My apologies to readers of this blog: I haven’t blogged much over the last couple of days because I haven’t exercised much, for various reasons. My bum left knee is acting up again, the one with the torn/sprained ACL sustained within 10 seconds and 3 blocks of a ‘Captain’s Ball’ game. There is nagging pain at the front of the knee, and it seems cycling exacerbates the whole thing even more, let alone running. My other excuse is that the only swimming pools here are miniscule thirty-yard swim-in-clockwise-direction ones, not the Olympic-sized free-swim lanes I’ve been accustomed to. So I’ve not done cardio since something like the middle of June, which I’m not pleased about, but I’ll look upon it as a break for my body. I do a bit of walking everyday though, up a couple of hills, so at least my fitness isn’t wasting away as quickly as it could be. My other redemption is that I’ve been doing free weights and pressups more or less every day.

I got a patella brace on Sunday but it didn’t seem to work very well and was a waste of money for £8. It’s the one that just goes on the underside of the knee and seemed as if it would have been more comfortable for running – the other one which I had (but had forgotten to bring here) was the open-patella two-strap one which worked well but seemed a little cumbersome to wear. I’m debating whether to just go back to the shop and get the brace I used to wear, or try out the newer one and see if it’ll eventually feel better.

Some news on the non-fitness front – relocated (both country and home) and got a new job, the very first one I’ve interviewed for – the previous teaching job was tagged on to my scholarship, so I didn’t really have to interview for that. The new teaching job starts in September, and until then, I’ve only got to go in a few days every now and then, so I’m enjoying my first summer break in over 6 years. I’m getting used to the early morning sun and am enjoying the cool weather of summer.

One thing that I’m eventually considering is a trainer (fluid, kinetic etc) for a bike – has anyone used them before and can anyone recommend any models to me?