Thursday, March 19, 2009

Come in Number 51, Your Time Is Up

I graduated! I went to physical therapy tonight and my therapist asked me how I was feeling. I told him how I rode 42 miles on Saturday, another 30 on Sunday, and how I've been riding every day without pain. He was all like "How about tonight is your last night?"

And I was all like "Yeah, that sounds cool."

He basically told me to keep an eye on things, keep doing stretches, try doing some of the other exercises I've been doing there (I have ankle weights and exercise balls, so I can replicate a lot of the stuff at home) and keep moving.

I have to call the doctor tomorrow to see if he wants me to bother coming in for my follow-up the second week of April. Seriously, the last three weeks or so have been really great. I think a lot of it has been the physical therapy, and I've also been able to get out a lot more and actually ride.

I have a really nice 11.5-mile loop that I can do at lunch that has lots of good hills and some nice flat stretches, too. My time on that has been getting increasingly better.

When I can't do that for some reason, I set up the trainer and get on that for 30 minutes or so. It's hard to go much longer than that on the trainer because a) it's a really tough workout and b) it's a lot more boring than being outside. I need to make a little book/magazine stand so I can at least do something besides stare at my basement walls.

Today I had to get up really early to help Heather with some stuff, so I headed out for a ride at 6:40. I rode 17.5 miles in an hour. Great timing, considering the course, and again, no pain.

I had time to get out at lunch, although not as much as I would have liked. I did an abbreviated lunch loop of about 8.5 miles. Still, I'm pretty happy with 26 for the day.

After seeing what I was able to do today, I'm going to try to start doing the early thing more often. I know I could stretch that out to 20 miles and still get back home in time to start work. Add the 11.5 at lunch, and I'm at 30+ miles a day. I'd be pretty happy to be able to do that on a regular basis. Just to be outside and moving is the greatest thing.

So yeah, I really hope things are pretty close to being back to normal. With the weather finally starting to get nice again, most of my free time is spent thinking about when I can ride again.

1 comment:

Reddan said...

Glad to hear your kneecap is no longer seeking trial separation.

You planning to come out for the 200K April 11th?