Maidenhead & District hilly 30

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Today was a 30 mile hilly time trial around Christmas Common, Frieth and Henley. They are roads that I know quite well because I do a lot of training around here. Since the weather was surprisingly good, I decided to ride out to the event. A good 20 miles as the crow flies. Although the weather was near perfect, the recent rains are still in evidence. Water was flooding off the mono-cultured farmland and some lanes are still reduced to puddles and potholes. I nearly came a cropper on one lane near Turville. I was lucky to get nothing more than a jarring action on my brakes.

I’ve done the 30 mile hilly a couple of times, my best time is 1:10. But that was done in temperatures of just above freezing. Today, they were nudging into the mid teens. Unfortunately, road works meant we couldn’t use original course. But, last minute changes by Maidenhead found a course, just as good.

In fact, it was a brilliant start because the first 5 miles was a long gentle drag to the top of Stokenchurch. With a nice tailwind it exaggerated your speed. At Stokenchurch you turn left along the top of the Chiltern Ridge towards Christmas Common and Nettlebed. It was quite fast, though bumpy and you had to keep your eyes open for potholes. From Nettlebed, there is a long descent towards Henley. Here the traffic was starting to build up, and on quite a few occasions I got held up behind cars, who were stuck behind cyclists. The sun seemed to have brought every fair weather cyclist out on to the roads. For a cycling advocist it was a great sight. For a time triallist in race mode, it was a little frustrating waiting for big landrovers to overtake the tricycles and riders. Fortunately, I wasn’t too pumped up or impatient, I kind of expected it on this roads.

One mistakes was probably having a 19mm front wheel tyre blown up to 120psi. I always blow my tubulars up really hard out of habit. But, I really felt every bump on the very bumpy roads.

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Hill climb intervals

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Hill climb intervals are probably my favourite type of training. I generally do some kind of hill climb intervals from February to the end of the hill climb season in October. At this time of the year (spring), my 5 minute power is well down because I spend most of the winter focusing on endurance. Even I feel like a break from hill climb intervals in Nov, Dec and Jan. Because I’m starting from a relatively low base, it means that even a few hill climb intervals can see a big improvement in power output.

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See also: Techniques of riding uphill

Early Hill Climb sessions

During the early part of the hill climb season, I’m getting used to riding at or above race pace. A typical session might involve:

  • Warm up for 15 minutes
  • 3 * 1 minute intervals at 95% – this is about 400 watts. They are not completely ‘eyeballs out’ I like to break myself in a bit more gently.
  • 7 * 4 – 5 minutes. To make it more interesting, I do intervals up real hills. The hill climb may last between 3 and a half minutes and 5 minutes, depending on where I’m training. I do the first one really hard, but not 100% as if I was doing a hill climb.

I’m most interested in maintaining high power towards the end of interval and towards the end of the interval session. A good indicator of form is how I go during the 6th or 7th interval. In that sense the intervals get harder as you progress towards the end because the muscles are tired and you are carrying around more lactic acid.

If my FTP is 290, I might be doing these intervals at 350 watts. – Or 20% harder than an effort during an hour’s constant time trial.

In between these intervals I ride at a recovery pace. Gently spinning to try and get rid of the lactic acid.

In a typical interval session, it might take 2 and half hours and take 50 miles.

At this time of the year, I might just do one a week. In peak hill climb training season, perhaps two. Generally, I need an easy day before and after to get the most from them. To be honest, if I really do a proper hill climb interval session,  you don’t feel like doing anything other than a recovery ride the next day.

After the interval session, I recommend some stretching especially of hamstrings.

