Flu Frustrations

Today's training stats: Richmond Park: Easy

So today, I finally got back on the bike, after almost 11 days off it. A fairly standard cold eventually turned into proper flu. I'm still not back fully fit yet, but I felt I couldn't wait any longer to get back training, and maybe blowing the cobwebs out of my lungs and legs might actually help the recovery.

To try and ease myself back into things I thought I'd do a couple of laps of Richmond Park, not aiming at any particular heart rate or time, just to see how I felt. That also gave me the option that if I felt absolutely terrible then I could just zip home.

Fitness wise, things didn't feel too bad. However, for a given level of effort, my heart rate was 10-15 beats higher than it would normally be. It felt like that was more to do with my body still coping with the after effects of the flu, rather than having lost huge amounts of fitness, but I guess that'll become apparent over the next couple of days.

I didn't feel particularly tired, in a muscular sense and in some senses the ride was encouraging, because I used it to try out some different techniques. For instance, on the hills I stayed resolutely in the saddle, and stuck to a slightly higher gear than I normally would - in a bid to train 'with force' as recommended by Shane Sutton in our workshop of ten days ago. Although you're obviously putting down more power through your legs this way, it definitely felt less aerobically stressful, so something worth sticking with.

My major concern now is that I'm supposed to be doing the Hampshire Hilly Hundred this Sunday. At the moment, I don't really feel in good enough shape to do it. However, if I possibly can, I will, so hopefully my recovery will continue over the course of this week and I'll be up to it by start-time.

One 'positive' side effect of being ill is that it's helped in the weight-loss programme, as I haven't really felt like eating for the last ten days or so! Here, as usual for Mondays, are this weeks Tanita stats:

Weight: 11 stone exactly (down 4 pounds or so)

Body Fat: 17.9% (down 0.5%)

Visceral Fat Rating: 5 (down 1)

Basal Metabolic Rate: 6949kJ / 1661kCal

Muscle Mass: 8 stone 8 lbs (down 3 pounds)

Water: 56.9%

According to these stats, I've now lost exactly a stone since I started out on this endeavour, which is pleasing. The issue this week though, is that I've lost 3 pounds of muscle mass - obviously as a result of not having done any training - so it remains to be seen if my weight loss will hold up over the next couple of weeks.