At last! The day I’d been waiting a long time for. The day we would come together as a team and have our first training camp abroad, in my favourite place to cycle – not that I have much to compare it too.
James and I decided to spend the week before team camp in Calpe, making up for lost hours from being ill over winter. A solid week, minus the knee injury that showed its face.
I’d had an iffy knee the week before we flew out, but thought it was just a niggle ‘don’t think about it and it’ll go away,’ my moto to life has failed me on countless occasions. Anyway, three days in and I had to turn back because I couldn’t even push the peddle, all by myself… and I was missing a big day with friends – gutted.
A small river of tears later and I made it back to the apartment where I started frantically searching for reviews on local physiotherapists. Bingo baby, there was one a four-minute hobble away, but not until 7pm. However, Antonio squeezed me in and was a total dude.
I had the most outrageous therapy – turns out it was dry needling. After some language barriers, me – ‘no no I want acupuncture,’ Antonio however was insistent I did not want acupuncture I wanted dry needling.
Dry needling:
This is where they insert acupuncture needles into the problem area, give you an ‘earthing’ probe – you can imagine my face when I was given this and then they proceed to send electric shocks through the needles. This may sound unpleasant but, it most totally and disgustingly was possibly one of the most painful experiences (and then I had shockwave therapy in the UK on my return, so now I’m torn on what’s worse).
After my needling, I had a strange massage with a warm metal plate… would recommend for sleeping vibes – can’t give you a name because I can only just about speak my own language, let alone a second one. Finally, a little KT tape to hold me together and off I went – ‘rest for two days at least’ – yes sir, one day, got it, hope to not see you again, thanks pal, byeeeee.
It did help my knee a lot, but I still wasn’t sure what the issue was because I’d never experienced this before, and I was a little concerned – so I did the only thing I could and continued to train through it while I could.
Week two arrived and we moved to Altea to be with my new teamies, in one of the most beautiful hotels I have ever stayed in – actually, probably the most, because in the UK, I allow myself a Premiere Inn at most.
I can’t lie, I was concerned I would get dropped every day, or end up climbing off, because I’d never done consecutively big days in the saddle – and don’t forget to add in the tough efforts we got sent off to do.
I’m not sure we did a day under… 100km? Which actually, when all you have to do is ride your bike, fuel and sleep it isn’t even that bad and I have decided, if anyone would like to pay me to ride my bike, I would be very grateful because that is my kind of lifestyle. Eat, sleep, ride (rave) and repeat… what’s not to love?
Although, by the time the rest day arrived, I was hitting day 14 of training and the only ‘rest’ I had was to recover from injury, so it doesn’t even count – I was exhausted, a shell, digging my own hole. Very grateful that day came, I crawled to a café with James and of course, I recorded the whole 1.8km we cycled, because strava gains.
Oh yes, I should mention, by this stage I also had a wonderful chest infection… which was brewing toward the end of week one, so now I was super exhausted and sick, but I am a sucker for torture so was determined I was not giving up. Thankfully, the lovely Spanish pharmacist checked my previous prescriptions and gave me some meds… the good stuff, if you know, you know.
I was anxious about my cough, people had asked if ‘I was sure it was asthma and not covid yes huns, I know my body and I know when my lack of ability to breathe is turning into an infection. But this did mean I spent most of my time hiding in our room, because I was scared of upsetting people… sad times.
Thankfully I could still train and the weather was lush, the riding was beautiful and my teamies were awesome. Oh, and did I mention, it was an all you can eat buffet for all three meals… I have never eaten so much food, and I didn’t even eat that much, compared to some of the stacked plates in the canteen – LUSH.
We practiced different drills and tic-tacs, and I learnt a hell of a lot. I was disappointed with my performance a few times because I wanted to prove I was worthy of my spot on the team, but I just couldn’t breathe and my HR was so high due to being sick, but eventually I just accepted it – but the important thing is, I didn’t give up, not once. I did however crawl up one of the long climbs on a middle day, due to my knee giving in on me again.
We did a lot of extra climbing one day toward the end of the week, which I was concerned about, but needn’t have worried! Some of the ladies went off up Tudons to do an effort and I wasn’t going to bother because I still wasn’t back to full health, but I put my big girl panties on and decided to give it a go – see if I could stay with them, but stay out of their way.
My HR immediately skyrocketed, my brain was suffering more than anything else. We got caught in the middle of a bunch of unhelpful men, spreading themselves across the road, which was quite annoiyng.
I’d resigned myself to ‘I wouldn’t be able to help on the front A. because I thought they were doing an effort to power, so they’d need to go at their own pace (?) and B. I just wasn’t feeling strong,’ so I trundled along on the back – out of the way.
It started to get steeper on the hairpins and the going got tougher with the heat increasing, before we knew it there was only three of us left – and of course, my brain being my brain, thought ‘oh so now I can stop...?’ Nope. Watto kindly pulled up next to me, to remind me to keep going - I have a certain posture and movements that let Watto know when I’m thinking of giving up, I’m an open book – I managed to convince my brain to continue, the little spur on was what I needed.
I didn’t do a lot of work because, as I said – I thought I’d be in the way, but I managed to do some work in the middle and tow the ladies up the last bit, a lovely surprise to myself. Turns out, we got the best time up there for a while… pretty sweet!
It was one hell of a cracking week, tough and fun, while becoming part of a family. I loved it.
The hotel was amazing – minus the daily 7am breakfast, due to our covid bubble timings. The bike storage was class, the food was lovely, the view over the beach was incredible and the facilities were spot on.
We ended the week with a lovely team meal, and an early night for me, as I wanted to get one last ride in before we flew home. Little did I know that ride would be the day I got blown into the side of a tunnel due to the high winds… not ideal but I saved my bike by taking the brunt with my shoulder, worth it for the delish café stop, besides, I had James to make me feel better.
I’ll have to wait a season before I have time to return, but don’t you worry, it is 100% on my list of end of season fun things to do.
Ride bikes, eat cake, be happy :)
Comments