Easing back after illness

October has been a write-off for me on the bike, a virus has lingered in my system keeping me off the road for two weekends in a row.  This weekend looked doubtul too and I opted to stay off the bike yesterday remembering previous advice to fully rest if not at 100%.

Looking out of the curtains today, I was faced with perfect blue skys, temperature around fourteen degrees and hardly any wind - almost perfect riding conditions.  Opting to go out for a couple of hours at a very easy pace, it was splendid to be turning the pedals again.

It's vitally important to ease yourself back into training steadily following illness, monitoring your heart rate is essential to manage the process so that you don't push things too hard.  Keeping revs high and effort low, not putting the heart under any more stress whilst it works on your recovery.

I'd set my heart rate monitor to alert me if I went outside of heart rate zone two, it was just about being out today and I really enjoyed it. It reminded me why I got started three years ago, the fresh air, the scenery and staying fit and healthy.


I've also been taking a cocktail of vitamins and minerals - Vitamin C, Zinc, Magnesium, Echninacea and Vitamin D - to boost the immune system (all supplied by Boots the chemists not by an anonymous man on a motorbike - Read Tyler Hamiltons book "the secret race" to get that joke).

Echinacea has been recommended to me as something that should be in the "must take" list of supplements throughout the whole winter.   Big thanks to Niko at ProPulse Fitness and Training Consultancy for his continuing advice on the above.

If you're new to road cycling, an investment in a heart rate monitor is well advised for training.  Not just for recovery but for on-going optimisation of your training rides and the events that you may ride.  You can read previous articles I've written on the subject using the tag cloud on the right.

With any luck another weeks light duties, good sleep, hydration and quality diet with plenty of fruit and vegetables should see me right.