After Limousin and the Knee is better

Since the Tour of Limousin in France I have been concentrating on getting my knee back to strength after I think it got pushed a little too far in the hills. I attempted Herentals post tour criterium and due to the massive section of cobbles I had to make the decision to stop.

Annie Simpson - by Bart Hazen

I have found that  jumping out of corners and particularly cobbles are the main things that make my knee hurt a lot. I decided to miss the other post tour crits and concentrate on letting my knee get better. I went to see a physio in Belgium who gave me ultrasound, and although my knee seemed worse at first it gradually got better. I tried to have a few days off the bike, but in Belgium there isn’t much else to do but ride your bike and I was going a little crazy staying in whilst the others trained, so I opted to just do easy rides.

Recently though I have seen a massive improvement. I have been over in Oudenaarde doing some training  along a section of cobbles and all of a sudden they didn’t seem to be a problem. I have also been doing some rides in the Wallonie region of Belgium where there are big hills there and I love it because the rides don’t drag at all. I’ve been feeling really good in training recently and I’m always up for sprinting for the village signs! Because my knee is starting to feel strong and I feel I have some good form I’m very excited for our next race in Germany. A 3 day stage race with crits and road stages. I can’t wait to get stuck into racing again!

It has been a long summer out in Belgium. I have had massive highs but naturally the lows that come in life too. The list is huge of what I’ve learnt being out here and I’m excited to put it all to use next year and get to the front of these bike races! When I return to the UK it’s going to be a very busy time for me. I will be rushing home to see my family who I have missed a lot especially my mum, and then a quick turn around of washing, then I need to get packed and move straight back up to Newcastle to start year 2 of university and move into my new house.

I’ll keep you posted with how Germany goes.

Annie x

This entry was posted on Monday, August 16th, 2010 at 9:22 am. It is filed under Annie Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.