. Since I'm done competing for the season, I dropped the wheel off even though there's a 3 week wait (I'm in no hurry).

[mashani]

RTG has a free plan, but with limited roads and training plans available. It doesn't have very many riders, so if your thing is needing others for motivation, it's not the best. Zwift has free trial, it has tons of people, it has a very active racing community, it's training plans are comprehensive (although some of them are not as good as others and best done as a mishmash). Wahoo now owns RTG and has its own plans and also owns sufferfest (which plans are way better then RTGs) and will likely integrate them all together in a good way at some point. In any case, all of them will work with your trainer so that when you hit climbs things get hard, and when you hit descents, things get easy like real life roads. There are others as well, but those are the ones I have used most, and I typically ride on Zwift.

If you are not familiar with ERG mode, basically what it will do is let you sit in a single gear for the most part (just chose a middle of the casette gear and go) and it will just increase or decrease resistance to match the training plans target watts (based on your FTP). If your cadence changes the resistance will change to match whatever is needed to keep the watts as intended based on the plan you are riding with. So spin faster and the resistance will go down a bit, spin slower and it will increase but the watts will remain constant. This is cool, but has an unfortunate side effect if the resistance ramps up a lot and you don't stay on top of the gear by keeping it spinning then as you slow down the resistance ramps up, so you slow down more, and the resistance ramps up more and then it's what we call "the spiral of death". You have to turn off ERG to get going again if that happens and your stuck on huge watt interval. The best way to hit a big watt interval in ERG is to preemptively start spinning fast before you hit that wall in a training plan.

You can choose to not use ERG mode and use your gears if you want, but ERG mode does make it so that you always match the training plan, so there are benefits and also makes it more of a zone out and do the work endeavor as you don't have to worry about the gears and cadence and trying to pay attention to if you're actually hitting your watt goal.

Note that in ERG mode going downhill doesn't really become easier, and going uphill doesn't become harder because it's trying to make you achieve some watt goal to match your training plan, so that can seem weird at first. Basically, use ERG when training with a plan and want to zone out and watch TV or something (although if there are really hard max intervals then consider spiral of death issues, you have to be aware of those somehow, but for an SST or long zone 2 ride you can just veg and it will keep you honest), and free ride when you want it to feel like real life cycling or get tired of ERG mode and want to try to do a plan your own way with your own choice of gears and are paying attention to the terrain. A free ride or race will not use ERG mode, it's a training plan thing only.