A typical dad

Sunday was the 3m Half Marathon, so I moved "daddy's morning off" from Sat to Sun so I could yell at the runners. By the time I got there, the lead pack had already passed, but the local champs were running by. The last time I watched a race, I yelled an enthusiastic "go Paul" to a guy named Peter. Hearing your name during a race can be a mental boost, but hearing someone else's name intended for you could be a slight downer, so I found myself being cautious and forgetting names. I've spent some time lurking on the local race photography sites trying to associate names with faces, probably more competitive than social of me.... anyway, I know some names of local runners and many don't know who the heck I am. I rode up the course on my bike trying to remember the names of those I recognized and yelling with caution. I found my friend Lisa at about mile 12 running well, and I turned around and followed her for a bit tried to think of encouraging words for the final mile. She finished with an impressive 1:22. I hung out with Gilbert and cheered some more, saw Hugo, Kevin, Alex, Jonathan, Julie.... everyone looked good, and it was fun to watch.

After the race I went to Barton Springs and aquajogged for an hour or so with running buddies Shannon and Kathie. This was my first AJ workout since surgery. I've been avoiding it because of the cold weather.... I could feel it working my hip in new, slightly uncomfortable ways, which is probably good, but I've been pessimistic about the hip lately, so I took it as an indicator that things aren't going well. And I took this negative attitude to my physical therapist on tues. I asked him questions about what would happen, for example, if I blew off my rehab, etc. I guess what I was looking for was some coaching, some words of encouragement, because it's been 12 weeks and, well, I was really hoping to be running, or at least close. He sorta blew off my questions, which pissed me off, so I made it clear that I was becoming skeptical about the whole thing, whether the exercises were working, whether he really understood what was wrong, etc. I was frustrated..... Will I run? If so, when? I wanted a date and anecdotal evidence that guys/gals with my particular problem get better, etc. I think he gave me what I wanted. 3 months. And he gave me some new exercises to target my iliopsoas. We'll see..... I can stick it out for 3 more months. I thought he might say 6 months....

Wed morning I got up early and met some fellow injured runners for more aquajogging in Barton. It was 37 degrees outside, cold enough to dominate many-a-topic of conversation here in Austin. I put on my wetsuit and nearly froze walking to the car. I cranked the heat on full blast and drove, and when I got there, it took me several minutes to gather the will to get out of the car and walk to the water. It was so cold that I had no choice but to get in, and the water was really cold of course..... Anyway, my hip felt better than Sunday. We "jogged" for an hour and that was fine, and I almost reached a comfortable body temp. When I got out, the cold felt "evil" on my wet skin. I made my way to the showers, but they were shut down because of the freezing temps-- wow, what an unpleasant experience. When I got home, the hot shower and hot coffee were incredible. Still, I think the aquajogging is good for the hip, so I'm going to try to do more.... It builds character-- something a typical dad would say. Tomorrow I'm going to the gym to do a treadmill run/walk, 1 minute run, 4 minutes walk for 25 or 30 minutes if I can tolerate it.

Recovery week

On Sunday I went for a long walk with Lucy and Banjo, fairly brisk pace for 52 minutes, another post-surgery PR, but I probably overdid it because Monday my hip felt pretty crappy, worse than it's been in a long time. So I decided to make this a "recovery week" and take it easy.

Tues: 8 minute of stationary bike, 21 minutes on elliptical.

Thurs: Did 20 minutes of walk/run on the treadmill at 8% incline, 4 minutes walking, 1 minute running at 11 minute pace. Felt OK, but the 11 minute pace and the soreness afterwards put me in a bad mood. i.e., it wasn't what I was expecting by now-- i.e., when I saw "running" on the rehab schedule, I had something else in mind, like, uh.....running.

Elliptical high score

Went to the gym yesterday with the intention of doing some treadmill running/walking, a 1 minute on, 4 minutes off kind of deal-- I'm feeling like I'm ready for something like that. plus the elliptical is getting pretty stale. But I forgot to wear my running shoes, which have been buried for a while, so I stepped up to the elliptical yet again.... 27 minutes later, I had bested my elliptical PR. I keep track of this stuff....I'm so cool! it was set last March while watching the Bourne Identity at the end of my marathon recovery period. The action scenes helped in that case. In this case, I somehow bested my pre-surgery PR. Do they recalibrate those machines? Seriously. Or could it be my generalized frustration coupled with work stress? At any rate, I'll take it as a sign that my cardio work is paying off.

Last Sunday I gave Christina a pass to sleep in and took Banjo out for a long walk to the turtle pond at UT. Do they hibernate? Banjo wasn't too disappointed they weren't there though. I walked for 45 minutes, probably 2.5 miles or so. 45 minutes was way more than I've done before (roughly 2x) and I was expecting repercussions, but haven't noticed any. My hip is responding well lately.

Update wed: did a tad over 12 miles on the bike. Went from my house to Great Northern/Shoal Creek and back again. Austin marathoners are familiar with this route. Averaged 16.7 mph including stops. Hip felt good.

