Doctor's orders

I don't know, maybe you do, technically is a chiropractor a doctor? Either way, the week of training I had planned, turned into a week at the chiropractor. On Monday morning I could barely move, my back was in spasm and thoughts of a century ride this week rapidly gave way to "will I ever ride again?" Nothing too dramatic then.

A trip to the chiro on Monday, as I said in my last post, with the message "you will need to rest for a couple of weeks". In desperation, and primarily in the hope of getting rid of the pain, I let him do ultrasound, acupuncture as well as all the usual tortures and clickings. I even went to Marks and Spencer and bought a compression vest which I wore for the next two days. It helped actually, and when I returned to said chiro I was much improved. Not healed, but improved. His parting words to me today were twofold:

1. I'm not going to bother talking to you about a maintenance plan
2. There is no point telling you to stay off the bike because you'll only ignore me.

Don't you just love a pragmatic man?

Still, I didn't want t overdo it, and although Skipper (complete absence of y) was hesitant about dragging me out and doing me further injury, she agreed to meet me down in Axbridge for an "easy spin" on the flat.

[As an aside, there was a documentary on the other night all about the making of Skippy the Bush Kangaroo. If only there were more public-spirited creatures like that in this country, there would be less crime, fewer lost children, more happy flying doctors etc. I ask you, in the 60s and 70s while we were making Doctor Who and Match of the Day, they were doing Skippy!. I used to love it.]

Back to the ride. We headed off via Cheddar, Wedmore and the Panborough road, narrowly missing some OAPs (Old Age Pedestrians) on the high street in Wedmore, before sailing across the levels towards Glasto. Just before we got there we turned into a headwind, I tried to make out that it was wind noise caused by our terrific speed, but Skip was unconvinced, particularly as we were crawling along at that point. Just before Glasto, a cry of "stop, I have a plan" caused us to stop again (was she doing this to watch me constantly unclip?), as we skirted round the edge of town, and onto a road I'd never ridden before.

We ground through the wind through Shapwick and Burtle before turning for home through Blackford, Rug Hill and down the Clewer road. We didn't race, I actually couldn't even had I wanted to, as I was feeling distinctly sore and needed to get in Skip's slipstream most of the time. Which is where it nearly went horribly wrong. As we crossed into Cheddar I hadn't noticed she had slowed down. A brief clash of tyres ensued, more unclipping on my part, but thankfully no spill. Very thankfully I was doing about 15mph at the time, and I would have been hard-pressed to explain that one. Imagine, "oh, you weren't looking where you were going, crashed into the person in front, unclipped?"

Blushes spared, we headed home, in a respectable time too, given the wind and what felt like hard work. I thought Skip looked quite effortless today, I'm a bit sore, hopefully tomorrow will be fine. Otherwise that vest will be coming out again. Actually that might not be such a bad idea.

Here's Charlie

http://connect.garmin.com/player/25050268