Revenge of the Leg Work

Stony Brook Crossing Stony Brook Road Near Route 418

24 January 2018

As we cross Route 206 on our way to Twin Pines I tell Ricky that I'm worried about how my legs will hold up. I nod towards the little hill in front of us. "That's the canary." I went heavy on the leg work at the gym on Friday. I held up okay yesterday but that ride was flat and leisurely.

There is a small crowd getting ready in the parking lot. 

Jeff asks, "Are you surprised this many people showed up?"

"No. Yeah." This is the first decent weekend we've had since well before Christmas.

On the fast end there are Ken and Ed again. Slug regulars, Bob, Pete, and Andrew, are here. I think this is the second Hill Slugs ride that Prem has been on. And The Jerry Foster is here, on an old Trek. I don't know how many bikes he has but there's a part of me that's sure I've never seen the same one twice. He's doing the ride with flat pedals and sneakers too. This blows my mind.

During my usual pre-ride spiel I add that we need to look out for the new crop of potholes coming up. As bad as they were in the flatlands yesterday I can only imagine in the hills it will be worse.

I haven't planned a route. We'll go to Lambertville my usual brain-dead way.

I'm trying not to take too many pictures, but I have to stop at the bridge at the bottom of the curve where the Stony Brook crosses Stony Brook just south of 518. The stream is iced over.

"Wait at the cows," I tell the group before we descend from Rocktown Road on Harbourton-Mount Airy.

Ken knows the farmer there, because of course he does. While they chat I take a picture of the German shepherd we often see lounging around the outside of the house.

One more photo stop on Alexauken Creek Road:

In the winter we can catch a glimpse of the old railroad bridge in the woods:

In Lambertville, Rojo's is surprisingly empty. We pack twice as many people around the table as it is meant to hold.

The group gets spread out when we climb out of town. That gives me a chance to stop for hay bales.

Pete thinks the leg work I've been doing is helping me out here. I'm not so sure. I always appear to be in better shape in the winter because a lot of the guys don't train indoors as much as I do. Come spring they'll leave me in the dust again, mark my words.

While we hang out in the Twin Pines parking lot after the ride I take a picture of the bare trees against the sky because I like the way the clouds behind them look.

If any of this leg stuff is helping me outside I might as well keep it up. At some point, when I start in with metrics again, it'll become counterproductive. For now, though, I'll have at it.

After a rest day Monday I put in a hefty effort during Tuesday morning's spin class. I still have some energy left so I figure I'll take on one of the more difficult leg routines my trainer has given me: stepping onto an 18-inch high foam mat with weights in each hand. It's not as if the stepping up and down is all that difficult. What's tough is doing a dozen or so steps with each leg. I get through one set, still dripping sweat from spin class, and move on to the rest of the circuit with various tedious lumps of kettle bell steel. Then it's back to the steps again. I'm on my sixth one, alternating sides, when I step down with my left leg and simultaneously hear and feel the pop in my calf.

I lean forward and try to stretch it out. Ow. Nope. So much for the rest of that set. I grab the weights and slowly hobble over to the rack to put them away.

"Why are you limping?" It's my trainer.

Busted.

He sets me to massaging my calf by rolling it out on a cylinder of foam. I don't know if it's doing any good but stopping sure feels better.

I spend the rest of the day popping NSAIDs and limping around the lab. It's marginally better by bedtime.

It's slightly better than that when I wake up and improves as I move around.

In an uncharacteristic feat of restraint I go to the gym to lift but I stay out of spin class for the rest of the week. If I have any chance of healing by Saturday I'm going to take it. Tom is leading a 55-miler in the Pinelands and I want to be there.