How Well Am I Recovering From The Crash?

Power figures from my Tacx trainer.
The first bar is before my crash, the second is afterwards.
Of course, I bought the trainer in the first place because I was having back problems,
so BOTH sets of figures are down on my "fit" state :-)
Also you can see various extimated typical power levels for athletes of various descriptions.

So there you have it.
A bit of "hard data", rather than just me saying this or that,
I did my first 60 minutes seeion since the crash earlier today.
A Hi-Lo session, with 60 seconds at about 200w, then a 4 minute recovery at about 90W, then repeat until six intervals have been done.

Bizarrely, this Hi-Lo caused my 60 minute power to actually be a tad higher than before the crash!

My arm was a bit sore at the end of the 60 minutes. I still can't take the weight properly with it, so I variously rest it on the bars and hold the elbow on the other side to take the weight of my arm off my shoulder.
And yet I still scored more on the 60 minute test than before my crash!


Progress indeed!

So, onwards and upwards!

Review of 2016

Mixed results for the year!

I brought up my Garmin Connect summary today for the last 12 months.
It tells a fine story of how my year went.
There is some more mileage not shown here, because I don't usually record the short bike commute I do to work and back.
Plus I am crosstraining with some running for much of the year, as well as some "Strength" workouts, so this is just the cycling, but it demonstrates the year rather well.

Anyway, onto the graphic.
Respectable February and March. A few longer rides. I remember a cold ride to Oxford in February, :-)
Then I got in my first "metric century" in March.
the end of March also brought news of the success of the diet that my local health clinic had advised me to go on.
At Easter I went away with high hopes for a vacation of superb training, but returned exhausted and ill :-(
April didn't go well :-(
May brought a new bike, which I then adapted a little to suit me.
June saw me concentrating on aero, weight, and riding in the local charity sportive, knocking an hour of last's years finishing time, and moving up the finishers' list from about 400th out of 500 to 200th out of 500. Moving up 200 places in a year, and knocking a hour off - wow, that was the highlight of the year!

But ...
I hurt my knee in the sportive on the final hill ...
So July and August sees me taking it easy to recover a bit.
By late August I was having back problems, and by September I was having to take time off work to deal with them. Struggling on like a Spartan just wasn't doing it any more, and I knew I just couldn't go on like this. So for the first time in seven years, I rang the boss and said I won't be in.

In September, I bought a turbo trainer, because the experts recommend walking and cycling for general back problems.
October and November show me using the trainer, and my mileage slowly going up again.
Indeed, by November I was good enough to go out on an "exploring" ride along the local canal path and a couple nearer to where I live, showcasing the local cycle infrastructure, warts and all.

The mileage dropped off in December because I only got 9 days cycling in.
On December the 9th, I crashed, breaking my shoulder blade, and getting a free lunch in the local hospital for a week (and a titanium plate fitted in my shoulder)


And that brings 2016 to a close.
Stepping back from it being me, and just looking at it in general terms, I could suggest that "over-enthusiasm" played a part in my breaks in training.
I was probably trying to do too much at Easter, and ended up doing less than I would normally do if I hadn't tried to do the extra!
Similarly, the crash happened on an insignificant minor back road wher I should have been cycling slower - the main "training" part of the ride was the category 3 hill I had climbed a little while before, so I should have been taking it easy on what was, essentially just a loop back to take me to the road home.

Having said all that, overall, it was a good year, and the stand out point was that charity sportive in June!

You knew that carbs would come up :-)

Training Peaks have just published a piece on carbs and glycogen.



There is plenty of evidence that if you train hard day after day, your glycogen stores get depleted unless you eat a high carb diet.
Glycogen can be restored without carbs, though - it just takes longer.
Basically fat, protein, and carbs all end up as the same sort of thing in your body, they just get processed at different rates.

If you want hard exercise for over a couple of hours, or you want to keep doing hard exercise many times a week, carbs is the only way to keep up.

Imagine trying to fill your bath with a cup when you have taken the plug out.
The bath can start full, but you just can't get enough water in with the cup to stop it emptying out.


