“Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.” Lou Holtz

"I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand." Confucius

Monday 30 April 2012

TT at Wangaratta and Alex update

Wangaratta
This is a race I've ridden before and so I was planning to use it as an indicator of my current fitness..however...when I got there...late as always...I discovered that they were not using the "T' course as it was now considered too dangerous.  The reason given was: it's a 100kph road, with 2 u turns required and with cyclists on both sides of the road.....etc etc ..but since there were only 14 entrants my feeling was that this reasoning was a trifle precious......whatever.  Instead we had a flatter course..2 laps of a square, which turned out to be 19.7km in total.  No matter it would still be a good test.

My front wheel had shifted a bit on the journey and so after fixing that I set off for a brief warm up on the road to check the gears, brakes and direction of the wind.  All *seemed * ok.

And they're off.

I was working hard, but a quick glance down at the Garmin 500 showed a slower speed than I should have been seeing...WTF? my legs were burning.  (Side note: I had a killer gym session on Monday which left me unable to walk properly until Thursday..so perhaps that was the reason?)

I completed the race in a time that was definitely not what I wanted to see...dead roads and a bit of a head wind on one section, balanced on the other side of the "square" by a tail wind but the kph was ~2-3 lower than my ideal.....NOT happy.  Cruising along cooling down I heard an odd noise from the bike and on checking closely, REALLY closely, 'cos at first glance there was nothing wrong, I realised that one of the front  brakes  was not sitting parallel to the wheel and was rubbing slightly at the back.  I spun the wheel and ooohhh dear.  Before the race  I'd checked them by just looking down from above a hadn't done a spin check.  Bugger.

Sunday was spent sorting out the problem and going for a test ride..much better. 

Alex update

During my professional life of some 50+ years I have frequently told my patients to be "guided by pain/lack of pain" and "your body will tell you when it's ready to  progress".  All of which is true but not, it would appear, in Alex's case, 'cos here we are 9 days post op and since day 2 he's not needed to take any pain killers and as a result cannot be "guided by pain".  He's been pushing the boundaries while I've been worriedly nagging in the background.  At least when working I don't get to see what my patients are doing when I'm not around!

He goes back to the surgeon on Friday, which is 2/52 post op and  he/we is/are going to need step wise clear instructions on what the limits are. 

Currently he's busy selling things on ebay to raise money to pay me back for his medical bills. (!)

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