Back in the saddle

Weather: More blue sky. Very warm. Maybe about 12 deg C!
Activity: Mountain bike, 24.9km trail and 1337ft ascent
Today'sTune: Glósóli, Sigur Rós
Comment: Yeeeeeeeees!

It's been a long, long week since The Injury and I have been, in the words of my husband, a 'bloody nightmare'. I know this to be true as although I started well and replaced the unavailable cardio with thousands of stomach crunches and countless um...minutes of upper body work, it was only a matter of perhaps 48 hours before I started down the slippery slope into the Five Stages of Injury. The Five Stages of Injury are emotional stages one goes through when unable to participate in ones chosen activity or activities. Its a natural progression but its not pretty. It begins with anger, moves onto desperation, back to anger, slides into inconsolable depths of despair and finally the sufferer resorts to constant comfort eating. I could hear myself. It was awful and I tried to stop but when two of the five stages conspired against me and arrived at the same time (despair and comfort eating) I gave in and wallowed. I know it could have been a lot, lot worse an injury but they do say runners and cyclists make the worst patients. And I am both...

Anyhoooo like the Spring that is springing all around us, I am renewed!

Thank f*ck for that.

And so, under yet another blue sky this afternoon (they did disappear temporarily for previous three days) I headed for the forests in front of us and did 24.9km through, up and around them and managing to join three together. Leg felt fine, in fact I didn't feel leg at all till I got off to walk for a bit. I definitely feel a weakness though, generally. I kept looking at the gears thinking I must have slipped into Death Gear (y'know - the one where you are absolutely positive a 25st sumo wrestler is hanging off the back or that you have inadvertently pedalled into quicksand) but no, I am just weak. Its quite scary how much fitness disappears in a week. Erk. Perhaps though its the extra 2lb I have managed to pile on this past week? Some of that is undoubtedly PMS but there's still at least 1lb unaccounted for. Not sure the toasted bannock with butter during my visit to see a mate on the way back helped either. I suspect though it was mostly something to do with the sticky toffee cheesecake that I absorbed by osmosis on Friday..

Whatever, it was really, really good to be out. I got quite emotional as Glósóli came through my earphones as I stood in the middle of a high clearing in the forest, looking down over the Dee Valley bathed in golden sunlight with two buzzards soaring higher and higher into the deep blue skies above me.

So, I think I'll begin the daily cycle to/fro work again -  tomorrow along the Deeside Way, I think, which surely must be clear of snow now. The hills are still covered but even those have darker patches appearing on their flanks...Kerloch has a bald summit now! Hard to imagine considering it was only last Tuesday I was up it, and up to my thighs in snow!

I'm off with a friend tomorrow afternoon to check out some potential hill running circuits - we're walking them first as they are still under a lot of snow and I've been told I'm not to run for at least another week - I'm quite excited about it though . Always good to get a change of scenery.

Its good to be back :)