If you only do a few lighter sessions a week, then a lower carb diet can keep up (just as you can fill the bath with a cup when the plug is in!). And lighter exercises use little or no glycogen anyway,

If, once a week or so, you do a hard exercise of say an hours, you can also keep up, because your body has enough time to top up the glycogen again.

Of course, there are wider implications to a high fat diet, such as heart disease.
And there are implications for not exercising.
But most of the health benefits from exercise come from the "medium" level, not the "athlete" level.
What I would urge is that you eat a varied diet with plenty of fruit and veg in there.
(before you get excited about the sugars in fruit - iirc, tomatoes and pumpkins are technically fruits - that's why they have seeds, amongst other things!)

If you do want a high-performance exercise regime, though, it really does have to have quite a lot of carbs - just make sure they are sensible carbs, not just endless refined sugar.



Fruit and veg and exercise - that's what we all agree on.

The Crash, Or, Getting a Nice Rest the Hard Way

As many folks know, I crashed my bike on 9th December.
Here is a little photostory about the aftermath of that crash.

Look at all that choice.
I love the NHS!
This is the real menu, photographed from my real hospital bed.
The quality is a bit iffy, because I only have an aging smartphone with me.

Me, back in the Summer

I had recently ordered some new books.
When will I get a chance to read them.

This became a fairly regular experience after the crash.
Being issued with painkillers 4 times a day.
A couple of paracetamol, and a couple of codeine.
Early on, i got a couple of "top-ups" of morphine, too.

Looks like a mild abrasion of my left knee when I hit the road.
As I was knocked out for about 20 minutes, I don't remember a thing about it.
I was cycling along, then next thing I remember, the ambulance was already there, and I was trying (and failing) to pick myself up off a muddy minor country road.

Took a some impact to the head, too. My metal glasses/spectacles got bent a bit, so I bent them back before the photo.
I have a fairly hard head, so just a touch of concussion.
Th hospital did a CT scan on my head, just to be sure about anything more serious.

My shoulder hurts ...

My "good" arm with the lovely little medical sockets they like so much.
"Cannular", apparently.
I got through four of these during my stay.
Arms like a pincushion :-)

As you can see, I'm not that bad, because I am taking selfies the day after the crash!
The cannular makes an intersting bracelet.

The minutia of injury.
I seem to have a "blood blister" from the crash on the end on my finger on my "bad" arm.  

Looks like a minor wrist mark, too.
Also on my "bad" arm.

Head's getting better already!
Hair tends to get a bit crazy in hospitals :-)
The first few days I was really drifting.
Being awake on and off at night, napping during the day.
How much of it was the injury, and how much of it was the opiates?
Probably a bit of each!

My wife came to see me, and brought in some icons for my little cabinet next to my hospital bed.
The little one is my "name saint".
And, yes, it was in my pannier at teh time of the crash.
Draw whatever conclusions you want.
The straight facts are that it was with me when I crashed, and I am taking a picture of it a day or two after ;-)

Some or other scuff.
I broke a couple of ribs in the crash, as well as my shoulder.

Progress - going to the bathroom all by myself :-)
With the dizzy spells, I had to pace myself.
There are lots of handy rails which I hung onto, so imagine the experience a bit like walking on a ship in rolling swell.
As long as you pace yourself, and walk at the "good" moments, you'll be fine.
So much nicer to wrap my old fleece jacket round my shoulders (actually, my good arm is in the sleeve!).
Your own clothes, and visiting the toilet by yourself, add up to a lot of patient morale, methinks!

Bit of a bruise forming on my forehead, above and (in the pic) to the right of the red scuff.

Ooh, yummee.
Food.
Hospital is not the easiest way to eat out, but, in the UK at least, it is free ;-)
Think this was a lentil curry.

HUGE number of meal options!
Not like the old days of gruel at all!
I could get used to this!

Funky cheesecake.
Life just gets better and better!

Apparently it was "Winterberry".
Never mind all that - it was tasty!

More food.
Veggie sausage and pickle on white bread.
I'm loving it.

