Sliding doors

I was going to start with a quote from Wikipedia about causality and how it's funny who (and what) you bump into, and whether it matters. But it would necessitate too much explanation so I won't bother.

I'm just going to point to Schrödinger's cat instead. Conceived in 1935, I reckon there's a pretty bloody good chance that it's dead now. So we can ignore all that bollocks about quantum superposition of wavefunctions and just use common sense. Namely, if we wait long enough, things will sort themselves out. More or less. Sometimes they may need a little help.

For example, me calf injury. With the aid of the Internet, I've finally figured out what sort of stretches I should be doing to regain the full range of motion in my soleus.

The most common calf stretch is one where you put your hands against a wall, put one leg forward and keep the rear leg straight. This stretches the gastrocnemius, which is the biggest calf muscle. The smaller soleus is the one that sits between the gastrocnemius and the tendon. To stretch this, you need to bend your rear leg while keeping both heels flat on the ground.

So I've started doing that for 5x15 seconds, three times a day, and it appears to be helping. Plus massage, plus wearing a pressure band, plus acupuncture (not really convinced), plus light to moderate riding, minus nurofen. I should pay another visit to the physio too, although I wish he'd told me about the right stretches early on in the piece.

This weekend I've been able to ride virtually pain free with the help of the pressure bandage. I can also climb steep hills, as long as I do them relatively slowly and favour the good leg. I feel twinges when I'm climbing stairs but I can walk OK, again with the bandage.

I'll continue to take it easy this week. It's nice to be able to just ride without worrying about the next race, although the temptation to push it is strong.

Quick report on the Beacon RCC Little Mountain TT ('cos I need to write a blog on it for work): I rode my road bike and finished seventh in a time of 1:46:43, getting a prize for fastest roadman. Fantastic event, great course and I'll definitely be back.

Pics: Start, top of Ankerdine and presentation.