Yesterday I was cycling home. I’ve been doing a lot of cycling since a bad injury stopped me from running nearly two months ago.

It’s been a curious experience to become faster at cycling. I ride my bike quite often but, with running out of the question, it’s only in these last couple of months that I’ve approached cycling as a primary form of exercise rather than just a way to get from A to B. Previously undeveloped muscle groups have become developed and I’ve become able to maintain speed for longer distances or while going up hills that would, in the past, have slowed me down a lot.

Anyway all this progress was rendered meaningless yesterday when I had the very humbling experience of falling off my bike. It wasn’t a crash or anything and nobody else can be blamed for it. I was going through a gate when leaving Victoria Park but my positioning was off and one of my handlebars clipped it as I went past. The handlebars immediately turned 90 degrees to the right, the bike decelerated rapidly and I think I went flying over the front wheel.

When I say “I think” it’s not because I was concussed or unconscious – the whole theme of this incident is closer to farce than drama – but just because it happened so quickly I don’t really remember exactly how I left my bike or how I landed. But land I did, and as I hit the ground I was already blushing with embarrassment.

My phone (a new smartphone!) had flown out of my backpack and hit the concrete, but was completely unscathed. I had a cut on my hand on on my knee but nothing too serious. The bike was OK, just a bit flustered. I looked around; did anyone see?? Thankfully not. I stood up and dusted myself down, while a few other people came past, and soon rode off after them. This was probably the first time I’ve fallen off a bike since I was a child and it didn’t hurt that much but was a very humbling experience nonetheless.

In other news, I was finally able this morning to go for a short run. This is the first time I’ve ran (away from a treadmill) since my inexcusable jaunt in Cornwall in late May wrecked my lower back. The many small rituals of running – where to put keys, how to warm up, what kind of speed to go initially, what to do with the GPS watch to get it to show the right information – didn’t flow instinctually in the way they do when I’m running regularly, so I had to make an effort to remember what to do. But it was a great feeling to be running again, even if it was for only 1.8 miles on fairly flat ground.