Right then. A proper bike ride, outside as well, albeit at a bit of a granddad pace. And the calorie burn was… quite poor. But still, every little helps.
I would be lying if I said I hadn’t been itching to get out on my bike for the last week or so. I can handle a week off, but after that I’m starting to crave physical exercise. A marked change from the first 36 years of my life, I’ll admit, but that’s where I’m at now, in my twilight years.
I did try to go out – too early after my crash – and that turned out to be a fail. However, these last three or four days have been a marked improvement, to the point where I would have gone out yesterday… but. But indeed. I went for a covid booster shot on Monday and that absolutely wiped me out yesterday. Honestly at this point I feel like I’m about 50% penicillin, what with all the drugs I have in my body. However I feel, if anything, that makes me closer to a pro cyclist than ever before.
Heading out today, it was damp but thankfully not raining. I picked a route I’ve done many times before and resolved to take it easy. Anything above 140bpm would be silly, I was sure.
On the positive side, there was no pain at all going over bumps. This is a massive improvement from where I was about a week ago. Also my arm wasn’t suffering as I feared, as it has been numb over the past 24 hours from that covid shot. All good there.
Less good would be the continued pain right in the centre of my chest whenever my heart rate went above 140bpm, or if I take a very deep breath. I’m fairly sure this is some kind of internal bruising or something, nothing I’m overly worried about. But it was enough to put paid to any silly business.
Instead I just kinda pootled around. Keeping a high cadence or putting down any sort of power wasn’t coming easy to me by any means. Perhaps I’d over dressed. At ~14c I was badly layered – jacket, gilet, long sleeve jersey, long sleeve base layer, bib tights… heck, I’d almost put on my shoe covers. But yeah, I’m thinking there’s going to be a good few weeks of recovery riding to get back up to anything approximating where I was at.
On that front I also think there’s at least a couple of weeks remaining before I’m feeling like I’m able to do more strenuous activities – like climbs. That chest pain needs to be fully resolved.
Hopefully I still feel decent tomorrow. After my last ride I felt bad after it, but worse the next day. I’m not anticipating that this time as I feel fine enough right now. Hopefully I’ve not just jinxed it.
Ultimately I just want to be able to get in some rides over the Easter weekend. If I’ve done anything to jeopardise that I will be gutted.