Aim of hill climb intervals

  • Increase climbing ability
  • By racing above your normal race pace, you hope to stress the muscles and heart to pull up your capacity. The main aim for time trialling is to increase your Functional Threshold power (FTP) – roughly the effort / power you can maintain for an effort of an hour. Intervals can do this
  • One way to train for an hour time trial is to train for an hour and see how fast you can do it. Intervals are deliberately training for a shorter time so you can ride at a level higher than what you can maintain for a long time.
  • Train different muscle fibres. In road races and even short distance time trials (25 miles), you will be using all three muscle fibres – slow twitch, fast twitch and super-fast twitch. Hill climb intervals are a way to train all three. You don’t get this training effect, just by riding hard for an hour.
  • Get used to dealing with lactic acid.
  • My main early season target is several hilly time trials. These interval sessions replicate hilly time trials quite well. The only difference is that I’m not racing in between hills – only when going up the hills.

Riding the hill climb intervals

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Now I have a power meter I do spend a bit of time looking at the power meter to try and gauge effort and smooth over the effort during a climb. This generally involves, holding back a little at the bottom, but then making an even bigger effort towards the end of the interval to maintain the power. I think a power meter is useful in the sense it shows what you are actually putting out. I didn’t realise how easy it is for power to peter out, when the slope eases off at the top.

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Jeremy Clarkson tries cycling

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Whenever I hear Jeremy Clarkson make an irritating comment about cyclists (like why are they in middle of lane?) My instinctive reaction is to think –  why don’t you try cycle through London? It might give a very different perspective.

To be fair to the great controverst (1) yesterday, finally saw Jeremy Clarkson get on a bicycle, (dressed up in suitably ridiculously looking yellow spandex with labels still showing). Top Gear is a mildly, tongue in check comedy – relying on the ‘cheeky chappy’ humour of three ageing men. It was never going to be a balanced investigation into the world of sustainable transport in London. It was never going to be a sympathetic look at the difficulties cyclists face – you can always get a few more laughs by talking about putting toothpaste (chamois cream) in your nether regions than you can talking about the optimal space to give people on a bike. But, overall, I thought it was good, even if some parts were rather cringeworthy.

Some of the public service videos they made, warning of the dangers of cycling where wickedly funny. The video with martin Luther King, Gandhi and John Lennon getting assassinated with the end motto ‘righteousness is no guarantee of safety’ appealed to a black sense of humour, though I felt suitably guilty for laughing at the same time.

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Clarkson didn’t like being squeezed by buses

Amidst all the usual generalisations of cyclists and cringe worthy characterisations, it was still kind of cathartic to see Jeremy Clarkson cycling squeezed precariously between two big buses and having great difficulty turning right. This is the real reality of cycling in London.

On a serious point, if you’re having difficulty turning right – trying taking a more central position in the lane. You can’t always ride in the gutter and rely on your bright yellow jacket to get in the best position.

He might not have admitted it in the video, but a few hours cycling around London, must have given some insight into the difficulties faced by cyclists. And it’s something I wish other people would do (especially those newspaper columnists from the Daily Mail et al.)  The best way to promote better road manners is to have greater empathy and concern for the well being of other road users. If you see cyclists as an alien species who only annoy people by going through red lights, you won’t be inclined to give them space or time. But, when you’ve struggled to turn right yourself, you might just have a little more patience with a cyclist moving away from the gutter trying to turn right.

Clarkson made a claim he was given plenty of room by all taxis, vans and cars (which I don’t believe for a moment). But, you know with Clarkson there would have to be a new group to blame. Yes, buses are hard.

(1) (I think I might have just made up this word, but it means – he who enjoys being controversial)

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Banbury Star Hilly 23

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Today was second race of the season, Banbury Star Hilly 23 mile TT. I’ve done this early season race on quite a few occasions. One year was run off in a snow storm, leaving strong impressions of near hypothermia. This year, may be exceptionally wet, but it’s been mercifully mild, with very few frosts. Today, there was a stiff crosswind, but for early March conditions were relatively good.

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at the startline in 2013

My pre-race routine was fairly relaxed. I ended up not doing very much of a warm up. I took my rollers, but the ground was too muddy and uneven to make it worth it. In the end I just rode rather aimlessly up and down a few different lanes. There’s probably a more scientific way to warm up, but that’s the good thing about early season races – there doesn’t feel much pressure. I made a last minute decision to get rid of  my leg warmers, though I still had three thermal undervests and two layers of gloves. Rain was forecast for later, and one thing I’ve learnt from doing Banbury star hardriders – you rarely regret being too warm in early season races.

