Rest. Ice. Compression. Elevation.
Well I’ve been trying….
I left it over 48 hours between the end of the Cheddar Cyclosportive and Tuesday’s gym session. That’s kind of rest, right? I’ve been applying ice. I’ve bought a nice black sports bandage thing. As for elevation, well…a bit. Hey, I said I’m trying ok? Not that I was succeeding! *grin*.
The gym? Well I wore the bandage, and took it carefully. It went ok. Ish. Happy enough when it was going around, less than thrilled about the going round afterwards. But better than it might have been. Though it would probably have been better to have left more than 12 hours between that gym session and this morning’s ride…but life just doesn’t work like that, does it?
You see as it turns out Martyn had been in touch as he was unexpectedly free to ride. I deferred making a decision on riding until after the gym, but on the basis that my knee was still working, I decided I would join him after all. I needed to see how the knee would feel on the bike proper as opposed to the gym bike. So there we were, at 9:30am in the Square, admiring the sunshine. Actual sunshine! OK, so the air temperature left a little to be desired but there’s a lot to be said for blue skies and sunshine at any time of the year. It was one of those days where I got the kit spot on. Spot on is when your layers stay where you put them and the only thing that moves is the zip, up and down. Today was a palmares kit day. Etape jersey and Maratona gilet, with arms warmed but legs not. Both motivational and functional. I do think I should remember how much I’ve achieved sometimes. I may not win any medals, but I’ve done pretty well really :).
We hadn’t really planned a route. The idea was to do a couple of easy hours to see how I got on, so we pretty much made it up as we went along. And to start with, just for novelty value we checked out the traffic light queue in Cheddar ;). Yep – still there…
How about we play photographic dot-to-dot and you can figure out where we went?
Looks nice out there doesn’t it? Well it was, mostly, but it was actually pretty breezy, and that breeze just got stronger as time went on, until it was turning even the flat into a slog. I really do hate wind! Mind you it was making the windmill go round so at least it was being useful to someone… :/
Tors, and tall trees. Terrific 🙂
A two hour ride turned out to be rather longer than that, because that’s just the way it happens, and also what happens when there isn’t a plan, but it wasn’t an issue as we both had time in hand. So much easier to ride when there isn’t that pressure to be back in time to be somewhere else. Ask Bella what we did if you’re really interested :).
Cycling time: 2:33:06 hrs
Distance: 41.29 miles
Avs: 16.2 mph.
ODO: 540.83 miles
There probably won’t be many more days like these, as the seasons change, the temperature drops, and the wind blows unpleasant weather at us with impish delight. Best to make the most of it then. It wasn’t the fastest ride. It wasn’t a challenging ride, not from a gradient point of view. However since it wasn’t intended to be either, this is good. It was however sociable and enjoyable and sunny. Which is also good. It was also little bit painful…
Yes, back to the knee again. Well I was riding to see how it was, wasn’t I? For all I know, the suspense is getting to you, and you can’t wait to hear how it was. OK, it seems unlikely, but just in case…;)
I strapped the knee up for the ride, which didn’t actually seem to help, and which didn’t stick properly either, so that came off somewhere after Wedmore. Rather than the occasional twinge that is its usual stock in trade, the knee settled down into general lowgrade background painful fairly quickly, and slowly ramped up from there. As on Sunday, constant careful pedalling was pretty much ok, but anything other than that was not going down a storm. By the time I got back it had swollen up again – which is hard to describe because it’s not that visibly puffy from the outside but it feels all puffy and squishy internally when you use it. So it’s back to the RICE for me. I’m seeing my sports physio on Friday, and hopefully with both of those things, and a bit more easy exercise, I should be up for the Bristol Belter on Sunday. GB – consider yourself warned – I will be wheel sucking! *grin*.
