Track racing

Middleton CC's final track championship session got underway this afternoon with some of us arriving late (myself and Paul) due to the unnatural snow levels in Manchester. Paul had to try to get through a few valleys to get his bike from storage, then come over to get me. Anyway, we arrived, warmed up and got underway. I was the only female riding, which didn't really make much difference with me not being a member anymore, so I was riding as a guest. I set off 3rd in the sprint and did worse than anticipated with a time of 17.9 seconds: 2 seconds off my PB. I did, however, reach and maintain 28.6mph for the sprint which is one good thing. All was going well on the 'getting up to speed' laps and I set off as anticipated, if a little slow. Halfway round and my knee screamed at me, literally bringing a tear to my eye. Despite the pain I continued as I wanted to get a time to build on.

So, stats -

200 metre sprint

17.9 seconds

28.6mph average

¤ sent from mobile device ¤

Wintry welcome

I'm gutted - we didn't get anymore snow last night. I was, however, greeted with the snow still being on the floor from the afternoon snow. My walk to work this morning was a gorgeous, if freezing, one with the odd flurry, a brisk bone-chilling wind and the creamy yellow snow clouds whizzing across the sky on a mission to find a bit of land it missed before.

SNOW!

After all the weather reports saying that we would get snow, we wouldn't get snow. It finally arrived with a flourish this afternoon. Sadly, being on the lower slopes of the pennines means it's not a thick thick blanket, but it's enough for the snowball fight I've had with my mother. It's settled everywhere and doesn't look like it's going anywhere soon. Hope it snows some more tonight and I wake up to a nice thick blanket of the lovely white stuff!

The weekend

The weekend has been at interesting one, and a relatively good one too.

Saturday began with me not having to work for once (worked 3 saturdays in the past month), so it began very lazily with umpteen teacakes eaten for breakfast with a huge mug of coffee before heading over to the parent's place where more coffee and the newspapers waited for me to devour.

The afternoon was spent with Mom and Bro shipping (window shopping in my case, as I'm so skint) and having a hoot with them both. Popped into the shop I work in, and we all had a go on the tombola - myself and mom not winning everything, bro winning 3 times. he was very nice and gave me one of the prizes which I'm happy about as it's a lovely fragrance, and one which I'd never normally think about. But there you go!

The evening was spent over at the Manchester Velodrome watching Revolution 26 - a night of cycling including elite and future stars riders all competing in their own sectors for placings in the series.
Unlike in November's event where the future stars had several crashes, it was the turn of the elite riders with 2 crashes in the same race. Both riders got up and carried on racing later in the night once their bikes had been fixed.
Bradley Wiggins put on a storm of cycling and former skier Alain Baxter put in an appearance for his first cycle race of his career and gave an amazing performance as he stomped through the sprint with a sub 12 second ride in the flying 200m sprint. Excellent!

Today was meant to have involved some cycling. All was fine until I woke up with bad knee pain (again). I was talking with Mom yesterday anyway about strapping it up or putting a knee brace on it at some point. I did a google search this morning on the subject and matched my symptoms with those of PCL sprain - pain on hyper-extension of the knee and most certainly made worse by straightening it out - all the pain is in the right area and fits in so well with what I read. However, I cannot physically do anything in terms of strapping/bracing etc until I have seen the physio which will be after xmas now. So in the meantime it's back with the anti-inflammatories when really needed and trying to take it easy when I can

I will not, however, let the pain stop me from riding in MCC track champs on 20th December.

Club run

Sunday was Middleton CC club run day - with me as a guest rider seeing as I haven't renewed my membership with them. It proved to be a day like no other.

I'd arranged to meet the guys at Droylsden Academy as it's close to my place and on the pre-planned route to Uppermill, so at a few minutes to 9:40 I hoicked Everest downstairs and out into the crisp chilled (make that frozen) air, locked up and shoved my hands into my cheats winter gloves - 'normal' non-cycle full finger gloves with mitts over the top (I find these better than winter cycle gloves), pulled my buff up (yep, it was cold enough for my buff) and set off to find the one-way streets have changed direction, back to how they used to be, so I found myself heading the wrong way along a short section (on the pavement too, how naughty am I?!) rather than trying to fight my way through the stupid contraflow and literally riding in circles to get to where I needed to be.

