I rode my bike the day after the workout last week and I had a very difficult time keeping my heart rate aerobic. My muscles were hurting long before the cardio system felt anything. I was battling to keep the cardio intensity above a light recovery ride even though my leg muscles were in agony. Tough ride.

My trainer told me to keep today’s ride an active recovery session. Which means a very easy ride. Light gears, light effort.

Obviously, the overall objective is to improve core conditioning and to hopefully alleviate the back pain issues and not break any new cycling records. Recovery rides do not break cycling records and I try to avoid doing them as much as possible.

My theory, though, is that my personal trainer will create pain in the other areas of my body and I will soon forget about the back pain. It will seem very minor by comparison.

So far, this theory seems to be working.

I’ve had them on and off for many years. The back flared up a few weeks ago. Different than before. Pain on one side of the lower back that is worse when sitting. And I cannot drive for longer than 15 to 20 minutes before the onset of pain.

Sciatica.

The term sciatica describes the symptoms of leg pain and possibly tingling, numbness or weakness that originates in the low back and travels through the buttock and down the large sciatic nerve in the back of the leg.

The vast majority of people who experience sciatica get better with time (usually a few weeks or months) and find pain relief with non-surgical sciatica treatment. For others, however, sciatic nerve pain can be severe and debilitating.

The pain has subsided significantly. And I believe it was brought on by a combination of poor fit on the bike and an overly ambitious training program.

I did a refit on the bike. I also took some time off the machine for a couple of weeks. Frankly, I was a bit afraid of making the symptoms worse. I started riding again and so far everything seems fine. I feel really good on the bike and I did a hard ride on Sunday and an aerobic ride this evening.

I will focus on core conditioning with my trainer and I will make sure that I am doing the appropriate stretching to ease the muscle imbalance that I created from cycling hard. It may take a few months to get back to normal and I guess I am learning that when you are in your fifties, you have to take a bit more care on how hard you train. Especially if you have back problems.

Yes, I am in great shape. And no, I am not in great shape.

Years of cycling have made an incredible difference in my overall condition. I have lost a lot of weight and, more importantly, I have maintained my weight. However, I have struggled with lower back pain for many, many years. Although I approached cycling with a high degree of intensity, I did nothing around the cycling work to build up my core strength. Nor did I do anything to stretch my muscles.

At this time, the major leg muscles — calves, thighs, quads, glutes — are rock solid. So are the forearms, biceps, triceps and shoulders. No surprise as these are the muscle groups that do most of the work when riding.

Midsection? Flabby. No surprise there either. I just haven’t performed any conditioning for the midsection.

Several weeks back, significant back pain emerged. Different class of back pain from previous years. Lower right side with a numbing pain traversing down my right side from the hip to around the knee. Really painful first thing in the morning. I am not able to sit for any length of time and it is really difficult to drive a car for much longer than an hour. Really difficult.

Although it is hard to say with certainty, I suspect this happened due to an aggressive cycling program and misalignment of my pedal cleats.

What my muscles are doing, in effect, twists my body out of shape. The muscles are so tight and the midsection so underdeveloped that I am experiencing pain when I do simple things like walking, sitting or raising my right leg off the floor.

Nino from Door2Door Fitness came over last night and took me through a series of routines to assess the current state. Bottom line: very tight, limited flexibility, and imbalanced development of muscle strength.

I have signed up for 16 sessions to start the process of core conditioning. That, along with a refit on the bike, should help to address the lower back pain issues. I hope. I may need to get things checked out to rule out any other contributing factor.

Nino said that I won’t need a lot of coaching: “You strike me as a highly self-motivated and very disciplined person.”

My wife thought that was an understatement.

I went easy. More of a recovery ride really. Kept the cadence up. Kept the heart rate aerobic. And I tried to get used to the new bike position, saddle and cleat position.

First observation? There is no back pain. The pain in my right leg has subsided significantly. At least for now. I could tell that the cleat alignment had made a significant difference to the pronation of the right leg. Before, I would look down and I would see the right heel angled out by quite a margin. Not now.

New saddle seemed to be a good fit. The adjusted height of the saddle and the elevated angle of the hoods also seemed fine. I also think I warmed up properly on the bike. 2 clicks out from the house and my heart rate was still below 120. I’m usually pushing 130 or more within the first 2 clicks.

