01-03-19
Got back to the UK from the USA after a really uncomfortable flight and no sleep for 28 hours.
Slept for most of the day so no training.
02-03-19
Think I may have sold my Meybo frame that I used in the USA already. Dropped it and my ONYX wheels off to a friends house for their son to try out. Took the rest of the day as it was raining.
04-03-19
Got up and did a weigh in and I am back up to 105.60 kgs so a lot of work to do to get in shape for the first race of the season at Burnham at the end of the month. Didn’t get time to go to the track today as I had a doctors and a vet appointment and it was also raining really hard so I slept instead.
05-03-19 – 16-03-19
Haven’t really ridden at all as my knee isn’t good at all. I have managed to drop 1kg since my first weigh in to 104.60 kgs which isn’t bad seeing as I haven’t done anything really.
Need to get back into riding as I have my first race in a week.
I plan to park further away from my work from now on so that I start riding into work every day and get some exercise as I got used to doing that in the USA and am really missing it. I think that I may start going to the skate park on the way to work too to get working on my bike skills especially manuals and bunny hops. I am going to use my street bike and also the dialled 20″ as my commuting bikes for the time being as I do not want to leave my cruiser outside work all day. I am fine leaving either the park bike or the dialled outside of work as they are not worth too much money.
I have also got back into drinking a lot of coke again so I need to cut theat out too.
24/03/19
After practically no riding this week I had my first weigh in with the new Bluetooth scales and it wasn’t good news. 105.4kgs which is just over 40kgs over my ideal boy weight of 64.2kgs according to the scales app. This is a bit unrealistic as in my prime I was 70-72kgs and I spent all day everyday playing basketball and volleyball.
I am going to set a target of 80kgs as my target weight and then see how it goes.
It was the first regional of the year at Burnham today too but after getting up early and driving down there I decided not to ride as my knee was hanging and I didn’t want to make it worse. It turned out to be a good move as we raced in age groups due to an admin mistake which made the day much harder for everyone.
The wind also got progressively worse as the day wore on so pretty glad I wasn’t racing.
Had a chat with my coach and he said for me to decide what I want to do going forwards regarding the knee. I can either plug on through the pain or shut it down for the season and get healthy and in shape for next season.
I am mulling it over now.
25/03/19
As we start our new shift pattern this week I only start work on Friday so I have 4 days to spend at the track. I have decided that since I hurt my knee mostly when clipping in and out that I am going to retire the clips for now.
I am also thinking that I take a break from racing to consentrate on training and working on injury prevention and getting into some kind of shape ready to start racing nationals properly next season. This also makes sense from a financial standpoint as I am currently looking to buy a house and not racing will certainly help with this.
Gonna chat with my couch today about it and see what he thinks.
28/03/19
My coach and myself have decided to shut down racing for now and concentrate of getting fit and loosing weight as well as strengthen the knee before going back to racing.
We have set my goal weight to 85kgs which is 20.4kgs below my current weight of 105.4kgs.
I am aiming to get this done before the last rounds of the National series at Bournemouth on the 10-11th of August as this is the only National Race that I wanted to do this year.
My coach has made up a plan for me that involves mostly gym and mountain bike workouts for now to work on core strength and fitness and also try and drop weight and strengthen the knee as much as possible.
In order to drop weight I have taken advantage of having 4 days off to stop drinking fizzy drinks all together. The first few days were hard with headaches a bad stomach but I am feeling much better today so hope that from now on it will be easier to keep off them.
I did a few laps at Bath yesterday on my race bike with flat peddles on which was OK but I didn’t push too hard as I didn’t want to hurt the knee at all. I have also sold both sets of my HT clipless pedals so that I can’t get tempted to put them back on.
I think this will be a great learning curve and learning to ride flats will only improve my pedalling technique in the long run. I have also built up my park bike and I plan to ride this much more to work on manuals and bike skills while I am not riding the race bike as much. This is also a good thing as I really need to improve my manuals and jumping as these are the areas that I lose speed at the moment.
31/03/19
Weigh-in this morning wasn’t great I was up 1.7kgs to 107.5kgs. On a positive note this is mostly water weight as I have been drinking 3l of water a day for the last week. I am definitely feeling better for drinking more water and my knees are definitely less painful. And I am able to walk pain free.
I am planning to hit the gym tomorrow early and then do the gym early and then ride later in the day for my 4 days off. I am thinking that I may go to pump tracks in stead of bmx tracks to work on skills rather than fitness and race pace riding as I am not going to race for a while.
I also want to get to the Skatepark to start riding park too. This week is the last week before half term so I want to make the most of it before the skatepark and pump tracks are rammed.
I hope to start losing weight again this week and plan to start eating healthier from this week onwards to help with the weight loss.