Parys races online

Craighall elite road cyclist, Parys Edwards has taken the nationwide lockdown in her stride, finding ways to stay as fit as ever and even compete online.

By connecting her bicycle to an indoor bicycle trainer, Edwards has been able to cycle some of the world’s toughest courses from home.

This through the Zwift app.

“I have joined a couple of online races and cycle about one to three hours per day on my balcony,” Edwards said.

“I have been busy recently so now I am prioritising sleep, and I am getting eight to nine hours per night, which is great. I am not taking the online races too seriously.”

This said, there is a competitive pro-am race series on the app and Edwards is trying to put a South African team together to compete.

If this happens, she will start taking indoor cycling much more seriously.

She said what the coronavirus had done was tragic but there was a silver lining in that people were now resting more and connecting with their families at home.

“I feel very blessed in that I can also do some of my work from home.”

As a sports physiotherapist, Edwards met with as many of her clients as she could before the lockdown and designed programmes for them to follow for injury repair in her absence.

For new injuries, she asks patients to take video footage of how they run so she can assess their injuries, and decide on the therapy required to correct them, remotely.

Edwards qualifies as essential personnel but has only left her home once so far, and that to treat a patient whose injury, if not immediately treated, would have led to permanent damage.

“I feel that for the lockdown to work we should all be working from home if possible.”

In February, Edwards took second place in the Gauteng Road Cycling Championships.

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Parys Edwards takes second place at Gauteng Champs for new team