Thurs: I was near the trail this afternoon, so I put on some running clothes and did a 30 minute run/walk, 1 minute on, 4 off, for a total of 6 minutes of slow running. It was really cold. Hip felt OK, not great, and I'm glad I didn't try anything tougher, and I may wake up sore tomorrow. I'll probably do the same workout next thurs and see if it feels better before advancing to a 1/3 run/walk. This is my first official post-surgery "run"-- I'm happy, I guess, but again, it's clear that it's gonna take a long time......I'm still thinking that hip surgery is kind of a bitch.

Fri: Later in the day Thurs, the hip was a little stiff and I was expecting the same or worse this morning, but it was only a little bit sore when I got up-- honest. Went to the gym and did 40 reps of 70 pound squats and then 21 minutes on the stairs. Hip felt good.

Less pink

9 weeks out, I think I can see where things are headed. I can extrapolate my recovery line into the future and see that this is going to take a long time. I can probably run mid Feb as the rehab calendar says, but it will be lots of time, lots of workouts, lots of building up, before I can run for, say, 45 minutes at a time. I can see myself running in the future though, and that is good. I told myself before surgery, trying to look at this whole thing squarely, that it was like starting all over again, but it's actually worse. Each extra minute walking, biking, stair climbing, etc isn't exactly hard fought, but it requires significant consideration and planning. If taking up running were this tedious, I wouldn't have started running in the first place....but then again I wouldn't know what I was missing either (what am I missing exactly?) My desire to run, wherever the heck it comes from, is still there, and apparently quite robust. It drives me. But I'm frustrated. Anyway, just trying to be real about this. I feel like I've been painting things slightly pink in this blog.

Really dang white

We went biking on the tandem again this weekend, but my hip hurt quite a bit at the beginning, which was a little odd-- the bike had never caused this much pain before. The pain subsided after a couple minutes of riding, but it got me a little worried. I was thinking about biking some more this week-- I'll give it another go, but be careful. We did a total of 2.5 miles to and from Mangia pizza.

At any rate, I did my elliptical/stair workout today and it went fine. I cranked up the incline this time, which worked my hips a little more and made it a tad bit harder. I did 20 minutes elliptical, 8 minutes stairs.

Update Wed: went to see my PT dude-- did the same exercises as usual, but added 10 minutes on the treadmill, which was exciting I guess, but I had to wear a harness that reduced the weight on my legs. It sorta took the zen out of running, but I shouldn't complain.

In the interest of full disclosure, I've run a few times lately for short periods of 1 minute or so. The hip feels strong, but the range of motion isn't there yet. And I'm fairly paranoid that I'm going to screw something up. The running hasn't made the hip any sorer though.

I went for a short 40 minute bike ride today (on the single bike), and it went surprisingly well, given the problems I'd had over the weekend. No pain this time. I even had a little power. I found myself standing in the saddle when accelerating from a stop, not because I'm stupid, which I tend to be, but out of habit, but I remembered my doc telling me not to do that, so I stopped it for the most part. The time passed really fast when compared to the stationary bike-- I had fun. I think I'll try to get at least 2 bike rides in per wk. I did about 8 miles today. Other observations: my legs are really dang white.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year, etc. I'd like to brag a little about a recent visit to the gym. 20 minutes on the elliptical at 370 calories, including warmup-- thats 1100 cal/hour, which was my pre-surgery lactate threshold. I was pretty worn out afterwards, but happy, in a sort of geeky way. I followed it with 5 minutes of stair climbing. I'm going to try to do some more stair climbing to mix things up and work the hip muscles a little more. The elliptical is great for cardio, but I don't think I'm getting a huge benefit for my hip muscles.

Today I got the tandem bike ready and hooked the trailer to it so our son Banjo can ride with me and Christina-- it's a human powered family vehicle. We did 4 miles total and had brunch. We hadn't ridden the tandem in 2 years because of the Baby Hole. It was fun, but cold. Banjo fell asleep. The hip felt OK, but occasionally I feel it move forward (or something) and it hurts in the front, a sort of hip flexorish pain. We'll plan on more rides, and work on extending the range that Banjo and my hip can tolerate.

I'm going to give the 3x elliptical, 2x long walk another try this week, my third attempt. Heading into Wed, things are looking/feeling good.

Wed update: did 20 minutes on the elliptical at 355 calories. 370 calories seems impossible without cheating somehow....dang... then I did 6 minutes on the stair climber. Felt good, but the real test is how I will feel the next morning. Someone at the gym noticed that I'm no longer on crutches, and I realized that I was pretty lame just 4 weeks ago-- that made me feel better, even though bragging about my elliptical workouts is pretty incredibly "lame".

I should mention that I somehow gained 5 pounds in the last month or so. I'm holding our Jersey trip mostly responsible. When we lived there I was significantly heavier-- must be the 9 months of winter. I'm going to try to lose the weight over the next month or so.

Thurs update: woke up and the hip felt great. Did a 20 minute walk and it went well. I'm still on track for the week.

Fri update: Did 22 minutes on the elliptical and 7 minutes on the stairs...hip still feels good, and it looks like I made it through the week. I'll try the 3x/2x again next week before cranking up the difficulty, but this is a decent base of fitness to fall back on. A base of fitness-- been thinking about this. I haven't been very patient in the past with building a good one. Gonna try to build a strong base this time.