After a very chilly 5 minutes wait I saw 2 flouro people pootling in my direction - Paul and Joe were the only other club members brave enough to ride on the day that winter hit.

We set off through roadworks and round a fiveway roundabout to head to Moorside St and through to Daisy Nook where the rain began to fall from the carpet of cloud that had formed. After stopping to put on rain jackets and my phone into Paul's camelback, we pootled on through Daisy Nook and up to the climb on Vicarage Rd. After staying behind the others on the route so far and seeing them crawl up Newmarket Rd I decided that Vicarage Rd would be a much faster affair for myself; I sat behind them to the base of the climb and it's first bend biding my time. The second bend came up and I chose my moment and launched an attack that they failed to respond to. I did my usual mountain-goat impression I do on some ridiculously short steep climbs and hauled ass to the top in double quick time while they crawled up in a gentlemanly fashion. Still, it gave me time to schlurp some of my energy-powered vimto - neutral High-5 tabs in vimto - while waiting for them.

Along to Mossley Rd, between Stamford Park and it's boating lake and to the Stamford/Ridge Hill lights where a left turn took us to Wakefield Rd where the spitting rain turned into rain, then into sleety rainy crap. Climbing round past the top of Cockerhill Rd and the shit got heavier still. And colder. Much colder.

By the time we got to Heyrod and under the railway line the shit couldn't make it's mind up if it was gonna be rain, sleet or snow and the roads were collecting standing water. A fellow cyclist passed us at this point as he headed Ashton direction and seemed surprised to see us in the weather - and we, him. Soon another cyclist was passing us looking rather soggy and grumbling about the weather.

Cycling a section of road where the railway is on one side and the River Tame is on the other, it was hard to work out which was louder - the trains passing or the gushing of the very swollen river as it crashed over a weir and carried on smashing it's way through the valley. That wasn't the only river though as the standing water on the roads was getting deeper (around 1cm deep so far) and had begun to flow quite happily along the road. By this point we were all getting very wet with the rain seeping through clothes (4 layers in my case) as the rain got heavier and the spray got worse.

We were originally going to head to Uppermill, but seeing as we were nearing Mossley we decided to see if any cafes were open (they weren't). We stopped at Mossley Station to discuss what to do. Seeing as there was water pouring down Stamford Rd instead of going into the drains, and I was beginning to get very cold due to now being rather wet we chose to head back home.

Turning round in a pond and getting back onto Manchester Rd was easier than anticipated and we set off home the same way we headed out. By now we all had ponds in our shoes despite wearing neoprene overshoes (the rest of us was soggy anyway so why not pool in the shoes) meaning every pedal stroke squeezed out socks to some extent and every pull on the brakes produced visible water run-off from the squeezing out of gloves.

Reaching Ridge Hill Rd lights where we turn right to climb up to Mossley Rd and I was forced into taking evasive action - we were at the front of the lane and the lights turned to the green filter for my lane to turn right; as I was making my turn a car from the opposite side of the lights decided that as soon as his lights changed to green he was gonna mow down anything in its way. My evasive action meant I had to tighten my turn and resulted in going the wrong side of an island, luckily there weren't any cars there or I'd have ended up laying on their bonnets or perfecting my superman impressions.

Back home I couldn't make my mind up which was wetter - myself or the lake that was forming outside my front door! Once indoors I dropped my clothes where I stood and made for a hot bath before heading to my parent's place.

Stats - www.bikehike.co.uk/mapview.php?id=27408

Many fellow polar bears and penguins met along the way.

Temp - 3c with real feel of 0c

Miles: 17.13

Average speed: 11mph (slow, but with slicks in the rain/sleet/snow it can't be helped)

Climbed: 520ft

November review

It has been a 'half' kinda month with my mileage and elevation somewhat halving what it was last month:

Distance covered: 105.98 miles
Elevation gained: 4552ft
Days ridden: 7
Night rides: 1
Middleton CC: yep - to Mossley
Cycling events: 0
Other events: 1 - coppicing.

As with October, I'm still not doing any hill reps. My monthly elevation total was averaging out quite nicely but has now halved (so have the miles ridden), so I guess it still is kinda average. As predicted, the inclement weather has now hit and I did have a lot less riding time due to either training staff or purely because the weather is crap.

