Since last Tuesday, I've been centering my training around some hard bike rides.
Like so many, I learned to ride a bike when I was a kid, and I've owned some kind of bike ever since. But I've never pursued riding seriously. I decided a long time ago that I have the time and money to devote to only one sport, and that sport would always be paddling.
My current ride is a low-tech mountain bike that I bought for a couple hundred bucks in a silent auction at a slalom race I attended 23 years ago. For me, riding a bike is a way to get around the neighborhood, mostly during the warmer times of year. I rarely mention the riding I do on this blog because I've never really counted it as "serious" training, even though I'm sure it doesn't hurt.
But now here I am relying on my bike to maintain some fitness until I can get back in the boat. On Tuesday, Friday, and yesterday I did rides between 30 minutes and an hour that included some hard surges. On Tuesday and Friday I took breaks during the rides to do sets of Hindu squats. Thursday and yesterday I did strength workouts at the house that included running up stairs, lunges with dumbbells, and core exercises.
For much of today I was involved in some activities with the handbell group I play with, so today was a scheduled rest day. It's still important to allow my body some recovery time--maybe even more so than normal, because I've been going at these workouts extra-hard to compensate for the fact that I'm not able to do any "real" (in-the-boat) training.
Like I said in my last post, I hope to start easing back into paddling on Tuesday. My rib still hurts some, but hopefully this rest has set it on a solid course toward healing.
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