WEATHER THERE: sunny, 3C, 8 km/hr tail/crosswinds
WEATHER BACK: sunny, 14C, 8 km/hr head/crosswinds
Last Friday:
"Are you ready to get your ass kicked?" my friend asked me as she helped me collect two pairs of hand weights, a floor mat, and a step with two risers.
"I was born ready," I responded. We set ourselves up in one corner of the gymnasium, surrounded by 33 like-minded people trying to get fit over the lunch break. We only had forty minutes, so every moment would have to count. I felt ready, I felt prepared.
I was not.
In fact, nothing could have prepared me for this. It was gruelling - the only moment that we stopped from doing squats was to switch it up into lunges. We did all this while doing presses, rows, and curls with the hand weights. The instructor further demanded that we then lift one leg, and do it all on one leg and then the other, to really drive home the punishment - oh, and I guess also to engage our cores. My eyes stung with sweat. My friend and I would stare at each other with horror and disbelief - and even a touch of anger - clouding our faces as we sat out repetitions fifteen through twenty. My entire body was jelly by the end - and my poor, large, inefficient thighs got the worst of it.
I figured joining a resistance class once a week over lunch would be an excellent work-out addition to bike-commuting three days a week. Three days a week I'd get in some cardio, and one day a week I'd do some weights training. Sounds well-rounded, doesn't it? It didn't occur to me that the resistance class would be like a bootcamp. I also didn't realize it would be a whole lot of lower-body resistance work, which can be problematic for me with my bad knees. And not just that - it can interfere with my bike-commuting, as I found out this week.
Luckily that class was on a Friday, and I had a whole long weekend to recover from the horrors of those damn squats and lunges. I managed to bike home Friday afternoon, but the healing of the thigh injuries hadn't fully begun at that point. By the time I woke up Saturday, I couldn't walk without locking my knees to prevent putting any weight on my thighs. Sunday, it was even worse. I stretched and massaged my thighs daily, but to no avail - walking, going up and down stairs, bending down to change my daughter's diaper, even the act of sitting down were all made virtually impossible by the pain I was in. On the holiday Monday I started being able to unlock my knees, but just barely. Tuesday, I decided to skip out on bike-commuting for the day because I was still hardly able to walk, and I know that cycling uses a whole lot more thigh power than walking does.
Finally, today - five days after the original trauma - I got back on my bike. It was okay - I felt a bit out of shape, a bit rusty, and I made sure to cycle one gear lower than I usually do because my regular gear scheme was too much for my still-aching thighs. I made sure to do a bit of extra stretching once I got to work. Oh, my poor body! What have I done to you?
I keep reminding myself that the good news is that all this pain means that I'm building a lot of muscle in those thighs, and that will give me added power in my cycling efforts. Maybe hills will become less daunting now. Maybe I'll start walking around with proper cycling thighs - massive, muscular, intimidating. Hmm . . . yeah, maybe that last part is less desirable . . . but still, there IS an upside! I'll just keep my eye on that upside while I wimper and massage cooling gel into my aching thighs tonight.
