I Hate following my own advice! (week 2)

A Diary of Injury Recovery II

I’m posting this series in the hope that it will be helpful and instructive for others.

So, the first two weeks of this weren’t a lot of fun.  I didn’t need to work too hard at not overdoing it.  Just about any time I tried to do much of anything, it turned around and bit me.

I wasn’t doing any training.  My usual routine includes morning stretching and core strengthening and toning exercises.  Those were just out of the question.  Yes I did ride, but at a very easy pace, and for much shorter intervals.  My morning spins or rides were dropped from my schedule too.

None of this took a lot of discipline.  Frankly, things just hurt too stinkin’ much to allow for more.

Basically, in this, the second week post-injury, I was kind of probing at the edges of the thing.  I was testing.  I know that exercise promotes healing, but…  too much, or too soon and the effect is to aggravate the injury, prolong the recovery period, possibly even do more damage.

I was testing, attempting that third step in the injury recovery process

“During the healing period, maintain light, healthy, non-aggravating exercise.”

I was trying to determine if I was ready for step three, and just how much was “light” and “non-aggravating.”

Below is the timeline continued.  This is the second week of the whole thing:

 Wed 24 April:  No riding.  The usual evening Path Ride was rained out, and I was Thankful!  Not doing much more than going to work and hurting.

Thurs 25 April: I led the easy part of this year’s first weekly Novice Road Ride.  It was a pleasant ride of about 17 miles, but I was being nagged by low level back and rib pain throughout.  I caught a ride home.  By the time I got home my back was on fire.  By this point I was getting really tired of taking NSAIDs.  My stomach wasn’t liking t much either.

Fri 26 April:  NO RIDING!!  I can take a hint already.  Took the day as easy as I could, and did nothing that was not absolutely necessary.

Sat 27 April:  I slept a bit later and drove down to Peachtree City.  I was able to ake the Saturday Morning Path Ride out.  It’s a very mellow, recreational paced, short ride.  It didn’t seem to trigger any kind of bad result.  This was my Saturday off for the month, so I didn’t need to work.  I spent the day resting, with the occasional NSAID dosage to reduce pain.

Sun 28 April:  I was feeling better for the rest day on Saturday.  I wanted to get out and move around a bit.  Of course the weather was pretty awful.  So I geared up for the rain, waited out one strong thunderstorm, and went.  It rained.  A lot.  I got soaked and a bit cold.  The ride was only 19.5 miles, and I took it easy, spending one hour and forty minutes.  I felt “okay” while out ther, but after I got home and cleaned up my rib and back went into extreme pain again.  Okay.  A bit much right then.  Clearly I needed to back off more.

Mon 29 April:  I went to work, was careful about lifting and moving, and went home.  I wasn’t comfortable, but things were showing an incremental improvement.  No riding and no training of any kind.

Tues 30 April:  After work I went out for a gentle and short road ride.  It felt goo to get out, and the short duration, low effort ride of 11.9 miles in just over an hour  didn’t trigger any unpleasant side effects.  Good!