Cold turned into Sinus infection

I thought that this time I was going to keep it under control. But I didn't even follow my own advice from the last time I'd gotten a sinus infection after a regular cold.

This cold started out bad, with one of the worst sore throats I've ever had. However, it didn't seem to follow the typical course of most colds. I never really had a lot of drainage, so I didn't get onto the sudafed very much. And was hoping to avoid the dreaded secondary sinus infection.

But after 5 days of off/on fever without seeming to get better, and the pressure in my sinsuses beginning to increase I knew what was up. And got my meds. I've also been doing my sinus wash. Man that little squeeze bottle is the best thing since sliced bread. In a war against snot this thing is the shotgun, rail gun, and rocket launcher all in one.

I have not touched my bike or done any type of excercise for 7 days. I think that the meds will kick in by tomorrow or the next and I'll start to feel halfway normal again. My goal is to just start back slowly and take a week or two to get the legs back underneath me.

New muscle cramp cure

Just saw this on the roadbikerider.com newsletter.
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PowerBar's answer to pickle juice, Tums and V-8 (three of the many anti-cramp suggestions found at http://www.roadbikerider.com/cramps.htm) is a new product called Magnesium Liquid. It comes in 25-ml vials, has a citrus flavor and contains vitamin B6, artificial sweeteners and, as you'd guess, magnesium. Taken daily and especially before a ride, the stuff is supposed to fend off painful muscle seizures. Strangely, it's not shown at powerbar.com but we found it on a German website at http://tinyurl.com/3bdmyr
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Looks interesting. From my many years of trying, the only thing I've found to combat my lock up muscle cramps has been Sport Legs. For me, Sport Legs are not without their issues.

While they do without a doubt stave off the lockup leg muscle cramps they also make my legs feel sort of numb with no snap. I hate starting out a race with the dosage kicked in and prefer to have the first dose kick in around 1/2hr or 45 mins.

I'll definitely try this new magic bullet out and see what it does.

Soar throat

I knew it has been too good to last. For weeks people all around me were sick, kids, co-workers, and so many others around. Surprisingly, I hadn't succumbed and had been training pretty well.

Lifting and the small amount of riding I've been doing have been moving forward without a hitch. However, I had a hunch this might happen, as I stepped outside the boundaries of my training just a little too much. I've seen this pattern happen several times before.

I had to travel for a day and 1/2 so I wanted to get in an extra ride before sitting in the car. Lifting has been going well and it actually feels almost easy when doing it. However, I have to remind myself that the lifting still takes a toll on the body. In addition, the riding I've been doing, while considered easy on a relative scale to typical training, has felt difficult. One mountain bike ride we did on some soft ground felt as hard as any race. The ground sucked energy away and the wet leaves/rocks forced total concentration the entire ride.

Regardless, I think I overreached ever so little. At this time of year, so early in the season, that is something I should have been more careful with. My body is still in transition. Transitioning from lifting to riding, transitioning from cold to hot to cold weather. It's always during transitions like this that my body just a tad on the edge and susceptible to whatever sickness has been at bay for the past few weeks.

It's not bad, soar throat right now, enough to feel off and not wanting to ride.

Power phase

I've started into the power phase. In this phase the weight is decreased dramatically compared to the previous strength phase. However, the goal is to do the motion as fast as possible. So with the squats you are actually jumping up off the ground.

The first two workouts have gone relatively easy. However, I've noticed that when riding the next few days I'm really worked. It's more of a subtle feeling rather than a painful soreness. But I'm tired definitely.

Today I did a group mountain bike ride. The trails were a little wet and the wet leaves really threw a loop into the bike handling. The sponginess of the trails combined with some leaves really sucked the energy out of me. My handling definitely felt off, and I felt like my upper body was fighting the bike rather than flowing with it. On technical terrain in wet conditions, fighting the bike can really wear you down after awhile.

After we were done I was just worked. Utterly exhausted. Part of it was the terrain was just harder today, part was being tired from lifting and part was just being detrained from cycling.

One interesting note is that I climbed stuff in middle ring today that I'd always stayed in small ring if not the granny gear for. It was a little empowering to hit these grunts and ride them clean in the middle ring. It even felt more comfortable to ride a slower cadence in middle than it did to spin a more normal lower gear. I attribute that to the phase I'm in now. Strength gains are speed specific and I've been lifting at a much lower speed than true cycling.

Only a few more workouts planned and then trying to get back into riding. The warm weather today is a lot more conducive to riding than the 30 and wet we had on Friday. That is for sure.