Rest Week/ Snowboarding and a Giant XTC 29er

I am now into my first rest week of the season and it has come at a perfect time. After a couple of weekends with back to back Saturday and Sunday rides and a mix of intervals and commuting miles during the week, my body is starting to feel the strain. The idea behind my training plan is to ramp up the stress I put my body under during a block of 4 or 5 weeks, then rest before I over do it. Then, after a week get back into another block once my muscles have sufficiently repaired and any joint inflammation has rescinded. The theory is that once your body has been through this process and recovered, it is more adept at coping with the stress and you can increase the intensity and/or duration during the next block. This first block after Christmas has been aimed at low intensity endurance rides, specifically designed to loose a bit of off-season podge and ease your body back into the training routine. The next block will contain more intervals, including a few of the dreaded hill repeat sessions, and more high tempo riding targeting speed and strength. It is all very well having a good training plan but one of the most important sessions on the plan is rest. It is easy to over do it. A niggling knee pain or a twinge in a muscle, if not properly rested, can be compounded by repetitive training and cause other injuries later in the season as your body tries to compensate for the injury by recruiting other, less capably muscle groups.

Like I said, the rest has come at perfect time. During the last couple of interval sessions this week I have felt a slight twinge in my right knee. It is nothing new, and I'm sure a few days away from a bike will do the world of good. Normally I can't stand being off the bike but I have just returned from the French Alps where I partook in some light snow-boarding, and heavy hot-tubbing and wine consumption. I spent a lot of time sitting down, as boarders do, and wore excessive body armour and my back appears to have come away unscathed! We stayed with a few friends for a relaxing long weekend in the quiet village of Les Houches. Well, it is normally quiet but unfortunately me and Emma did our usual trick of picking the busiest festival weekend of the year as the Alpine World Cup descended on the village for the weekend! It was good to watch for a while but it was also a massive pain in the arse with 25,000 fans estimated to get in our way! It is also -15 during the day so it was a bit too cold to sit around watching for too long and frostbite was a concern for the ever-so-fragile Emma!

Since getting back to the UK I collected a demo Giant XTC 29er from Giant Radlett and tonight managed to take it for a quick spin around my local woods. It dealt admirably with the ice and snow, certainly better than my toes did, but I will keep my opinions to myself until I have had a few more hours of testing on it at the weekend and after I have made a few changes to get my position right.