I could see the glint in Russel’s eye as he realised that this was his last chance to go to work on my legs! I have mentioned before his sadistic ways; well he said we would take it easy today and he would just do some “releases”. Ooooh ah ah!

He carried on shooting the breeze and chatting about daily stuff expecting answers while he worked on my quads with his elbow. How he expected conversational responses from me I have no idea – I spent the entire time biting the pillow (literally) in order to limit girly screams falling out of my mouth.

For all my whining though I have to say that my knee feels so solid after all that- he definitely knows what he is doing (and really enjoys doing it).

Dude – big thank you for all your hard work and help in fixing my knee! And thanks for the strapping advice – will definitely be in touch during the ride for more advice!

BioDynamics

I keep saying the word “last”! We leave for Cape Town on Monday and suddenly this is all becoming very real. I am off to go see Russel in about 30 minutes time and it will be our last session. He is going to help me with strapping and teach me the right method to support my knee.

Russel has been incredible and given me Biokinetic sessions twice a week for about 6 months now. I cant tell you how effective the rehab to my knee has been and how much stronger my tiny pins are now. My gammy knee conking out was probably the biggest threat to me not finishing the One Gear Challenge and I can say now with more confidence than ever that I am going to complete the 1500km ride!

BioDynamics

So Russel (Biodynamics) has told me that I need to start tapering from next week so I went out for one last big ride this morning. I got in 80km which is about 10km more than what we will need to average on a daily basis! Holy crap, as I wrote that with my tired pins aching below the table, it has just dawned on me what lies ahead.

Anhoooo, let’s ignore any anxiety for now and focus on the fact that the 80km went well. I had a little bit of an ITB niggle at the end but I will ask Russel to work his magic this week in my last 2 sessions with him – all will be Golden! I have said the word “last” more than once in this post; I can’t believe that this is all coming to a head and that we leave for Cape Town in just over a weeks time. It is amazing though how it all comes together and how all our partners have really pulled through for us.

I collected all our USN stuff yesterday – they have gone nuts on providing us with everything we are going to need (nutritionally speaking)! I have protein bars,  protein drinks, recovery stuff, bottles… everything – it is actually mad! I used some of it on my ride this morning and there is no doubt it made a difference. Our biggest challenge is going to be to recover each day before setting out again on the bike. The recovery products from USN are incredible in that way and I am going to be smashing those in my beak with vengeance after each stage!

Check out the deets of my ride this morning below:

I just got my results from the guys at the Exercise Physiology Lab for my second Vo2 max test. They have done a comparison to show improvements from the last time I did the test with them in April. And yes…there were improvements! Hopefully this bodes well for a successful 1500km ride approaching fast! skreeeeeeeeeeeeek!
Vo2 Max – Ryan Meiring results _2012

Exercise Physiology

They say you can multiply the off road KM’s ridden by 2 to get the equivalent on road distance (obviously – so if you do the math this was a 93.64 KM training ride – Just saying! And yes “they” are the scientific community and its all very scientific and…stuff.

For those of you who are numbers geeks like me you might enjoy seeing some of my training stats. If you have a gander at the last chart you will see that I have done 1300 km’s this year…now I have to do that and more in in under 25 days – skreeeeeeeeeeeeeek:

Training Km's

More stats

Total

Before I start this post I need to qualify that this is a true story and in no way fabricated to punt my sponsor. In other words this is not a  cheesy sponsor pressured product placement post (how’s that alliteration).

I went riding on Saturday for the first time in my new First Ascent kit and it literally made all the difference. As you cleverly lay warm in bed listening the cold front bring in its miserableness on Saturday morning, I, desperate for a ride, headed out into the unpleasant and nipple drizzle. Without my First Ascent Magneeto Jacket I would have got seriously drenched and probably sick. I would more than likely have cut my ride short and found an obvious excuse to get off that BMX. I remained dry (and extremely visible) though and actually ended up having so much fun in the rain because I was comfortable – ther really is something to be said for having the right kit!

Check out the glorious brightness that is my new Magneeto jacket – oh and how cool is that name – X-men come to mind for some reason!

First Ascent - Magneeto Jacket

I grew up in Rivonia but for some reason the neighboring suburb of Bryanston has always been a black-hole to me.  To this day I still get lost driving through there.  So when I ventured in on my bike this weekend it was with a little trepedation – no not really. But I did find myself riding on roads, so close to where I live, that I have never been on before in my life; I guess it illustrates to an extent how big and diverse the burbs of Jozi are…and hills, so many hills…and the altitude – so thin the air! It really is a great place to train.

Its not like I have made some kind of breakthrough in the field of psychological research by saying that your perception of a distance, or more accurately, how long it seems to cover that distance, is affected by your state of mind before you set out but this has become more and more apparent to me as I have increased my training distances. At the start of the year 20 km seemed a slog to me but now if I set out on a ride expecting to do 70 km the 20 km mark comes and goes in a proverbial blink – you see where I am going with this? I haven’t articulated the concept very well but what I am trying to say is that covering long distances successfully is really all in your head; getting over the psychological barrier of a particular distance is as much about a mind shift as it is about physical training.

Now I just need to convince my mind that the ride is 3000km and the 1500 mark should arrive unannounced and way before anything fails?! Wait wait…maybe if I trick my little brain into believing that I am riding a unicycle in a clown suit then my BMX will feel like a Ducati?! No?

Check out my last training ride below – I had to get home from the end (another 20 km; the total of 70km I spoke about).

For all his evil laughing I have to say that Russel from BioDynamics has done some crazy good work with me. I rode over 85 km this past weekend and my gammy knee is feeling stronger than ever. This post is meant to be a little peek into Russel’s creative, although marginally sadistic world of rehabilitative exercise techniques.

Have you ever heard of a TRX? its this thing below and Russel has just acquired himself one. Russel keeps things super interesting and it is rare that we ever do the same exercises twice. What a TRX does to Russel is a little like what a entire bag of sugar would do to a 4 year old. If he was ever feeling like running out of options he now has a tool that provides him with almost endless opportunities to pull, stretch, push, break and bend a human. What you can do with a TRX is only really limited by your ability to creatively conjure up ways to use it; fortunately for Russel, unfortunately for me Russel is a creative guy.

TRX

These plank exercises for core strengthening are particularly fun. But unlike this guy slacking off below Russel gets me swinging and…crying.

Oblique exercises

Things get really interesting though when different tools are combined; again the creativity is through the roof and the results are targeted…so very very targeted. Very specific muscle stimulation occurs – afterwards there is never any doubt as to what we focused on in a particular session. There have been times when I was standing with one leg on an upside down Bosu ball while my little pigeon hamstring on the other leg was pulling against a weight machine…oh and this all went down at the same time Russel repeatedly through a rugby ball at me.

Bosu ball

You really do get out of life what you put in and for all my wining I have to say that my legs feel stronger than ever and I am starting to believe that I am going to pull off this 1500km ride!

Again I have to thank Russel for all the Pro Bono work he is putting in and the results we have already achieved!!!

shot dude!