The price of a free lunch.
Another day, another hole in the arm.
My traetment was complicated by me already being on warfarin (Coumarin)

At night, I was waking up often.
Sometimes dizzy.
One night I had to ring for the night nurse, because I was so disorientated that I was afraid I would fall out of bed.
The night nurse duly put the "sides" up on the bed for me.
Opiates? Concussion? Either or both, I suspect!

After the darkest night dawn comes.
With a nice cup of tea!

Getting fancy.
Instead of just a folded-bandage sling, I was given one of these fancy padded ones with velcro adjustments.
1st class treatment indeed!
(The registrar gave me a second one a couple of weeks fter the operation, when I saw him)

That'll be the (vegetarian) lentil shepherd's pie :-)

And old favourite, the steamed pudding,
welcome fare for a hungry (and slightly broken( cyclist!

Getting there. Still got that bruise on my head.
My wife brought me my hairbrish, so I can have less wierd looking hair.
I've kept it pretty well for a guy of 52, methinks.

Home Sweet Home.
This is where I lived for the week.
Funky adjustments on the bed, too!

What again?
More food!

And, again, more food ;-)
I could get used to this!

Pills and teas. The daily routine!

Looks like another couple of superficial injuries.
They don't hurt. But that is because if you have enough painkillers for something else, you wn't feel the small things.

Looks alright to me ...
(my shoulder looks dislocated, but isn't. I have broken the end off my scapula)

A chance to read a classic novel, methinks.
However, Conrad uses a complicated writing style in this one,
and there are large blocks of solid text with long sentences.
With my head as it is, I had to quickly abandon my attempts to read this ;-(

The "scores on the doors".
My medical notes.
Folks not eating properly are common in hospitals, so bizarrely being thin is a warning sign as is having a low resting pulse.
Being obese is not a warning sgn on this chart. Me - I have a BMI of about 24, so I am in the "happy middle" of being not overweight, yet not thin either,
I picked up a "caution" score for the 48 bpm (although for me this is not unusual).
The nurses were asking me more than once a day if i was "althletic" That worked down to a pulse of 51.
Below that is a warning mark.
But I never got above a couple of warning marks for everything combined.
The more you get, the more often they monitor you, and if the warning score goes high enough,
you get checked out thoroughly to find out what is up.
But like I said, on a 12+ point warning scale, I never got past about 2 ;-)
I'm just here for the free lunch!

I learn something every day.
Apparently BMI can be estimated from arm circumference.
Clearly some folks are very broken, and can't be just weighed/
Because I am only here for the food, I just stepped onto the scales for the nurse.

More food. Porridge for breakfast.
Anna gives me prunes and currants at home, but this will do well enough!

Fish and chips, and some sort of pudding.
If this is life, then I'm loving it!

Oh. I appear to have sorung a modest leak.
Probably one of the many holes they keep putting in my arm.

Funky.
This is number 3 of the 4 I got through.
Taped down like mad to stop it falling out at night (like number 2)
I am starting to run out of decent veins by this point, so this one is a bit small (which is why I had number 4 fitted later!)

My head is looking a bit better, anyhows!

Lying like that make my chin look fat.
Must be dinner coming up, because I am smiling ;-)
I crashed on a Friday, and it is now the following Tuesday, and I am used to breakfast (and dinner, and tea!) in bed.
Like a fancy hotel, the service in here is fantastic!

A long day.
No breakfast for me today, because I am "under the knife"
What should I have for supper, though?

Hot chocolate, just for the change.
And ginger nuts.
Just what I need after a nice nap when the surgeon worked his magic this morning!

Having another attempt at the book.
Nope.
I can't even get through a paragraph or two without losing my place.
If the text was abit bigger, I think I'd be in with more of a chance!

Char and painkillers. Same as it ever was :-)

Char and biccies - definitely a step in the right direction!

I've forgotten what the pink was for.
I think it might be to counter the side effect of the codeine - constipation ...

This Way Up.
the arrow is just a final "failsafe" to ensure the surgeon does the correct shoulder.
Only takes a minute for the nurse to draw the arrow on.
Old-fashioned low tech solutions.
If the computer files get hacked, the surgeon can just look for the arrow!
In my case it is easy.
One shoulder is busted, and the other one isnt!

More to follow in due course!