Ok, seems like every year it gets harder and harder to ride in the winter time. This winter seems a little colder and wetter early on than the past few. This is generally good news around here since we’ve had a few dry seasons, but it does make it a little tougher to ride. I used to be pretty gung ho about winter riding. The last couple years the idea of riding in the rain and cold has lost it’s appeal. To make things worse, after avoiding the scale for a couple months I finally weighed myself and discovered I’m at a 2 year high.
So the problem is, how do you get back in shape when you aren’t motivated to get out and ride. My solution has been twofold, short high intensity exercise and radical diet change.
Weather permitting, I do intensive short rides near the house. It’s quite flat here, so that means I’m doing sprints, 20 seconds on full bore, 10 seconds off, repeat. I try and mix it up a bit. If I can’t ride I do some short full body workouts on either the Wii Fit or I use some workout videos… yeah, she used to be a porn star, but they are intense workouts.
The other big change for me is a pretty radical change in eating. Â My diet right now is about 70% fruits and vegetables right now, not ‘vegetarian’, actual fruits and vegetables, bananas, oranges, celery, etc. I’ve been pretty good about the diet, but giving myself 1-2 dinners a week where I sort of let go.
Overall my weight is starting to swing back a bit. Hopefully by spring I’ll be back down to a more typical weight and in good enough shape to hit the trails.
Recovery
My hip still bothers me, but it seems to slowly be getting better. When I am on the bike, my hip doesn’t bother me at all. It’s primarily walking or sometimes just sitting too long. When I am not on my bike, my workouts focus on balance and rebuilding the core muscles in my legs. At this point the bone is fully healed and most of the pain/ weakness is from the muscle atrophy and poor circulation in the area due to tissue damage.