I have a power meter on my bike this year. I only looked at it once or twice. It’s on my stem and requires considerable effort to look at it. After five minutes I looked at the power and it said 270 watts, I thought this was too low, so increased the effort.

The main attraction of Banbury Star Hilly is Sunrising hill half way along. On the way out you descend the hill. On the way back after 15 miles or so, you go up. It’s quite steep and there’s a sharp hairpin. This year, the council are mid way through resurfacing – so it was a very lumpy and bumpy surface. I had to take it quite steady going down as it was hard to hold on to tribars with all the shaking. On the way back, it was difficult in a different way. It would make a good hill climb course, but when you’ve been racing at threshold for 30 minutes, it’s a different proposition to do a steep climb. I grovelled up in my lowest gear, mostly seated in the saddle to improve traction – vainly trying to find a smooth bit of road.  There were a few local Banbury members out to give a shout. Once at the top, there is a final 4 miles. This was relatively fast. I was able to keep a reasonable power to the end, and finished in a time of 53.27. This was 5 seconds quicker than 2013, so a course PB by 5 seconds.

Given the slow descent, I was quite happy with the time. With W.Sybrandy and M.Clinton DNS, I thought that might be good enough to retain the trophy. But, a young rider Dan Bigham from Oxford Brookes riding for AW Cycles, did a storming ride to win in a time of 52.34 – close to the course record. I spoke to Dan after the race, he is aiming for elite triathlon events later in the year. So I will make no more sarcastic comments about triathletes on my blog! 3rd was D.Axford with a mid 54.12 Fourth was Joshua Jones, Cambridge University CC 54.57. It was a record entry, with 60 people entering this tough early season opener. It’s rather nice to see sporting time trials increase in popularity.

Overall, it was a good early season opener. Well organised as usual by Luke Souter and the Banbury Star CC. And for me a second. 2nd place of 2014.

Fastest lady was Marina Bloom of Rugby CC, who in the past has won the women’s 24 hour TT championship with 424 miles – so just a short warm up today.

My weighted power average for the  race was 280watts. In one sense, this looks disappointing (though I don’t have much data to go on.) One observation is that it seems much easier to keep a high average when you’re riding on your rollers. On a course like today, you’re always going up and down, being blown around by the wind. It’s hard to get into a rhythm.  But,  I suppose that’s why racing on the road is more fun, than riding on the rollers.

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Record breaking year

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2014 is already turning out to be a record breaking year.

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  • Britain’s best ever medal haul in the Winter Olympics since 1924 – 1 gold medal
  • Record levels of flooding in Oxfordshire and the South of England- 1.4 goggleplex cubic metres of water
  • Guinness world record for the longest distance of continuous underwater unicycling- 1.3 miles (Ashrita Furman, Portugal, video)
  • Record number of  visits to a gym in a year by Tejvan – 2
  • Record percentage of training rides done on indoor rollers by Tejvan –  65%

On a less promising note, I’ve managed to dns 50% of entered rides.

For the past seven years, I’ve been wanting to do the early season North Road Hardriders  25 around the lanes of North London. It’s an early season hilly classic, but despite entering three times, I’ve never made it to the start line. It seems to come at a time in the season when I’m prone to knee injuries. This year, it was a bout of flu – which kept me not just from riding the North Road hardriders, but also picking up the Oxonian CC 10 mile and 25 mile TT at the Oxonian annual dinner. A nice free three course meal – replaced by an evening of soup, rice cakes and fit for nothing more than watching repeats of the Tour of Oman. Well, I suppose you can’t eat caviar every day of the year. I consoled myself by reminding me there are worse times of the year to come down with a bug. I also consoled myself by saying although Oman might not be subject to floods and rain, there is a distinct lack of any scenery which isn’t resolutely grey, sandy. (or where’s the grass?)

