Blog – Turbo Time for Emma Coldwell

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Balmy November weather turns chilly and wet and as Emma goes sprinting for signs and gets some bad news on her injured shoulder

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Blog – Turbo Time for Emma Coldwell

NOTE: Send your results as well as club, team & event news here

Emma’s blog – click here 

EMMA_COLDWELL_PortraitEmma writes .. How things can change in just a week! Firstly, after writing about the balmy November weather, we have finally experienced some winter chill – in addition to wind and driving rain! Delightful! I was very thankful for my recent investment into some new winter gloves.

I don’t like anything too bulky and like to be able to feel the bike and the road… but it’s way too chilly for my fingerless options so I bought some Endura gloves from Woodrups… who in return gave me some lovely Campagnalo wheel bags! Perfect for transporting the wheels to races etc next year so thanks guys! :) The gloves offer just the right amount of padding to be warm… but not so much my hands cook in the process! Toasty thumbs up!

Dressing for this changeable weather can be quite a task… The temperature can drop/ rise several degrees in and out of a valley, not to mention wind chill, so recently I have found I have been red hot one minute and chilly the next… perhaps more, thinner layers would be a better option than my thick winter jersey! I try and resist the rain cover unless its torrential as I would rather get soaked in the rain, than sweat in what is effectively a high vis bin liner!

Turbo training has commenced again and although I love the road, I am getting used to riding consistently to the numbers again – helped along nicely by a few great soundtracks! Annie Mac presents is my sound of the summer and as many of my friends will testify – it doesn’t take much to get me dancing…

I have to try and resist the temptation to ‘bust a move’ mid session – or get so excited by a track that my heart rate rises dramatically, however it does make the hour or so pass much quicker and I find that in addition to the endorphin rush from the session I get even more of a feelgood from the happy musical vibes!

I have a very eclectic taste in music though so each session will be very much dictated by my mood! Watching my 4 year old join me in a ‘turbo’ on Tuesday certainly lifted my spirits as she pedalled backwards so she could be just like mummy… both girls have a fair bit of power already (4 & 6) that I know in years to come, they will be putting me through my paces!

Emma_FutureStar

Star of the future watching Emma in her ‘hurt locker’

Any sign is ‘Fair game’
I was fortunate to be able to join in on one evening ride last week. The infamous ‘Vertex:Ride Buttery biscuit base’ which are proving increasingly popular! The idea being some mid week miles, after work, to help get those miles in… just to reiterate BASE miles with a few signs to sprint for, en route to keep it interesting.

Village_Signs Bedlam

Well, we started off okay. A nice steady pace. The group not riding quite as tightly as usual.

As soon as we passed the North Yorkshire sign, the speed crept up… and up… and up. It turned from base miles – to a bit of a smash fest whenever we were within a half mile of each sign. So from Tadcaster, the male egos took over a little and off they trotted. Initially… mainly to my amusement.

As I was meant to be riding to a heart rate (into a head wind) my pace slowed and having had very crappy day, I think it showed on my face when I finally joined the group again after Boston Spa. I was naughty… plugged in a headphone and set off.

We are then greeted by a lovely climb after a speedy decent near Braham park on the reverse route of the Hilly 11 TT. I ignored my HR and climbed steadily, then thought, stuff it – the next sign is mine and Time trialled back to Thorner. Got the sign and lost all the boys (by a mile) in the process!

That improved my mood somewhat (oops) and my HR saw a new high of 182 that day too – thank you head wind! That doesn’t exactly help my sprint training but it definitely helped my mood in an ‘I’ll show you’ kind of way!

CavPavSocial

Being ever so ‘social’ on our rebellion to the ‘Cav Pav’!

The Sunday Social was another very lumpy affair to Ripon. Only four of us, but excellent company again. Eyes bigger than our bellies, there were even leftovers at the café stop due to the generous portions of home made food at the Sun Parlour Café… a very popular cyclists stop!

On the route home we encountered some hilarity when a misread sign meant we did not have to take the necessary detour as the road was only closed to ‘Dave’ (the sign actually read …Days) and nobody within the group matched that description.

Phew! I was pleased to go home with four signs and before anyone reports me for theft I don’t actually mean in the sense that I stole them. I just took them from the other guys! There were plenty for up grabs though as North Yorkshire likes its pretty little village signs.

Results of another kind …
Results are in for the shoulder. Not great news as still in loads of pain but thankfully not hindering the bike action too much. I knew something was not quite right when the Sonographer went to retrieve the consultant to take some more images and then referred me immediately for some more X-RAYS.

Good news – the tendons are in tact. Bad news is that there is acromioclavicular joint widening (AC joint) and also Bursitis in the joint with ligament damage and impingement. The treatment will start with steroid injections into the joint, NSAIDs for pain relief and physiotherapy. Hopefully it will be without complication, but the shoulder joint is quite complex and they advised it will need specialist treatment.

The hospital maxillo facial department have discharged me though. Bonus. I was lucky not to end up with my eye dropping – somewhat quasimodo like by all accounts!

Exciting times ahead with talks of training camps, a refit and expansion at our team base Vertex:Ride and all sorts of other exciting stuff that will remain under wraps for now! LoL

More miles planned for the week ahead and more to update you with very soon!

Emma’s blog – click here 

Send your results as well as club, team & event news here

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