Legs are actually feeling pretty good. Fatigued, yes but not empty/sore. No DOMS to speak of. Knee pain I picked up 2 weekends ago from saddle change on the turbo did come back on sunday around 1.5 hours. Took it easy and only rode for 2 hours rather than pushing it to 2.5 - previously I did that it ached for days. Barely a feeling from it today. More tweaks required to solve, might even be cleat on my left shoe?!
Big spike in intensity from some short sessions when weather/time allows, then volume ride on weekends seems to be working well for me at the moment even though I'm missing getting out for any group rides. Feels really good to be building rather than struggling to maintain fitness!
Noticed you seemed to have picked up the ride frequency of late, good job, keep it going without letting your form go more negative than approx -30.
My 2019 cycling took another knock just under three weeks ago, can't remember if I posted on here or not, due to knee issues. Fine during a decent hilly ride, but then really sore outside of left knee just above kneecap a couple of days after, that last just over a week of being that sore. Increased q-factor on my ~2 month old 3-bolt Time Xpro10s by putting left cleat on right shoe before doing some low-moderate power rides, helped but still pain after a while. Then on another ride I got pain behind both knees. :/
I've been going through five different saddles in the last month or so, due to saddle soreness and they have differing stack (rail to top) and length front to back... In among all the swaps of saddle and pedals (from my old 2-bolt Time ATACs) I had messed up my saddle setup!
So after Saturday's (?) TDF stage, I grabbed a protractor to get a rough idea of my knee bend at pedal bottom dead centre (? in line with seat post) having span the pedals in reverse to get a rough idea of my ankle flexion during the bottom of the pedal stroke, using hip/ outer knee protrusion/ ankle as reference points. Turned out it was ~25 degrees, so given as 1mm change in saddle height is roughly 1 degree in angle change, I lowered the post ~5mm to get the "magic" ~30 degree bend.
Then looked at the fore-aft position of saddle, to find my kneecap was in front of the crank end when forward and level with floor, so moved saddle back ~10mm to get them roughly on the same vertical plane.
Went for a gentle spin at ~2015 and knees, especially the left one that started all this recent agro off, felt much better. Put a bit more effort in on the return leg again the headwind (partially as I was now getting concerned about light levels, all I had on to help with that was my super hi-vis Boardman waterproof in gillet form, which has positively awful breathability!), still all good... So I then decided to throw caution to the wind, get all sweaty and do a couple of ~1-1.5min ~9% inclines at ~150% FTP (that sounds so much better than ~400W
) before reaching home.
Knees definitely happier, so that's one less excuse to head out... Next on the list is getting my sleep pattern sorted out, been spending the waking hours too tired to do much at all the last week besides watch the TDF stages, trying to decide on a rough route for the time I had available between other life stuff felt like Mission Impossible. Only been up since ~0900 today having stayed up until silly ~0030 for me last night, the 0530 alarm for returning to work tomorrow is going to be fun!
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