Injury niggles

Ouch.

I finally went to the physio after the knee pain I picked up at Sani failed to disappear. I was hoping rest might sort it out, but alas, it didn’t.

 

It turns out that I have a muscle imbalance in my legs. My quads are stronger than my hamstrings and my glutes leading to bad biomechanics and unwanted friction in my knee. Long story short: I need to sort out my body. A weak core and muscles at the back of my legs couldn’t cope with the stresses that my quads are pushing through my knee. The bad form lead to friction on the bursa (small sac filled with fluid that my knee cap rests on) and that is now inflamed. read: very uncomfortable. Even dancing with Alicia in her living room last night irritated my knee again.

 

All those rides where I forced myself to push bigger gears to get stronger didn’t help at all. I built stronger quads, but at the detriment to the rest of my legs.

 

So now I am on anti-inflammatory pills, have a bunch of stretches and exercises to do, and I’m off the bike and off running until next weekend. Then I can ride in Eselfontein (yes please!) as planned, rest the week, and then race in Gans Baai. Obviously I’m not doing any of the hill training I wanted to do for the Gans Baai race, and I might not improve on my time of last year, and I might have a very uncomfortable knee. But I will  still klap it something silly on the race and try to kill myself.

Then we will re evaluate the knee, if it still hurts, I might need to get an injection and more time off the bike. But I’d rather do this and sort out the root of the problem than struggle with more injuries later. I don’t get paid to ride, so it needs to be fun.

 

The focus going forward will be to rehabilitate my knee, build up my core strength, and while I’m at it my upper body as well. Start working for a six pack  in winter and I might just have a flat tummy in summer.

 

I plan to combine running with a bit off cross training off the bike with some fun MTB rides to keep me motivated during the winter and to rebuild my body.

 

Lesson learned: overall strength and a balanced body is more important than strong legs. And don’t push through mechanical pain in your knees.

 

My next post will probably only be after Eselfontein, with lots of cool stories and nothing about my knee or crashes. But to be honest, gammy knee or not, I’m really looking forward to the weekend away.

 

Keep the rubber side down, and look after your bodies.

 

Peace, Love and Understanding

Philip

 

 

 

Post Sani blues

So it is a couple of weeks after Sani and things have quieted down a bit.  Well sort of. I do miss the riding, and I miss the people. But I am also glad to be home again. And I’ve been keeping busy.

Work started with a bang. And is still going strong. Luckily a couple of late nighters and early mornings in the office never killed anyone.

I seem to have picked up a bit of a knee issue at Sani. The last day I had a bit of pain, but pressed through it. Apparently I might have done a bit of damage. Nevertheless, I know a couple of good physios, so will sort it out with  rehab and rest.

After Sani we went to Hermanus for the weekend with my church small group. Hermanus is a cool place. The trails in the Hemel en Aarde Valley is really nice. Go ride it. This is the first time I rode with Kobus and man was it fun! He recently acquired a Giant Trance, and he knows how to ride it like it is stolen. Riding with him is fun. And I really look forward to jamming it with him.

Alicia and I did moonlightmass on Sunday, but this was a bit bigger than we thought. Moonlightmass started as a social experiment on twitter, and is an awareness ride styled on the critical mass movement that takes place every month on full moon. Basically you cruise from under the Green Point circle to the waterfront, down the promenade, back along the fanwalk, up Long Street, down Loop and then end in Greenmarket square for a beer and pizza. Well we skipped the beer and pizza. But it was pretty fun. There was about 900people (guesstimate) of all shapes and sizes and walks of life. Even Helen Zille joined in. This was the first time Alicia rode a bike since school, and to be honest I don’t think it was the right place to get started, but nevertheless, she persevered like a champ. People were pretty much riding all over the show and weaving like crazy (think Argus at the back) so Alicia was pretty nervous almost the whole time. But I am proud of her. Maybe we’ll try it again if she is more confident on the bike, and preferably not on my jumpbike.

I did a Tablemountain ride last weekend, and for the joke I did most of the ride in one gear. Turns out it is doable on one gear ratio, and pretty fun at that too. So now I don’t have an excuse to not finish building my single speeder. I need to work on the Merida anyway, and I have time on Saturday, so I reckon I’ll be finishing most of it on Saturday.

I started jogging again, but uphill it is more like fast walking. Anyway... last night I went for a little run in Tablemountain (I really love this mountain) and halfway up Kloofnek (cycling up is a lot easier than jogging it up) I realised it is getting dark. Oops. Luckily I’m not afraid of the dark and bargained that the lack of lights in the mountain will aid my night vision. It worked. The light rain that started falling just added to the ambience. It was glorious! Trail running is fun. Trail running in the night with rain is amazing. At the furthest point on the run  I stopped to look out over the city. With the slight rain in the air, all the lights seemed softer. It was beautiful. Later on last night we caught a bunch of guys breaking into a car. I chased after the one, but he got away. Too much running for one night. Luckily we caught his mate inside the car still and he got arrested.

Looking forward I have a Eselfontein weekend with Werner and a couple of downhillers coming up. Should be interesting, and the weekend after that it is the Gans Baai race. This is one of my favourite races and I am really looking forward to this. If I can sort out the knee and do enough hill training in the meantime I should have a decent pair of legs for this race. Bring on the race face! To top it off we are getting a lekker crew together for the weekend, so it is looking good.

But in the meantime, I think a Tokai ride is in order. With half of the local MTB’ers off to Robertson for the Wacky Wine race, I reckon we might have the trails to ourselves.

Cheers all

Hopefully I’ll see some of you on the mountain.

Philip