Slowly Getting Back into the Saddle

I’m in a slight quandary. It’s been a while since I last posted and the thing is I still don’t have anything that interesting to post about! I’m left with 3 options – don’t post at all, post a dull write up of your recent training or post about more exciting things to come. I am going for option 2, but aiming to make it sound more exciting than it actually is. At least I’ll try.

It turns out that yoga really isn’t that bad with a bruised rib. In fact somewhat unfortunately if I had to put something at the top of the list it’s sleeping. I blame my mother for this and have confirmed this on the phone. You see I can only sleep on my stomach and this comes down to having done so since I was a baby. Apparently when I was born the advice was to have babies sleep on their front. Not sure why, reduce the chance of them choking or something. I believe current advice is that whatever you do, don’t let babies sleep on their front. Long story short, from an early age I’ve been trained that when you sleep it’s on your stomach. This happens to work well at compressing and pressing down on the bruised rib. I’ll stop whining about the ribs now. Seriously, they’re pretty minor and definitely on the mend.

I was also a little disappointed to find that 5 days off wasn’t enough to clear up the Epic Camp saddle sores completely. Getting on the bike is still not as comfortable as it has been! I’ve not found that New Zealand honey-based chamois cream to be that effective. In a case of perfect timing the day I got back on the bike I also received some Assos Chamois Cream in the post. I’ll give the Swiss some credit aside from cheeses they make damn fine chamois cream.

So far my cycling has consisted of short, but fairly solid efforts on the bike. It’s a combination of 5 days of pure recovery and a little bit of a boost from camp. Definitely putting a little bit more into it when I’m out there, just got to get back up to normal volume now. The first day back on the bike felt pretty weird I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. The only thing I can com up with is that after a few weeks in New Zealand the smooth roads of the coast felt luxurious!

Whilst the sealed chip roads along the beach fronts are much appreciated I’ve already been reminded of a couple of the downsides. Monday’s ride was interrupted midway by a nice chunk of glass. Luckily it all happened 2 minutes from Mike’s Bikes. I have finally succumbed and replaced the damaged tyre with an Ultra Gatorskin. I hate those thick, heavy puncture resistant tyres for all their bad handling. On the other hand I’m sick of puncturing on a weekly basis.

Aside from drunks disposing of their empties on the roads I’ve had two near misses with cars. Both cases of drivers rapidly pulling out without properly looking at the road. Both times I was fortunate that I’d placed myself a fairway out from the kerb and had time and room to manoeuvre. Still I didn’t really need the sudden shots of adrenaline to the system. I can’t avoid the built up roads unfortunately, there’s good quiet riding to be had round here, but it takes at least half hour to get there.

Getting back to the pool has been a shock to the system. The first day was tough! At that point the rib pain was still noticeable though strangely this may have had a positive input. I noticed the pain was worse if I was twisting my spine rather than keeping my body rotating as a unit. By controlling my swim more and applying better technique I could minimise the pain. There’s nothing like a bit of pain to encourage improvements! It’s similar to when I started using paddles, I was getting quite sore in the rotator cuff on my right shoulder. Over time I’ve improved to engage the lats more and not over-work the shoulder muscles. Gotta spin a positive out of these things somehow!

I can now quite safely say I have run. Twice in fact. Not as much as I intended and I’ll not make any excuses here. I have been very lazy since the camp. Still today’s long run has left me feeling a bit better and I think I can get things back on track. I am slightly concerned that I’m not working on my running enough though. Whilst I’m confident that the biking is improving and the swim has a looooong way to go still I just don’t know with running. There’s a 10K race coming up this Sunday and I’m tempted to enter it for fun. The kind of fun that a minute before the gun goes off I know I’ll wonder what I was thinking. 10Ks hurt a lot, but would be a quality session and give me some running feedback.

Other than training I do have to wonder about my eating habits right now. I’ve become very lazy! Admittedly I partly want to drop a little bit of weight, but lunch today was a large bowl of porridge with honey and blueberries (same as brekkie). I felt that needed some protein so ate a tin of sardines, then a couple of tomatoes and some dried fruit. Meal of champions! I did get a pretty solid long run off the back of that at least. Tomorrow I cook some real food for sure.

And that is why it was pretty hard to make an exciting post. A few more days getting myself back into normal training and then I fly down to Geelong to train with Toby. Which from the perspective of those who are following my blog might make things more interesting!

Comments