Welcome to the third instalment of Project Best Winter Ever. It’s my first winter as a new dad and these instalments have covered what I’ve been up to over the last few months as I juggle my attempts to continue cycling alongside new dad duties as the light faded, the temperatures dropped and winter set in proper here in the UK.
If you haven’t read it and want to you can check out instalment two here.
What do I want my best winter ever to look like? Well, I’m not training fanatically all winter to take on a full race season that’s for sure. I just want to get through the dark winter months by having fun riding my bike, successfully (for the most part) juggling parenthood with cycling and keeping things stimulating and fresh.
At the last instalment, I’d been doing some local road bike races at the local velodrome, riding outdoors, as well as Zwifting, and was feeling pretty confident about successfully mixing parenting with riding.
Well, guess what Cyclingnews reader, I’m here to tell you things got harder.
What happened? I picked up a bit of a knee injury on the bike – more on that in a second – and our daughter who is approaching 11 months old seemed to depart from her pretty dialled sleeping pattern into a pretty broken one which saw (and continues to see) my partner and I get a lot less sleep. I think it’s a combination of teething and adapting to sleeping in her own room. Either way, riding after a day’s work and three hours of sleep hasn’t been top of my list at times and I’ve been pretty tired to say the least.
Back to the knee. Not long after instalment two I made a pretty amateur mistake and knocked out our Saturday morning club ride of a few hours on a combination of new pedals, new shoes and a new saddle, combined with the first proper outing of my winter bike since last spring. About five minutes from home after a very wet ride I just felt a twinge coming on in my right knee and thought ‘Uh oh’.
The next day cycling to pick my car up from the garage, I had a very painful right knee and a bit of a problem. I like to usually do an easy hour or a couple of rides in new cleats or after a bigger setup change to get used to and check the setup and stop and adjust things if I need to. I failed to do that and paid the price.
I’ve had a few injuries over the years and know by now however frustrating it may be,…
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