We are undertaking a massive garden project at home. After a long period with 3 raised flower beds close to the house we have committed to redevelop the area into an Italian style sunken pond. We started by redistributing the plants for the beds and saving as much soil as possible. Levelling the ground yesterday and this morning was heavy work but hadn’t seemed to have taxed me too much. By mid afternoon, though, I really started to feel exhaustion, particularly in my legs. My arms, which see far less work on a bike, we’re coping well but I knew I couldn’t keep going all day. I decided to shift the final few barrowloads of heavy soil to dig the pond out to a depth of 20 cm or 8” all across. I slumped in a chair and almost fell asleep but moved my left leg a fraction and got a severe cramp down the back of my upper leg. The dog was terrified as I tried to stretch and massage a cricket ball of knotted muscle away. It took a while before I could walk around for relief.
My hope had been that my mountain biking would be unaffected but this cannot be the case. There’s no way I can get a ride in after a day of such heavy work. On a positive note the work will surely help my stamina and muscle strength so it could be seen as a kind of cross training. It’ll take 2 more days of digging to get to the depth we need but I might go for a gentle ride just to relax my legs after the heavy lifting. Proper riding/training will have to wait. Life has got in the way.
Mountainbiker 