August 2013 Update

The comeback continues. In my last update, I wrote about how I’d sprained my knee playing football, and how I was worried it had jeopardised my participation in the upcoming 10k road race run and 75km cycle to Edinburgh I’d signed up for.

Thankfully, the knee appears to have healed quite well over the last nine weeks, due mostly to a period of enforced rest from exercise I guess. Four weeks after the original injury, I’d attempted to play football again, and I just didn’t feel right the following day. However, two and a half weeks ago, lying on my bed on a comfortably warm and sunny Sunday afternoon, I decided that it was too nice a day not to get out for half an hour or so on the bike.

Thankfully, there was no major reaction from the joint this time. Encouraged by that, I’ve logged 118.3km in the last 18 days. 50.4km of that was accounted for by a 3 hour long ride out to Lochwinnoch and back last Sunday, which equates to roughly two-thirds of the distance of the Pedal for Scotland course. With that challenge being less than five weeks away, I’m now feeling a little more confident about my ability to last the distance than I was in July.

I managed to get out for a run as well last Saturday. I’m still making quite a slow pace, but I’m more wary about what running will do to my knees than the cycling. In fact, the app I use suggest I should be running three times a week, rather than the once I’m currently managing. We’ll see if that changes over time, but at the moment I’m working towards completing the 10k in less than an hour. I’ve potentially only another two training sessions before the race though.

In other fitness news, my college assignment is (hopefully) done and dusted, so I’m getting back into the gym, and last night my sister and I attended our first Muay Thai class. I’m still not sure where I stand on pugilism, but her neighbour runs the class, and she asked me if I wanted to go…

I did karate for six months or so last year, and I am intrigued by the notion of being able to handle myself, ostensibly for self-defence purposes, but…I do like punching things. This may represent a way for me to dissipate my permanently tumultuous anger in a controlled fashion.

Interestingly, the instructor asked me what hand and foot I preferred, and when I told him the left, he suggested I adopt the southpaw stance. However, the vestiges of the karate training led me to continually fall naturally into an orthodox stance (you learn the orthodox stance in karate, regardless of your limb dominance). My sister also suggested that my right hand was more powerful, although I don’t know if that’s because I was attempting to punch harder with that hand. Anyway, aside from the combat element, it was an extremely good hour’s workout.

I won’t update again until the second week of September. By then I should have completed both my 10k and my bike ride. Wish me luck!