A Very Good Day!

Today instead of going for a walk or run after completing my exercises in the house I got my bicycle out of the garage and I was going to push it to the field near us, like I did on Monday, however after initially pushing it a few metres down the road it felt so very stable so I was confident I wouldn’t fall off, this is probably due to the extra weights I stuck on the rim, so I rode it down the road to the field!!! I continued to ride across the field on the footpath, all the gears are now fixed, I changed down to the bottom ring and rode right along the entire length of the field. I rode back along a tarmac footpath that runs next to the field. I stopped at the end of the road back to our house because my legs where tired, and to think I used to cycle over 100 miles, I then rode home!

It all seems so easy to do this must be due to the fact that I have got my legs back into shape and improved my balance on my tandem, using my bicycle with stabilisers bolted on, and doing core exercises five days a week. I have also improved the stability of the bicycle making it harder to fall off by sticking weights to the rims. Also I have done my initial test rides on a flat grassy field whilst wearing a crash helmet and cycling gloves thus making falling off less likely to hurt too much.

After being VERY jubilant about my cycling I then proceeded to the swimming pool. I got  in the pool wearing my buoyancy aid as normal, buoyancy aids are floats worn around the torso. I proceeded to do 10 lengths of the pool quite easily to warm up, I then took off my BA and swam 3/4 of a length. When it was clearly too deep to touch the bottom, I panicked because I would need to swim ‘out of my depth’ to complete the length and start from the deep end so I swam to the side.

I started swimming at the deep end of the pool and got all the way to the shallow end without standing up at all, then tried it again just to be sure. I swam my first two lengths of a freshwater swimming pool since my accident in Easter 2006!

 

 

 

I Still Like Riding On My Bike, Properly!

Yesterday I took the stabilisers off of my mountain bike, cut the seat post so that it could be lowered right down and I had lead car wheel weights stuck to my rims, between every other spoke, making the bicycle harder to accelerate and brake but also very much harder to make the wheels turn off axis i.e. fall over, ask a physicist or the net if you don’t understand the reason why after all I’m a design engineer not a wordsmythe so I’m better at drawing than explanation!
Anyway back to what I was writing, I pushed the bike over to the local grass playing field where there is a narrow downhill tarmac footpath which has grass either side so it would hurt less when I fell off. One key thing in my favour is that Storm Jonas has just started to make the field nice and wet so a soft landing when I fell off! I started at the top of the path and quite easily rode down it then steering onto the grass on purpose and rode across half a football pitch. The bike was jammed in the big ring at the front, probably my fault but now sorted, so I only rode twice more on the grass and the gear was just too big to push around, but I didn’t fall off!
All of the balance and core exercises I do 5 days a week are definitely worth it as I have started cycling properly again which I absolutely love doing and it’s for the first time since my accident nearly 10 years ago!

Straight Leg

As I have written I can now run again the only trouble is that sometimes I run with a straight right knee. I run on a grassy field so less impact than tarmac but my back, hips, and right knee hurt after running.

I have run most of a week that resulted in me getting sore quadriceps which I figured was down to my knee being bent upon impact with the floor unfortunately I can’t remember if my back was sore or not due to that being a few months ago.

So I thought the way forward for me was to keep trying to run as the distance I could run, currently 15-20 metres, would increase and my style would improve, so no straight leg. A couple of weeks later at a class I attend they focussed on us having a straight leg and gave us exercises to help counteract this. From then on I focussed on my leg, unfortunately this has meant that it is straight and injured my back, hip, & knee, again.

I have regressed to trying to walk with a slightly bent knee also using a trike. Without this I can’t walk for more than 3 strides without my leg becoming straight, that maybe because thinking about it makes it worse.

I don’t know what to do now, I thought I would be able to overcome this problem on the supportive treadmill at the Clear unit in Oxford Brookes but now this appears to have been closed 😦 sad.

I am doing various stretches and core muscle strengthening work every day, I also walk my dog for an hour. Maybe I should walk using the Petra Running Trike on alternate days?
What should my program consist of the get my knee to bend upon impact with the ground. Strengthen my right hamstring which is weak?

Trouble is I love running and the progress back to it.