I also had enforced leave off the bike due to knee problems. Hopefully I can get back on the bike for more rides this month.

Coppicing

Daisy Nook have varying events on through the year for both volunteers and the average Joe to come along and take part in. Sunday's event was coppicing - making pathways safe, felling trees, clearing shrubbery and making wildlife habitats out in the country park and alongside wildflower meadows.

The day started out very grim with huge dark threatening clouds in the sky and the wind blowing a gale, however by the time Paul and I got to the park the weather had calmed down massively.

After meeting the other people involved - several Duke of Edinburgh Award lads, few volunteers and 3 rangers, and receiving instruction from the chief ranger that day - Jane - we all picked up our tools and headed off into the glorious muddiness that resembled the park that day.

The DoE lads stayed in the wildflower meadow clearing there, while the vols carried on with Jane to a steep hillside which drastically needed clearing. Paul was the only male in our group with myself, Joanne, Derve and Hazel and we split into 2 groups - Paul, Derve and Joanne as one, myself and Hazel as the other. When Jane said that trees needed to be felled myself and Hazel leapt at the chance to do it.Bow saws in hand we were led to 3 Sycamore trees that were too leggy and causing a few problems. Learning the correct way to fell a tree was real interesting and before long we'd both felled a tree each before both taking down the third. Jane was mightily impressed that we'd managed it so easily. To be honest the thrill of felling something so big was exhilarating. Added to the fact that the logs were being used as dead hedges on the riverside and as critter homes elsewhere, it felt really good to be helping conservation. Pretty soon, the area had been dealt with leaving the path clear and safe (tis a very steep sided tree lined valley) and homes/hedges built.

After lunch at the centre we headed off to the second location of the day - Medlock Vale where loads needed to be done. In the seventies the council overcompensated for the lack of trees in the area etc and planted too many trees too close to each other so they grew to be pretty much poker straight 30ft tall logs with a sprout of greenery on the very tops. Not very attractive as trees really.

Again we split into our groups. Myself and Hazel attacking the sycamores, Paul and Derve attacking beech, Joanne clearing shrubbery and the DoE boys off elsewhere struggling with their trees. After being assaulted by all the brambles myself and Hazel got our trees down creating nice homes for hedgehogs and foxes and soon we'd moved on round to another area to free the path of overhanging trees and overgrown straggly brambles that were threatening to eat us up. This time there were no areas nearby where we could toss the logs, so after felling them we had to haul them up the hill and toss them into the valley we'd chosen as a good spot for the wildlife habitats. Several trees later and the coats were coming off as we'd worked up a sweat.

Pretty soon we were called to help the DoE boys as they couldn't fell a tree. Myself and Hazel stalked over bow saw in hand and attacked the bugger. Once it was down trying to cut it down into smaller sections was proving hard as it decided to bounce about. Shouting out for some assistance in holding it down proved fruitless. Looking around the DoE boys had buggered off leaving us girlies to carry on. Did they get miffed that girls could bring the tree down they were struggling with? I don't know. But I do know that it isn't part of the award to just admit defeat and leave. Oh well.

Way too soon it was time to head home as it was getting dark and the rain had begun to fall. I loved every minute of it. The best mental and physical exercise I've had in a very long time. My knee coped brilliantly. Best of all I didn't even ache the day after!

I might just become a volunteer ranger for the place.

Dr Pain

This morning's visit to the doctors passed by relatively well. Doc is rather amazed that Surgeon advised I lead a very sedentary life. So was I when originally told, hence why I ignored him and only gave up the racquet sports and football, while carrying on cycling. Doc wants me to see my physio to ensure all ligaments, muscles etc are working properly before we turn to any drastic measures. He's adamant he wants me to keep cycling and also suggested I maybe take up rowing as not only will that keep my knee active it'd also help my repairing shoulder. So, I need to speak to my local gym to see about getting an induction. I certainly won't be rowing on a river! By the time I've finished having physio on my knee, I'll have been under their care for almost a year! ¤sent from my mobile device¤

Windy walk

Seeing as I'm going out of my tree with not riding this week I opted for a walk today regardless of the gales and the threat of torrential rain.

I chose a portion of a walk I've done frequently that I knew wouldn't be too hilly or too muddy in the current crap climatic conditions.

