The Tour D'Afrique is a fairly substantial physical challenge, and I've tried my hardest to train appropriately. Unfortunately, my travel plans of the last three months (i.e. living in India) have made that difficult. In addition, for those keeping track of my injuries, sometime just over a couple of weeks ago, I dislocated my right shoulder for the fifth time. It reset itself as I was strapped into the stretcher on the way down from the piste.
This is a recurring problem - despite surgery to 'fix' the problem. This was the first dislocation since the surgery so it is the question of concern is whether any further permanent damage has been done. My shoulder consultant has recommended for an arthroscopic MRI next week, so I'll report back once the results are through. With any luck though, it'll just be a case of physiotherapy. If it has been damaged then more surgery may be necessary.
It has since returned to a fairly normal state and I've been trying as hard as I can to train in Mombasa, whilst enjoying the full range of the resort's buffet meals.
Jogging on the beach-
Painful! I was using trainers that aren't really running trainers - gave this up pretty quickly after a combination of foot pain and late nights meant that early morning runs were unfeasible.
Gym-
The resort had a reasonable array of exercise equipment to use and I visited it about five times, for about 1 to 2 hours. Concentrated mainly on the recumbent bicycle and treadmill - the normal cycle had an incredibly painful saddle. My shoulder ached a bit on the treadmill after a while but once I started correcting my posture, it was much more comfortable.
Pressups and core exercises were a bit more wobbly but doable in slightly smaller sets of repetitions.
Tennis-
Raquet sport is an obvious danger area for shoulder injuries and I approached the game with fair caution. There was no pain though, and the only issue was a slight loss of fine control since the ligaments in my shoulder are now looser than normal. In actual fact, my forehand stroke seemed smoother as a result.
Cycling-
We managed to borrow some hard tail mountain bikes from a family friend. Cycling on the beach was quite difficult - I can see sandy surfaces becoming quite problematic. Cycling on the (decent) Kenyan road outside the resort was smooth - although the occasional potholes and speed bumps mean that some kind of suspension is desirable. I locked out the front fork to gain an idea of how my rigid cyclocross bike would fare and am quite happy that I invested in a suspension seatpost now! The heat is also going to be an issue - in the middle of afternoon, my shirt was quickly soaked after about five minutes of riding at my usual pace. Will definitely have to look into hydration packs this week.
