Physical therapy is going well, but it has been a rough week. Along the way, I felt like I had taken two steps forward and one step back.
On Presidents’ Day weekend, I was able to ride two days. On Saturday, February 19, I rode 87km (as previously reported), and on Monday, February 21, I rode 74km. I was on the river trails both days, following a relatively flat route, because I did not want to aggravate my injuries. I had intended to ride a little longer on Monday, but I stopped due to a flare-up of knee pain. In retrospect, I was overreaching. It was a nice ride, nevertheless. Here’s a short video I made from footage that I filmed on Monday:
The flare-up of knee pain was disheartening, and I felt immensely frustrated. It came on all of a sudden and without warning. It caused me to wonder whether I whether I would really ever be able to move past these injuries, or if I would have to limit my activities indefinitely.
At physical therapy on Tuesday, however, I no longer felt pain in my knees, but there was still substantial tightness affecting the quadriceps tendon. Massage therapy was able to loosen that up, and I began a strength training program aimed at resolving the muscular imbalances that contributed to my injuries. I returned again for further physical therapy on Friday, and I felt like I was progressing well, although I was experiencing some pain and tenderness in my Achilles tendon. I received electrical stimulation and massage therapy, which helped immensely. I recall how great my legs felt on Friday—it was the best I felt in a long time.
“I am hopeful that I will not only be able to resume ultracycling, but that I will also be stronger and even more fit than I was before.”
— daniel (dlmcycling)
In addition, for the past couple weeks, I have been uncertain as to whether I can or should resume training. On Friday, my physical therapist indicated that I can resume training to the extent that I do not feel pain or discomfort. So, basically, if I feel pain, then I need to stop and scale back. This was encouraging news because it would at least enable me to get a training plan on my calendar and resume structured workouts.
Saturday, February 26, I went riding again. This time, I limited myself to just 50km, again on the river trails. Although I felt great during the ride, I experienced some pain and stiffness in my Achilles tendon later that day—again, I was frustrated. By Sunday evening, I was feeling better and went for a two-hour easy spin on Zwift. I felt good.
Later Sunday evening, I added a training block to my calendar in Training Peaks. Given the amount of fitness that I lost (Garmin reports that my VO2 Max decreased from 70 to 53), I am returning to Foundation (Base) training. I am also incorporating mobility training into my plan as well. I still need to retest my FTP and set new thresholds based on my current fitness, though. I’ll probably just do a ramp test to get a ballpark number that I can work with the next few weeks and then do a CTS Field Test to get a better assessment of FTP and LTHR at that point.
I am happy to be at a point where I feel comfortable returning to a structured training program. And with the strength training I am doing in physical therapy, I am hopeful that I will not only be able to resume ultracycling, but that I will also be stronger and even more fit than I was before.