Saturday, 22 February 2014

Wanted - Miracle Worker

I'm well and truly miserable tonight with nagging lower backache. No matter how I sit or move I can't get any relief. I've spent the whole day rollering, stretching, heat packing, ice-packing all to no avail. I'm just about to give up and take painkillers, closely followed by a glass of wine - damn it!
It's not new, it's just getting gradually worse and what's more frustrating is that I can't seem to find anyone who can hit the nail on the head, identify the problem and sort it. I feel a bit like an old car with an intermittent fault, sometimes its fine and sometimes its not. It's all a complicated network of IT band, SI joint, imbalances etc etc. Over the years I've probably spent a fortune on sports massage and physio. I don't believe in suffering, I believe in sorting. Trouble is, I need a miracle worker on my doorstep as I don't have time to keep travelling further afield. If you are that miracle worker or know of one - please help!
This is where us weekend warriors differ from the pro's. (Well, just one of the many ways!) If I did this for a living I'd have an army of experts at my disposal to get me back on track. Instead, I'm trying to earn a living in order to pay for this very expensive hobby.
However, I have been able to train like a pro this week - the beauty of school holidays. All training completed in daylight; not a single silly o'clock alarm call; plus, I haven't set foot near the turbo - every bike ride has involved grit on my wheels - perfect. I've also been able to pick and choose which day to do what, based on the weather. So that has involved getting wet - every day!
This week's long bike ride was scheduled to be 3-hours, so having perused the Met Office menu, I gave IronPhil the options: "We can either go now, when it's gusting at 22mph; tomorrow at 30mph, or the weekend which is gale force gusts." Needless to say we saddled up and set off in squally showers and a stiff breeze (in Scottish terms that equates to 'blowing a hoolie and p***ng down!') Yet it wasn't too bad until we hit the turnaround point and discovered the stiff breeze was actually a tailwind and we needed to head home in a character-building headwind.
 Demoralising data from the gizmo's revealed that we may as well have stood still for half an hour as we'd covered less ground than last week's much shorter ride! To add to my misery, IronPhil announced that he'd been thinking about my cycling and decided that I must lose concentration when I'm riding because one minute I'm pedalling next to him, the next I just fall behind for "no obvious reason" and he has to slow down for me to catch up. Grrrr - watch this space - I will close that gap!

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