Last Wednesday was one of those rare forays into the outer world of tarmac, puddles and real roads (well, some were roads, but are increasingly starting to resemble lumpy farmyard tracks). The weather forecast at BBC and Metcheck, both promised 0.0mm of rain for that day. The weather looked so good, I cancelled an economics lesson (easy in half-term week) and planned a good long five hour ride in the hills of the Chilterns. With the good weather forecast, I took my time trial bike. When you get used to spinning away on the rollers or flying on your TT bike, it’s a bit of comedown to go back to winter training hack. I did 40 miles on Monday, in a record low average speed of about 13.8mph. I didn’t want to repeat that.

Alas, the weather forecast proved to be misleading. Almost as soon as I had got spitting distance from Oxford, the weather gods began having a laugh, and started spitting at me. It was never heavy rain, just that fine drizzle that soaks you through. I think fine drizzle is better English phrase than ‘it’s spitting’ – but I heard it a lot when growing up in Yorkshire and Lancashire.

I persisted for a good four hours, and was quite pleased to get some hard miles in. It was made more difficult because I tilted my tribars upwards – this is more aerodynamic, but much more awkward and painful, I’m being to question whether the aero gains suggested by the wind tunnel are worth the extra effort and pain in the arms and shoulders. Not for a 12 hour, that’s for sure.

I did several hill efforts. A five minute power effort suggested I’d gained 20 watts in two weeks Yah!. From a very low base, but at least at this time of the year, you can see easy gains for relatively little effort. It’s like the first season you take up cycling and make huge gains. Only to find it gets increasingly difficult to keep increasing power as time progresses.

It was quite a good two weeks training, so five days off is not the end of the world. But, it would be nice to starting breaking records which don’t involve cycling under a deluge of rain and water.

By the way, Ashrita Furman of cycling underwater fame, has one of the few Sri Chinmoy Cycling Team records, that I don’t have. He did a very credible 405 miles for 24 hours back in the 1970s. It’s one record I won’t be attempting for quite a while. And as for the long distance underwater unicycling…..

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Adamo saddle review

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Adamo saddles are a unique design of saddles by the company ISM. The basic principle is to cut out the ‘dead’ area on a saddle. Focus saddle and padding on your ‘sit’ bones which is the most important thing and avoid the ‘numbness’ associated with sitting on a conventional saddle.

adamo-ISM-break

It certainly looks distinctive. This is the ISM, Adamo ‘Breakaway’

Motivations for buying an Adamo

In early Feb, I was doing a 90 minute effort on the rollers on my time trial bike. After an hour, the pain and discomfort in crotch area was really bad. By the end of the session, I just couldn’t bear to be in the time trial position. It felt like everything was getting squashed and numb. I wanted to finish the 90 minutes on rollers, but I could only do it by getting out of the saddle (which on the rollers is tricky)

Also, in last years National 100 (5th in a time of 3.46) the last 10 miles were ruined by great pain in shoulders and groin. I was squirming all over the bike because of the numbness and lost substantial time.

Since, I want to do a 12 hour time trial on the TT bike, I knew something had to change. Adamo saddles have been recommended to me by quite a few time triallists. Not everyone is convinced, but some people seem quite passionate – and it is rare for people to get passionate about a saddle (apart from maybe Brooks). Just looking at the Adamo Saddle made me think it was more comfortable. Like all great inventions and designs, once done, it seems so intuitive to put the padding where you need it and cut away where you just get numbness.

Adamo Time trial version

Adamo produce an almost bewildering array of variations on their original saddle. It would be hard to test them all. But, since I was buying for time trials, the obvious option was to buy the time trial saddle.

adamo-scale

Adamo TT weight 274 grams – lighter than most other versions.

Adamo also claim that  for the time trial saddle:

‘The design allows for increased hip rotation, thus decreasing a rider’s aerodynamic drag and opens the diaphragm for easier breathing. Riders report an increase in wattage due to the more aggressive positioning. Sloped front arms provide extra relief to the superficial perineal space.”

This wasn’t my motivation for buying, but increased wattage seems a good thing.

