Diaries of an Aspiring Ultra-Distance cyclist: Recovery from a Brain Haemorrhage

After explaining the nature of my accident, I thought I’d share some insights into my recovery from a brain haemorrhage. The arrival of Spring & British Summer Time day light saving has coincided perfectly with me feeling fit & able enough to start riding outside again!

During this period of down time, I’ve spent a lot of time reading a variety of subject around training, nutrition & self-development. Done in an attempt not only to pass the time, but to help me understand my body & how I can rebuild myself back stronger. Having spent time learning, now I’m riding again it makes sense to start implementing it. I learn best by doing, things make sense to me when I can practice the theory I’ve learn, it becomes taught once I can practice & relate to it more closely.

I’ll start by saying zone 2 training is actually hard work! I’ve always considered endurance riding, just riding a long way & enduring it. If that means hills, even better. Over the years I’ve learned to fine tune my technique & bike set up choices to enable a high cadence technique. I find this helps me keep my legs spinning longer and fatiguing less. It does however mean my heart rate fluctuates a lot during rides. I guess this is my mountain bike style translating across all my riding.

HR is a measure of the body’s response to a given workload; it can be different every day. There are so many factors that affect HR, meaning it’s tricky to compare data between multiple days where a similar workload occurs – a broad approach is required. One thing I have always noticed, my HR comes down as quick as it goes up. My HRV is high & RHR very low. That’s all well good until you have a brain haemorrhage!

Nowadays, during this period of recovery from a brain haemorrhage, high HR isn’t great for my brain. Increased blood flow feels like high pressure inside my head – that, and lack of sleep/rest are the two main agitators right now. I have to keep my HR within Z2 as much as possible to minimise headaches, migraines & light headedness. That means adapting my technique.

Rather than focussing on high cadence and riding according to the terrain, I’m riding according to my HR. This means really low cadence & high torque when pointing uphill – it means my HR is always in Z2. Previously, my riding style could be likened to a fartlek session; tempo Z3 when going uphill, Z1 recovery when freewheeling downhill & then Z2 endurance on the flats. Whereas now this constant Z2 leaves no time for recovery!

For someone who rides ultra distance, you’d think Z2 would be super easy. This high torque is not, it’s hard on the legs! It relies on more power with each pedal stroke, rather than generating momentum through consistently high cadence. Whilst learning a new technique is a challenge, it does keep my HR down which is good for my brain. I’m also finding that recovery is so much quicker, meaning I can go again the next day without stiffness. Who knew, when you actually do endurance riding in the endurance zone, as written by the professionals, magic happens. Maybe all this reading about science I’ve done lately is actually working! It’s certainly showing me that quality of a session is better than quantity. When building an aerobic base, it’s better to generate stimulus from two decent Z2 60km rides, where the lower stress on the body means it can be repeated on consecutive days. This better structured approach enables consistency & stimulates the correct system according to the current mesocycle. That’s not to say that riding at tempo is a bad thing, it’s more about timing. Hitting out 90km at tempo stresses high intensity systems, which isn’t ideal during a high volume endurance block – and therefore training three systems in the same session, as I was doing, isn’t very productive either!

So yes, having time free to study has taught me some useful things about training.

High HR is one of the main agitators of my brain haemorrhage, the other is lack of sleep. I’m finding consistency really tough in this recovery from a brain haemorrhage at the moment. The nature of this brain trauma is such that the effects of sleep/stress/exertion are all amplified. Whereas pre-injury I could ignore & push through, I now have to listen to my body & keep in tune to prevent over stimulating. If I over stimulate it can be painful, leading to light headedness, migraines, feeling nauseous & weak.

My training cycle was typically 3-4hours/day on 3/4 consecutive days (intensity dependant), then 1 rest day. Throughout March I only felt able to train for 1/2hours at Z2 max. on a ‘good day’ when I’ve had sufficient sleep, minimal stress & exertion in other aspect in my day. If I don’t exert or stress myself at all, I don’t feel tired enough to sleep. If I don’t sleep sufficiently, stress & exertion is amplified even more – it’s a vicious cycle. It probably doesn’t help that my resting heart rate has always been very low. If I’m sat down unoccupied, it’ll be around 40-45bpm – my body think it’s asleep, so actually transitioning to sleep is hard.

Low RHR & high HRV sounds wonderful, until it isn’t. As was evident when unconscious in hospital in America, where, as a tourist (unconscious tourist!), they didn’t have knowledge of this condition. After 3 days unconscious, the concerns were growing to the point where my parents were called & put on the next flight across the Atlantic.

The hardest thing about this recovery from a brain haemorrhage is that it’s an invisible injury. A broken bone is pretty obvious. A broken brain takes some explaining. That said, since all my plans for this year were wiped out, I’ve started to feel so relaxed recently. I’m under no pressure at all. Not being under pressure to train & prepare for a race has allowed my mind to think outside of that one-dimensional tunnel vision. Mentally I’ve noticed how stress free I feel & physically, I’ve noticed how my muscles just do not stiffen up at the moment. I feel agile & flexible, I guess partly due to the fact I always did base training at much too higher intensity than I should! But also not beating myself up about pressure to train, always focussing on what I hadn’t done rather than enjoying what I have done.

This shift in mindset towards enjoyment is refreshing. It suggests a correlation between mental stress and its impact on bodily stress, and vice versa. I’ve noticed with Whoop that after 3 days of consecutive training, my bodily stress levels are high, as is my resting heart rate. Whereas on rest days, the tasks that put me into high stress levels on consecutive training days, don’t stress me as much & my resting high rate also drops back to 40-45bpm. This is all ‘new to me’ data & should be considered that I’m still recovering from a brain trauma. It’ll likely change as the weeks go by, but its worth knowing for development & comparison purposes.

Speaking of measuring things as the weeks go by, when I look at this recovery from a brain haemorrhage a bit more top level, it’s amazing how far I’ve come so far. January was a write off, it was a mental roller coaster where I was mostly on the couch or in bed. February, I started to force myself to be normal again, to walk & slow ride on the turbo. It was hard & had lot of bad reactions. March my capacity increased, both at work & training. I was consistently riding most days & learning how to manage my capacity; what was manageable & what wasn’t.

Now in April, I feel able to exercise for much longer durations. I feel like all the bits of my engine are still in there, they just need bolting back together! I’ve no idea what the immediate future holds. But for now, just feeling like a normal human again who is able to do the things they enjoy is such a blessing. Needless to say, ultra-distance racing, or anything remotely adrenaline related, won’t be happening for some time!