I set off from mine with a beanie on as despite it being mild out the gales were supposed to make it much colder. What the weather forecasters failed to note was that the wind was actually rather warm, so before long the beanie was off and replaced with my baseball cap to shelter my eyes from airborne crud. By the time I'd passed Millstream Animal Shelter my waterproof jacket was getting unzipped as I was already beginning to get a sweat on.

Before long I'd reached the steepest point of my walk with a brief 14-20% section to enter Woodhouses. Directly opposite some gorgeous cottages is a road that for several years I thought just led to some expensive looking houses off the main road. It wasn't until a year or so ago that I actually paid attention whilst walking past and saw the weathered finger post sign letting the world know that it led to Medlock Vale and was part of the Oldham Way.

I headed down this road which led past some stunning houses before reaching an old cobbled section (maybe a century old?) that led steeply down to a gorgeous farm in the valley with a stunning vista of woodland all around it. Once past the farm and along a muddy track (with some deep tractor ruts in it) and I was at my desired location of the bridge over the Medlock itself. My aim of coming here was to see exactly how much the river had risen with the influx of rain we've had recently. Further downstream I'd seen the river so deep that there wasn't much of the archway left to be seen in the road bridge - pretty sure the river had risen at least 4 or 5ft. Up here the river was lapping over the banks and had breached them at one point. Luckily the banks of the river here are actually 10ft or so below the pathways - kind of a valley in a valley. However there didn't seem any imminent danger of it breaching fully.

Once I'd had a rest I set off back through the muddy tracks to the waymarked entrance of a field and tramped my way through until I reached Vale Lane again which brought me alongside fishing ponds and back out onto the main road, where I pootled back down the hill to get onto Edge Lane again.

From here I climbed back up the hill in another direction to the level crossing and the start of the Clayton Vale circular route (a portion of the Vale I'd not walked along for many many years) alongside the train tracks until the Culcheth Lane entrance and the trail led down into the valley here where again the river was so swollen and fast flowing that even the ducks had huge problems. Crossing the old bridge and climbing back out of the valley I startled a bunny - my startle saved it's little fuzzy life though as soon a Sparrowhawk came swooping about looking for lunch and he'd have been the meal if he hadn't have hopped away into the undergrowth.

Now I'm at my mom's place and my knee is swollen internally (horrid squishy feeling) and kinda dead, so I'm glad it was only a short walk and it's something more I can tell Doc when I see him.

Stats - www.bikehike.co.uk/mapview.php?id=26362

Temp: 11C with a real feel of 11C. Winds 29mph S.

Miles: 4.2

Climbed: 296ft

Enforced leave

Humph! I'm not happy! At all! I'm forcing myself to have a week off the bike.

I've been having loads of problems with my knee ever since the tibial plateau was fractured in 2004 leaving a perma-buggered knee, a non-removable 'step' in the rear of the patella and stage 2 arthritis. Problems such as constant niggles, dull aches most of the time, creaking (much more than is normal in healthy knees and also more than is anticipated with my genetic joint condition) etc.

In recent months this has progressed into having approximately half the week with sharp pain when bending the knee and/or the occasional searing pain.

Within the past week this has progressed even more into extreme sickening searing pains both at the old fracture site and deep within my knee and both while awake and during the night (keeping me awake at night and/or making me snooze with a bucket by the side of the bed.

Things came to a head last night while using my pc and having both the searing pain and a dead feeling in the same joint, often at the same time. After chatting to my mom bout it, she suggested going to A&E which I knew would be pointless, as the last time I went with my knee problem I was bounced from pillar to post before getting to see my consultant again months later.
So, I'll be trying to get in to see my GP and ask for a referral to Mr Samarji. The last time I saw Mr Samarji he was talking more surgery if things don't really stay the same or improve. Maybe now is the time for that to happen.

It's kind of a Catch-22 situation: I want rid of the pain as it's horrid and often makes my leg just give way completely so having more surgery would be great in that respect. But, I was told at the time of the injury that further injury (of which there has been 2 instances) will more than likely result in a total knee replacement, which at my age isn't great as the hardware would need replacing more frequently. Hmm, constant vomit-inducing pain or frequent surgery? Choices, choices.

First things first - get in to see Doc Dean and no other doc, cos I don't want to be dismissed again like I was a few months ago.