Bloody Typical!

Amazing weather for a Bank Holiday weekend and I was laid up with a sore knee.
Read about my sore knee here.

To make matters worse, I wake up Tuesday morning to the sound of rain, but hardly any pain in my knee.
The stretches and foam roller have worked.

Gutted that I missed out on a few rides, and also I couldn't do much with my family because of the pain.
But pleased that the pain is over.

What have I learnt?

I want to do more and more cycling, and to do this I need to look after my body, especially as I've got previous rugby injuries to deal with.
Therefore I will be starting a stretching and strengthening program to try to prevent the injuries, rather than fixing them when they happen.
The main focus will be building up my core strength and my stabilizing muscles in my ankles, knees and hips, I've got a wobble board somewhere in my shed.

Any tips, advice or good websites to check out will always be welcome.

My New Best Friend!

This is a picture of my new foam roller I got from Absolute Running in Gosport.

Unleash Hell

You lie on it in all different positions and roll backwards and forwards on it, and when you find a particularly painful spot, you rock back and forwards on that spot.
Those lumps are designed to inflict even more pain.
I'm reliably informed that it is meant to hurt a lot.

It has worked though, my hip/knee feels a lot better.

Unfortunately, I've been hobbling around so much that my ankle is a mess now.

I'm going to try going for an easy bike ride soon as I'm bored of being injured.

Spot The Difference?

This is meant to show how swollen my left knee is, which has hampered my cycling this week.

It is an old condition relating to my iliotibial band which pulls my knee cap off to one-side.
I also twisted my pelvis many years ago playing rugby, so there are lots of issues.
Being a driving instructor doesn't help either as I'm stuck in one position for too long.

It happens quite often, but usually I hobble upstairs, do a couple of stretches and its right by the morning.
Other times cycling seems to help loosen everything up.

But not this time!
Nothing seems to be working.
At the weekend it was so difficult to get comfortable at all, day or night, that when I was lying on the floor doing some stretches, I must have got comfortable because I fell asleep under a table.

The main problem is that I'm reactive when it comes to my stretching, only starting when I feel the pain.
As I'm trying to do more and more cycling it needs to become part of my training regime to try to prevent the problems, rather than just cure them.
I know it will save me a lot of time and pain.

I've heard about rollers that you lie on, but I've never used one. Do they work, which one is best?

April - tick!

4th month in a row hitting my monthly target of 130 miles. I've just gone over 600 miles for the year. This time last year I had only done 263 miles.

Highlights of the month were completing the Meon Valley Riser in under 4 hours 10 which was the bronze standard. You can read the write up here.

The second highlight was making it up Harvesting Lane, which goes up Butser Hill. I had to walk up it during The Riser, so it was great to be able to tackle it again and beat it. Check it out here.

The third highlight was getting Haribo Joe back out on his bike, first time since his operation, it's good to have him back.

I'm doing well with my cycling goals, but my weight loss has slowed down a bit. But I'm refocused on that part as I know losing the weight will help with those hills. I like to think that I eat a pretty healthy diet, fresh veg etc, but portion size is still my problem.