Review of riding experience

The first ride was two hours on the rollers on the time trial bike. That’s quite an aggressive position and involved not stopping or getting out of the saddle.

It was a revelation. The improvement in comfort was very marked. I would say at the end of 90 minutes, there was 60% less pain, and after two hours I could still have kept going. That awful feeling of numbness just wasn’t there. This is the most important feature of the saddle, it really does work and makes long distance time trialling less painful.

Since that first roller session, I’ve done two four hour rides on the time trial bike. Again, it is remarkably comfortable for four hours in a race position. I will review after doing a 100 mile race and 12 hours. But, I’m confident that the saddle will make a significant difference and justify its price tag.

It is not to say it is a panacea. After two hours on the rollers, my seat bones (the bones which make most contact with saddle) were a little sore. You could tell they had absorbed a lot of weight. But, it is a very manageable ache, and more noticeable when you get off the bike. To be honest, if I was racing on an open road, I would have moved around more and given my backside more breathing space than two hours on the rollers.

Is there increased hip rotation? ISM claim increased hip rotation, and I when I spoke to  Matt Bottril last year at the BDCA 50, he was saying he found the Adamo saddle helped his power.

But, to be honest, I was so absorbed in noticing the improved comfort, that I didn’t really notice much difference in actual power I was putting out. Maybe there is an advantage, I would have to retest.

Update after nine months use – One downside of Adamo is that I have had chaffing on the outside of the saddle – on the inmost thighs. You don’t notice whilst cycling, but after it has been raw and I’ve been putting on Sudocrem – it’s not a show stopper, just a bit irritating.

adamo-front-view

Front view of Adamo saddle

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Cycling through the rain photos

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Some selected photos from the wettest winter since King Canute went on a canoeing trip up to the fjords and waterfalls of the Lake District.

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Nice mac and Wellington boots to keep dry.

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There must be a rainbow somewhere. This delivery guy rides through the rain, with the sun shining through in the background.

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It’s alright in the buggy carriage

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One way to avoid the rain – cycle faster.

Welcome to the floods

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Please keep access clear for the flood waters.

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Spontaneous training plans

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I spent most of Saturday morning trying to weigh up the relative options of going outside and facing the stormy weather – or staying inside and dealing with the challenges of staying on rollers for two hours.

hebrides-touring
Where I would like to have been – cycling in the Hebrides in summer.

It was a pretty close call, but in the end I choose to avoid the relentless gales of this crazy winter and spent two hours on the rollers.

One reason for staying indoors was to avoid corrosion to the TT bike. My speedplay pedals are vulnerable to water, and seem to need greasing every ride, unless you want to be spending £230 for a new pair of X1 every month. Ironically, the sun was out and my conservatory got pretty hot – up to 26 degrees, and when you’re cycling indoors that’s pretty warm – there was a steady flow of sweat to corrode the bike in a different way. It did later chuck it down which at least made me feel vindicated in being a southern softie and choosing to stay indoors.

If you’re going to spend two hours on the rollers, you might as well make it a hard session, and hope the effort takes away from the tedium. The initial idea was to ride for two hours close to threshold because I have a 50 mile race in April (Circuit of the Dales) that I want to do well in. My training can be very spontaneous – I never really know what I’m going to do until I start cycling. I perhaps try and have a idea, it would be good to do intervals tomorrow, then steady, then rest, then sweet spot or some kind of plan like that. But, it can change and depends on what else is going on in life.

Anyway, today was about preparing for longer time trials at threshold pace. I did 280 watts for first hour, and decided I couldn’t keep that going for two hours. So I went down a gear and did 260 watts for the next half an hour. After 90 minutes I though that was more than enough threshold training for mid February. It was still a pretty big effort for this time of the year.

Sunday was a day off the bike, down in Bristol. Bizarrely the weather was so good, we were sitting outside on a cafe terrace admiring Clifton Suspension Bridge. It was ironic that the only good day of weather in 2014, was a day with no bicycle in sight. Not that I was complaining, I’ve forgotten what it was like to sit in the sun.

