In the Groove

It’s been a funny old week or so.

As per my training schedule I extended my commute to cover more miles. I hit a milestone of sorts with last week’s route. I now start my commute heading in exactly the wrong direction for work. It feels a little funny but it takes me through parts of Manchester I was previously unfamiliar with. One of the great joys of my training is forever getting to know my home city more and more.

The joy has been adequately counterbalanced however, by the sworn enemy of all cyclists everywhere. That bloody wind.

Spring has kicked up the airflow and I am finding myself frequently riding head on, in to the wind. And when I’m not thrashing and gulping my way in to it I’m having to lean the bike over trying to avoid being taken off sideways by it.

Have you ever been in a rush on a Saturday, trying to fight through the throng of idle shoppers who seem to be precisely and obtusely in your way? You know that frustrated, tense feeling that rises in your chest that makes you want to thrash and scream? Now imagine every single one of those shoppers gives you a firm shove in the shoulders as you rush by. And they are all Mike Tyson so you can’t even complain without fear of an instant de-lobing. That is what riding through wind feels like. There’s nothing you can do but shrink down and power through. I really hate that bloody wind.

Now and then though, the wind will courteously apologise. It gets behind you and pushes you along at physics defying speeds. It truly feels like flying. I am convinced that if I could spread my arms for just a second I'd be up with the sparrows. Every cloud and all that...

Maybe it was the wind, maybe it was the increased distance, and just maybe it was my determination to keep up a relatively high mph, but last Thursday my Achilles tendon piped up. It was grumbling through the afternoon but later as I lay in bed trying to sleep, I felt a burning ache stretch from my heel to the bottom of my calf. I became an instant juxtaposition of worry and pragmatism. With David Beckham’s tendon snapping antics in the news recently I was immediately paranoid and feared the worst. Yet when threatened with hardship I tend to develop an unusual sense of calm in my actions. So the next morning I dug out my ankle support, and quickly decided to keep riding just at a much slower pace and abandoning my training mileage. Gentle non load bearing exercise is good for recovering tendons. It keeps them supple and encourages the blood flow.

In short, after adopting a rather jaunty limp, I got on with it.
Hey presto, after a few days the pain has gone and I’m already back on the training routes. Thank goodness!

The injury has however forced me to slow things down a little. I think previously on my training I was bolting around the city as quick as possible, trying desperately to hold my own amongst the big-ringing, lycra clad speed freaks. But since my brush with injury I have slowed things down, settling for lower gears, letting the sporty types sail past. As I have said before, bicycle touring is an exercise in pressure and time. Until now I think I have been putting too much pressure into too little time, blasting through my training. But my routes are getting longer and powering through them is no longer practical.

I find myself settling back in the saddle, taking in my surroundings more.

I can feel myself getting in to the groove of touring.