Let's get Medical

It's been a bit rough lately. After my trip to Höchst I ended up at a bar in Rödelheim where Stefan, Marcus and I had some beers. There must have been something wrong with the tenth one because I felt very disoriented and sick afterwards. On my ride back to the hotel I didn't see a bump in the sidewalk and I crashed. I messed up my shoulder (it still smarts limited mobility if I raise my arm straight out to the side — but it is slowly getting better) and I really skinned my knee (after I had skinned it in London!). So about a week after I got back to the States I was Mountain biking and I reskinned the knee and packed dirt into it!

So I decided to race Cyclocross this year so I threw my clipless pedals back on my Marin "Palisades Trail" and we went Mountain Biking with Joe and Rachel. I must have had my seat up too high because the front of my knee felt weak and the back of my calf was a little sore. The next day I did a recovery ride and my knee still felt bad. I was silly and all week long kept pushing myself to get prepared for cross. That Thursday Bridget and I rode intervals up Kuglar Mill hill and I thought "hey, it's not going to get any better anytime soon, just suffer through it". So I pushed my bum knee with no fitness up Kuglar three times and I felt horrible the next day. And on Saturday my legs were mush — no energy and my left calf and front of the left knee were killing me!

So Sunday I was silly enough to buy some Old Spinster-style support hosery as a poor man's version of compression tights and decided to take it easy for a while. I also looked up my heart rate zones for future reference:

Recovery: Below 112 BPM
Zone 1: 112 - 122 BPM — Burn the fat
Zone 2: 122 - 140 BPM — Firm low-stress base
Zone 3: 140 - 153 BPM — Aerobic zone good for endurance
Zone 4: 153 - 166 BPM — Anaerobic zone for typical race performances
Zone 5: 166 - 176 BPM — Raising Anaerobic threshold done in time trial
Zone 6: 176 - 187 BPM — Red line zone and Fast-twitch training

I feel I need to work on my fitness and seek workouts that use these zones to improve my race performances. Tootles for now — sorry to rant about my conditions like some gramma...