That didn't seem too bad

After 17 days away from my bike and with pretty limited exercise to compensate I made the most of the glorious autumn weather and managed a sneaky 40 km. Am pleased to report that I didn't rip the wound open as the doctors feared would happen if I rode to early and even better the ride itself did not seem to kill me!

The most important lesson from today however was to never underestimate the value of chamois cream!!!

Despite the positiveness of today's roll I am pretty sure it was sensible decision to not enter the Canberra Tour which is on this coming weekend.

In the meantime, this little break has been the perfect time for the kitchen renovation that the Engineer and I have been undertaking. I don't think I would have been able to survive the renos if I had been in full training- my only cooking appliances are a rice cooker, a small electric skillet and a microwave. I think I am actually craving some pasta! You can see pics of that project over at: http://doolamaticdrs.wordpress.com/

This what my wound is currently looking like (post ride and shower), it has been covered with opsite since the stitches came out. (Read more about wound care over at Cycling Tips- everything in Wade's post is consistent with what I learnt from the AIS nurses and my mum)

And to help you be rid of the image of my gummy knee, this is what you are missing out on if you are not cycling in Canberra in autumn- it was just like this this morning!

Patience and patients- there is a reason the two are homonyms

I am aware that it has been a long time between drinks here at Team Becstar. Sorry about that.

I had hoped to have been able to tell you about a cracking ride at the Oceania ITT (17 March) but it was not to be. Leading up to the race I'd had all sorts of dramas with my back and was having trouble training properly. There were many visits to the physio and managed to get it settled and actually hadn't missed too much training at all. I had been pretty happy with my preparation before that and was pretty confident that this was not a major set back. This time I was a patient patient and things looked good.

Unfortunately on race day things just didn't go the way I had visualised them. I felt good on the bike, I had a perfect warm up etc but something just wasn't quite right. My cadence was good, but the power just didn't seem to be matching up with it. At the end of the day all I can say is that the intention was good, it just doesn't work for me and we need to approach things a little differently.

Post Oceanias the original plan had been to have a short break, but I thought throwing myself back into training would be better for me mentally. Impatient patient I was to soon find out. I had been training well and things were looking good for a good lead up to the Canberra Tour. Until the club race where I cracked. All the energy that I had thrown at training post-Oceanias coupled with juggling work finally ran out. I had to DNF on a local course that I am really quite fond of but just lacked the mental stamina for.

That was the week before the Mont 24 hour. I took the opportunity to freshen up mentally in the early part of the week, finding some patience! And was also not hating my bike too much. Then it all went pair shaped again.

The Thursday before the 24 hour we thought it would be a good idea to test our lights and all that jazz before. Mick from Onya in Belco had sorted me out with an excellent set of Nitelights and I was keen to see how they performed on the dirt. It was all going so well and then it was all going so wrong.

Flying along one of the single tracks on Mt Stromlo I suddenly found myself crashing onto my left side. At the time it didn't hurt that much. Looking down at my leg it seemed to be a bit of a cut to my left knee and some grazing, and there wasn't too much blood. I got back on my bike and caught up to Matt.

"How did you find that?" he asked. "Pretty good and I don't think there is too much blood" He had no idea that I had crashed and was as surprised as I was as the section was fast and flowing but certainly not technical. He took a look at my knee and declared that it really was quite bad and that we should call it a night.

To get to the point, the cut actually needed 3 stitches and a course of antibiotics to go with it. And to make it worse- no pedalling until the stitches were removed. Not only that, but there were no other exercise options- stitches must stay dry. And to not put any extra strain on them I had to try and keep my leg straight.

The stitches stayed in for 7 days but when they were removed I was told at least another week of no pedalling as it wasn't healed enough.

Whilst it has been very difficult doing relatively nothing for 2 weeks, the sensible side of me knows this has probably been a blessing in disguise if I am to achieve anything on the bike this year. Why is it that it takes being a patient to recognise the importance of being patient?