It’s been 5 days now since I last rode on my bike. Five days since I really hurt my knee. Well, both knees. Bad times.
Each day I’ve been waking up expecting either to feel better. But they haven’t. If anything, they’ve felt a bit worse.
It seems a little foolish to have got back on the bike with bad knees. Maybe it was a bad idea. Time will tell.
I decided to start off with an easy 10km. I’d assess how I felt, and then adapt accordingly.
Going “slow” feels like I’m slacking off. It’s really hard to go slow. Also, the lack of resistance in the granny gears feels like it is worse for my knees than having at least a little something to push against.
Getting back on the bike, and getting the pedals turning felt good though. The knee pain wasn’t there. I felt good. The problems in my knees are not with them moving up and down. It’s more of a twisting pain.
If anything, I think it’s possibly to do with having to twist my leg to unclip my foot / cleat from the pedal.
Another potential cause may be my saddle position. I’m still not suitably happy with it. I keep finding myself pushing myself back every few minutes.
I tried to book a bike fit today. I figured if I can avoid all this falafel by just paying to get rid of my problems, that would be money well spent. However, after ringing three different local bike shops / bike fitters, I found them all solidly booked up until early July. Man alive. I’m in the wrong business.
I think I might book in anyway.
With my knees feeling alright, I decided to try a five minute effort at ~200w.
This turned out to be about 220w, which on well rested legs felt good. I was sweating, puffing, and panting, but happy to be getting some exercise instead of sitting on my arse doing nothing.
That said, I still don’t like exercising in the evening. A belly full of pie is no way to ride.
Without a few more km’s in the saddle, I’m not yet happy having a blast at a sprint. Even so, on the first attempt round I’d come 144th of 147th. This time round I had to do a little better.
No out of the saddle jiggery pokery though. Just pushing along at a steady pace.
My times tonight were of no real importance to me. Which is good as they were bad.
As I sit here typing this my knee feels about as bad as it has done for the last 48 hours. No better. No worse. It’s definitely not great.
I genuinely think the most damage I did to it tonight was in getting off the bike at the end of my ride. It felt like the noticeable twisting motion of unclipping was a possible route cause.
I’d had some grand visions of doing a 50km ride this week if my knees felt better. I have no idea how feasible this is. I have a very busy weekend ahead, and few days left aside from this.
I’m aiming to get back on the bike tomorrow. It will be another evening ride. Maybe a workout. Maybe that 6 repeat efforts at a low intensity would be a good one.
20kms. 333 calories. If only I could have found a decent podcast to listen to, this ride would have ticked all the boxes.
It’s good to be back.