Our first couple of miles were up hill out of the town. Despite feeling great first thing, I was now in complete agony. It felt like someone had unscrewed my knee cap and placed broken glass inside before half heartily putting it back on. With every rotation I grimaced. Through gritted teeth, and ultimately an entire downhill journey I made it to Hereford A&E to get my knee looked at.
I'll be honest, I was worried. If the doctor told me I was doing serious damage to my body and NEEDED to stop before I do irreversible damage, that'd be game over.
After locking up my bike I limped in. Less through injury and more through sweat avoidance in my cycling trousers. Surprisingly there wasn't a single sole waiting at A&E. I can only assume that the fine people of Hereford are far too hard to be dealing with nancy injuries at the hospital. But I assure you, the pain I was in was nothing like I've ever experienced before.
The Nurse saw me first, she nonchalantly asked the same routine questions before discovering the adventure we're on. She seemed impressed by the task, but not so impressed with what I'd done.
I sat momentarily back down before being called by the Doctor. She poked my knee and leg a bit before giving her diagnosis. She even showed me on a life sized knee model what I'd done, which I appreciated. Then she showed me in a naked male model picture book, which I didn't appreciate as much.
It turns out that I've torn one of my Quad muscles just above the right knee, one of four muscles that make up your thigh. The cure. Rest. My cure. Industrial strength pain killers and a couple of heavy duty knee supports.
After being reassured I wasn't going to ruin my knees forever and collecting my bag of drugs, I smuggled them out into the car park before popping a few of them down before heading on my way.
By this time Brooksy and I had been separated, and it wasn't until lunch at Ludlow until we were reunited. Although not AS painful, my knee still hurt. Brooksy was probably glad he wasn't with me during the time the pain killers were kicking in, there's only so much moaning he could take for one day!
After lunch we went like stink up towards Shrewsbury, parallel with back home. I felt great. The supports were holding everything in place, and the drugs had meant that my complaining and cursing had subsided.
We reached the camp site after going over several familiar looking round-a-bouts. They're the exact same one we go through when we visit Sarah's family in North Wales - Wow we've come a long way!
We were relieved that the riding day was over. We'd banged in over 98 miles, not bad for one day! Miffed at the fact we were only fractionally short of the ton, Brooksy decided to circle the car park. This led him to stacking it, AGAIN, doing a comedy roll in the gravel. While I stood pointing and laughing, Brooksy's dad came running over to tend to his son's boo boo's and ouchies.
We were assured that there was a pub 1 mile away from the caravan site, and in a bid to avoid another pasta meal we decided to go. A 3 mile walk later and we finally discovered the place. I was tired and not in the mood for it. Even though we'd made it to the only habitat of human activity for miles at a sensible time, we were told that food had stopped 15 minutes prior to our arrival. Hmmm.
We must have looked like we were feeling really sorry for ourselves as the landlady kindly offered to specially open her kitchen for us. Yippee!
Miles today: 98.1
Miles total: 319.6
Local beers consumed: Jennings Golden Host
Location:Chepstow - Shrewsbury
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