The only downside of having a complete day off after a really hard day, is that your legs can suffer the following day. They are a bit stiff today; they would be in better shape if I had done even 30 minutes easy riding or perhaps some stretching.

But, overall, it was a good week – nearly 300 miles (if you include the artificially fast miles on the rollers) 2 hours in 56*15 on the rollers, I give myself 50 miles. Why not? no one is counting my miles, and I do get some joy from filling in virtual mileage charts. I may have a power meter, but I still am enamoured of the old school ‘get the miles’ in approach.

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The cost of congestion in the UK

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 busy-cyclists-high-street

Congestion in Oxford encourages people to take an alternative. Cycling into the centre is significantly quicker at rush hour. Will the forecast increase in congestion lead to a rise in cycling rates in the UK?

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No one likes sitting in a traffic jam, cycle lanes help avoid the worst of the congestion.

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Traffic congestion costs include:

  • time lost
  • increased vehicle operating costs (brakes, fuel costs)
  • Stress of sitting in traffic jams
  • There are both internal costs (to driver) plus external costs to other road users and society.

The CBI estimate that traffic congestion costs the UK economy £20 billion a year. (link) Other estimates of the costs of congestion widely significantly, but you don’t need to be an economist to realise traffic jams going nowhere are an inefficient use of resources.

The big concern is that congestion is expected to increase over the next 20 years, due to rising population and increased use of cars.

Road use and time lost due to congestion

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CBI – UK Road congestion

In 2010, an estimated 19 seconds per mile were lost due to congestion.

By 2035, this is estimated to rise to 32 seconds per mile. This is a 68% increase in congestion from today’s levels.

Solutions to congestion

1. Build more roads. This has been the primary objective of government transport policy from the 1960s to 2000s. The number of roads has increased. But, the limitations of this approach include:

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Going to the Gym

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Gym-titanic

Back in December, I wrote about trying to deal with left-right leg imbalance. (which has often been cause of annual knee problems) On a leg press, the maximum weight I could push was:

  • left leg 56 kg. Right leg 64 kg.

Because of this imbalance, I was working on different exercises to make the left leg stronger. But, then I fell off in Portugal and damaged a muscle (near the left glute / buttock). I was hobbling around on my right leg, and not using my left leg. During recuperation, I could feel my right leg getting even stronger and left leg weaker. (kind of a shame I didn’t fall off on the other side…)

Gym-titanic

Since the injury got better, I have cautiously been trying to do exercises to strengthen the left leg. These are exercises you can do at home. One good exercise is to sit on a chair and then stand up, using just your left leg. I’ve been finding this very hard, and can only manage a couple.

Tues, I went back to the gym, to retest my leg strength. Six weeks after the crash it was:

  • Left leg 54kg. Right leg 71 kg.

It’s not as bad as I feared. But, when I went on the glute machine, here, I could feel a much bigger difference between left leg and right leg.  It was interesting the right leg got stronger from all that hobbling around on one leg. It’s still a significant imbalance, especially in the glutes where I damaged the muscle.

I’m not a great fan of gyms, but for 20 minutes I worked at a number of gym machines – mostly the leg exercises.

I would tend to do double the number of repetitions for the left leg. e.g. 10 with left leg, then just 5 with right leg.

I’m not trying to be an Arnie look alike (like most other people in the gym). so I wasn’t try to force heavy weights. I was just pushing manageable weights and going for a good number of repititions. I preferred the exercise machines to the exercises I was doing at home, which generally involves lifting your own body weight.

The next day, I felt a little stretching of muscles in left leg, so I think I had a good balance and not overdoing it.

Tuesday was actually dry and sunny and usually I would have jumped at chance to go out on bike. but I still chose the gym. Going to the gym for me is like taking unpalatable medicine. You don’t really enjoy doing it, but you hope  it’s good for you.

I only took 20 minutes, so it’s still an expensive £35 a month. But, if it helps avoid injury, it will be money well spent.

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