Knee update: 2 solutions

I've rested the knee for a week. I've driven to work with the rest of the cagers for the last five days. I haven't run my usual 6 miles per week. All I've done is lift some weights [avoiding squats, lunges and deadlifts].
I was very eager to get back on the bike today so I leapt out of bed at 6:30 ready for action. By 8am I was at Jonnie's and the poor guy was still in his dressing gown!
On the road at 8:20 we were prepared for a soaking. Happily, the BBC weather got it all wrong and our ride was a dry one! I chose a shortish ride to test the knee - a total of 22 miles through places like Packwood and Henley, finishing with our usual ride through Tanworth and the 3 mile time trial back to Jonnie's.
It was a quick fun ride, with beautiful scenery. In a playful mood, we decided early on that Jonnie was to be Contador and dance up the climbs while I was being Froome with some serious high-cadence stem-staring.
The knee? Today it was almost back to normal. I was so relieved to find that all I had to contend with was a dull ache after dashing up some of the steepest hills in the area. Of course, the resting of the legs must have helped the knee to recover but I also had two not-so-secret weapons with me. The first was a change of pedals: The terrible Toys-R-Us quality pedals that the Specialized was supplied with were hurting my feet and may have been having an adverse effect on the knee. I spent some quality fettling time on Saturday and managed to construct some Frankenstein pedals out of some bodies from Deadly Dan and some French toe clips taken from the Holdsworth. They were dramatically more comfortable and must have taken some of the pressure off the knee. My second solution was to wear an elasticated bandage donated by my mother during a visit on Saturday. It seems to have worked a treat!

22.53 miles at 14.3mph. A fun ride with a good result for the knee! Phew.
Next week, 40 miles heading out to Alvechurch, perhaps?

Kenilworth Castle Knee Explosion

Another Sunday ripe with possibilities.
Jonnie and I made a difficult decision and opted for a road ride rather than joining Gary, Deadly and Craig at the Wyre forest for some off-road fun. The main reason was Jonnie's new Shimano shoes and pedals which he was eager to try out. This would be the first time that either of us had been 'clipped-in'.

As it turned out, Jonnie rode as if he'd been clipped in all his life! I never saw him hesitate at any junction during the whole ride - impressive stuff. He said the Shimano gear was comfortable and easy to use. For a fraction over £100, that's got to be good. [Shotokancyclist is not sponsored by Shimano, BTW].
Jonnie took us out to Kenilworth Castle. On a beautiful sunny morning it was a delightful ride, if a little busy on some of the roads.

The only downside was the fact that my bad knee has started to play up at about the 10 mile mark. By 22 miles, the pain was ruining my ride and I was scared of really injuring myself. I owned up and told Jonnie that I had to head home. Unfortunately, it meant cutting our ride short and we only completed 36 miles. However, the average time of 14.1mph was still Jonnie's personal best and, without my aching knee slowing us down, he could have easily approached the magic 15mph mark.

The Majors Series - 5k in the mud

We were lucky with the weather. The cold grey start gave way to a brighter, less chilly morning without much wind. Sally [wife of Uncle Jonnie] was kind enough to drive four of us out there. The other competitors from South and City College Birmingham were at the 10K distance and had already set off. We had entered ourselves for the much saner 5K event.

The warm-up consisted of being shouted at by a soldier who looked a bit like Jessie from Obese: A Year to Save My Life. The ladies and Steve were suitably impressed. Private Jessie had us spinning round arm in arm, lying on our backs in the mud and jumping up and down doing high-fives before I could say 'WTF is this sh!t?'

The actual start was a hesitant few steps into wet grass and mud before realizing that the whole course was ankle deep in grey filth. Then I just started running in it and hoping that the ankles held up to the punishment...

The plan had been to run with Steve but he was being much more sensible and taking it easy on the slippery stuff. Then came the first real obstacle - imagine coming across a watery bog surrounded by broken, barren trees. Obviously, you'd turn back or try to find a way round. But apparently not when you're running one of these assault courses, that would be considered bad form. So it was that I found myself in a long line of other horrified Karrimor-clad people, nipples deep in freezing brown water and ankles deep in thick, sucking mud. After wading, dragging and stumbling out of the bog, I was then expected to run up a hill or two and then wade across a lake. Yes, a lake. Up to my chest in freezing cold lake. Then to wade across another bit of the lake. And then another bit. After that, a spot of mud running/stumbling, then a hill... you get the picture.

Actually the pictures are here. You just need to type in my number: 0396.

The big disappointment for me came after about 3K, just before the hill slide: a queue. Not a queue of about 10 or 12 people, but a queue of about 50, maybe more, A queue that lasted minutes. A queue where people behind me could push past to catch up with their friends at the front of the queue. And that was okay, apparently. It really did beg the question: why was I wearing a timing chip? Would it time how long I spent queuing? Would it count how many red-faced chubby girls elbowed me out of the way so that they could stand next to the rest of the girls from the local ASDA? The hill slide itself was great fun, especially the bit where I did a 180 half way down and found myself hurtling head first instead of feet first.

Disappointingly, there was another huge queue for the barbed wire obstacle, a queue which I obediently stood in to the point where I started shivering. 15 minutes ago I had been sweating. The obstacle itself was crap - a crawl through the mud under barbed wire. Unfortunately, the mud was laced with rocks. Lucy and I had a lovely collection of cuts and bruises on our knee-caps to compare later on.

The ending of the event was great. I made a mad sprint for the line although who I was competing against at the time I have no idea. Perhaps I considered myself a young, muddy Seb Coe being chased down by the horribly working class and equally muddy Steve Ovett? Whatever I was thinking, head back and panting, I crossed the line a happy, filthy 39 year old in a muddy field near Tamworth.

I managed to raise about £120 for MacMillan nurses over my 2 event challenge [I did the Mad March Hare cycle ride 6 days earlier] as well as testing my ability to complete a messy, demanding event like this. The big surprise [besides queuing] was the fact that I ran the whole thing. I suppose I'm actually fitter than I thought I was. A few more weekend beers and slices of bread pudding should sort that out, though.

Big love and thanks to: Lucy, Sally, Naomi, Steve, Natasha, Raye, Clare, Craig the Bear, Laurie, Jo and all of my sponsors.