The rest of the ride
Sunday’s ride from Towcester to Market Harborouh was a tough day for me, mainly because it proved that i cant yet set off for the rest of the ride. The day was quite frustrating because i forced the pace to be very slow, infact i hardly felt i’d even done a ride at all at the end of the day apart from the fact i couldnt walk! having lots of energy in reserve yet being unable to use any of it was very annoying. I felt like i was an anchor for the rest of the riders, especially towards the end when i had to keep stopping and walking. Im sorry for that, it was probably quite frustrating for everyone. Everyone showed great patience though and no one pushed me to go faster than i could.
The morning after, it was a real struggle to get out of bed, obviously my knee’s had seized over night. I also had physio to look forward to and i knew i was going to have to do the exact things that cause the most pain in order to plan a recovery.
The last time i went to physio, it was quite difficult for them as the problem i had with the IT band healed very quickly so at the time of my visit, i had no pain at all and all the physio could really do was guess at it based on my information. This time though, i was really going to get my monies worth! I had the IT band problem as bad as ever, plus i had pain under both knee caps whenever my legs bend.
It was decided to concentrate on the knee cap issues as i had already been given excercises to do for the IT band problem. after 30-40 minutes of what basically ammounts to ABH! i was sent away with little other than i need to rest, take pills and take it easy when i start riding again. Atleast this was confirmation of what i already suspected. It was nice to hear from the physio though that she didnt think any permanent damage was done and with some rest i should be back to normal.
So where does that leave the ride?
Well, its not over yet. im just not really able to confirm when it will continue. I have a plan to rest it as much as possible this week, if the pains goes i will try a couple of local short rides just to test my legs, then maybe do a longer ride to recover the mileage that is missing from me getting picked up on Saturday, if all goes well i hope to be heading north again within a week. It does rather throw my schedule into dissarray, mainly work commitments and also home commitments. so i will be busy weighing up the options and making re-arrangements this week.
This is a set back i hadnt really prepared myself for, it feels like a failure, doing the ride with a rest gap in the middle feels like its now two trips and just isnt the same as doing Lands End to John O Groats in one.
The problem is, i simply cant set off while my legs are this way, i wouldnt even last a day so i have to be practical about it. Hopefully with a few days rest and some short training rides, i could be ready to set off again soon. Lets just hope i can keep on top of the injuries this time as the remaining distance is much greater than that completed so far.