In my last post, the ‘rona had hit and I was hoping that I’d be back on my bike or running quickly. Of course, that absolutely didn’t happen. I’ve always had a weak chest (hence my name on the blog) but exercise has allowed me keep heavy coughs and cold away. After the initial flu like symptoms receded, it then went to my chest in quite a big way and I have spent the last 3 weeks coughing. I took two weeks off completely after Christmas and I started to feel better. Simon and Dale invited me out for a Sunday ride and as I hadn’t teamed up with them since October I went out, on the proviso that we’d keep it short and not tough. We headed off down to the Milk Churn for their world famous cheese on toast but within 15 minutes I was on the deck. We hit a patch of ice on the back of Boxhill, my front wheel went from underneath me and I ended up sliding 15 metres on my back, almost overtaking Simon who somehow managed to stay upright. Dale was following behind and he managed to stay upright by crashing into the hedge. I dusted myself off and was absolutely fine, and I had barely a scratch. I was extremely lucky and we got back on to gingerly make our way to the coffee stop.
The problem came after the ride, 4 hours later. We’d climbed Leith Hill on the way back and I felt awful at the top, completely over-exerting myself with my heart rate through the roof, on top of a multiple hour ride in temperatures barely above freezing. I ended up basically feeling that bad for the next two weeks, which meant I did no exercise at all, save for my 10 minute ride to and from work each day. It was of course, completely my own fault for not just doing an easy hour on Zwift. It was simply too much too soon, again.
So this week I was feeling a lot better. My coughing had stopped and I put together a little plan to get on Zwift and start getting my power to weight ratio numbers heading in the right direction, so on Monday it was a steady effort on Stage 5 of The Tour de Zwift with a bit of an effort over the last 5 minutes. Not great, but at least I felt I had both lungs working again and I could start doing some crash training for the 200k audax in February, after having to dns the first one. Finally, I was getting back on track.
Riding home from work on Tuesday I was on pretty much the last corner before I turn to home. Before I knew it, the front wheel had gone from underneath me and I was down. I’ve come off a bike a fair few times in the last 30 years and usually, like the box hill ride earlier in the month, I have dusted myself down and other than a few scrapes I’ve been ok. I was going at no more than 10mph but I don’t think I’ve ever hit the ground as hard as I did in this one. It happened so quickly that I was still holding the bars when I hit the road fully on my left hand side, completely winding me. All the air was forced out of my lungs so that for what seemed a stupidly long time but was probably only a few seconds, I couldn’t breathe. Somehow, I managed not to break anything, I think because I hit the ground so flatly on my side, but my ribs were given a pretty extreme stress test and I’ve got a couple of very sore points on my side and back. I seized up overnight and I couldn’t get my clothes on or move without a lot of whinging and moaning. Things are still pretty sore and I’m probably looking at another 4 or 5 days off the bike, at least. I simply can’t breathe deeply without my ribs hurting so even moderate exercise is not going to happen.
Yes, January has been shit.