Getting off the bike, I felt awesome. Unlike previous rides, I took time to stretch and crunch, before and after.

I’ve struggled with periods of back pain throughout most of my adult life. But usually the episodes are fairly brief. A few days of very tight back muscles that gradually release and then things get back to normal.

I miss normal.

A few weeks ago, I began to experience a different kind of back pain. Lower right. More like at the hip. The fun part of this back pain is that it travels down my right leg. Oh, and I cannot sit for any period of time without experiencing significant pain. And, for most of the day, my work involves sitting.

Yesterday, I drove to Ottawa. Although only two hours each way, it was sheer torture. For now, I cannot drive any longer than 30 minutes without the onset of significant pain.

So. Did cycling cause this condition?

Knee and hip pain are the most common cycling injuries. The most common cause of knee and hip pain in cyclists is iliotibial band syndrome. The iliotibal band is a thick fibrous band of tissue, which runs on the outside of the leg from the hip to the knee. Pain is caused when the band becomes tight and rubs over the bony prominences of the hip and/or the knee. Tight inflexible lower extremity muscles may worsen the condition.

The most common causes are:

• Faulty saddle height or position
• Crank too long
• Pushing excessively high gears (slow cadence in cold weather)
• Too much leg work
• Cleat alignment
• Individual cyclist anatomy

But this condition may well be lower back pain. And muscle imbalance. If there is little development of the mid-section, trouble will emerge. Riding with undeveloped abs is something like riding a bike with a cracked frame – all the energy gets dissipated in flexion, and doesn’t get you down the road. Low-back pain can result from a lack or imbalance of mid-section strength.

I was riding pretty hard this season — although I have been off the bike for almost two weeks now. How much time was I spending stretching and building the core? Uh, that would be zero. I know better but I wasn’t taking the time to stretch and crunch.

I am now doing 200 plus crunches a day and a variety of stretching exercises. At this point, it is hard to say whether things are improving. The condition eases at night and I can sleep without any discomfort.

The mornings are tough.

I also went back to get re-fitted on the bike last week. My cleats were definitely out of alignment. Way out. I had changed them the end of last season and I did not bother to check alignment. Oops. We also changed saddles and brought the angles of the hoods up a few degrees. Position on the machine looks good.

Should I get back on the bike? I might try an easy spin today and see what happens. I have signed up a trainer to help me build out my core. And, if the condition does not improve, I might well have to seek out medical attention.

For now, I continue to hobble along.

The first incident involved six cyclists from the Club de Triathlon, St. Lambert. The cyclists were entangled in a scene of carnage on a Quebec highway last Friday. Three women died. A pickup truck hit the group of riders along a dangerous section of Highway 112 in Rougement, just south of Montreal.

And another cyclist, a 57-year-old male, was killed after a collision with a car driven by a 44-year-old drunk drive. This happened on Highway 117 near Val Morin.

Eleanor McMahon, Founder of Share the Road, had this to say about the recent tragedies: “We really do have a shared vulnerability. Do you know of another pastime where you pack ID before you head out on the road in case you get run over and don’t see your loved ones again?” Her husband, OPP Sergeant Greg Stobbart, was struck and killed by a vehicle in a cycling collision.

I know it sounds morbid but I carry my contact information in a couple of places when I ride: on a label inside my helmet and on a card inside my saddle. I let my family know which loop I am riding and about how long it should take to complete the loop. I always carry a cellphone with me when I ride. And when I ride, I am very aware of my surroundings and I practice defensive riding. Most cars will provide a generous and wide berth when passing however, on every ride, there will always be at least one driver intent on cutting as close to my left side as possible. If there is a strong headwind, I may not hear that car coming up behind me. Fortunately I ride loops where there is generally little traffic and the shoulders are pretty generous. But I always focus on keeping a true line as close to the side of the road as possible.

I am confident on a bike. I do not worry about the potential danger when I am out on the road. I know that cycling at the speed I ride requires an elevated level of skill and a particular focus and attention to detail to ensure a safe ride. However, there is little that can be done to safeguard against a drunk driver or a driver so intent on talking on their cellphone that they are swerving all over the road. I see far more of the latter than the former these days.