Monday, April 23, 2007

Apparently, I lack bike fitness...


The weather had been crappy here for about two weeks and I hadn't gotten time to ride the bike much lately. Thus, sunday was the time to take care of such things. And it was a great ride. I'm still not fit in that my HR is a lot higher (I think) on the bike relative to my run numbers. But a large portion of that is likely attributable to the lack of sport-specific training (again, relative to my running).
So the ride was great. It was 36 miles in sub 2 hours. Just working on slowly building time in the saddle. Great day, enjoyed being outside in the nice spring air. The only problem is that roughly an hour after I got done, I was cramping and my legs were totally sapped. I went to stand up and a pain the likes of which I hope to never experience shot down the inside of my left leg. Apparently my hip adductor was cramping (Thank you Amber for saving me from prolonged pain in knowing how to stretch that thing). In case you're curious, the picture above represents the approximate level of pain I experienced in that 5 minutes. And yes, that is the other guy's foot in that tender area.
So the issue I believe is partially bike fitness, but also related to the strength difference between my two legs. I've been trying to strengthen the one that has had the 4 surgeries, but it feels like I'm running into a wall. This shifts priorities a bit to really working on ironing this out. I don't want to be fighting injuries while training. It also really hinders performance. When the left leg is good, i run faster and bike faster ( I think I swim straighter too.). Regardless, Sam needs some help.

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