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| (Recovering in Bed) |
This title may be a bit misleading as Lilyana has yet to take her first
steps. I am assuming it will be many months down the road, but I have been
taking some baby steps of my own. On November 27th I had my one
month post op appointment with my surgeon. He checked out my knee and was very
pleased with the healing, so pleased in fact that he cleared me for “jogging”
already! That was 6 weeks sooner than I anticipated.
I had to make him
spell out exactly what he meant by “jogging.” When my midwives told me I could
do “cardio” two weeks after having Lilyana I assumed that meant running. I
assumed wrong. But this time he really meant jogging. He told me to always
start with a walk to warm up then jog 5 or so minutes, walk, jog, walk, jog,
etc. over time gradually decreasing my walk and increasing my run time and
taking 72 hours rest between jogging days. Pace is meaningless right now. It is
all about minutes.
The next day was
Thanksgiving and before our first Thanksgiving as our new little family Levi,
Lilyana and I ventured out to the turf fields for some exercise. I made it
about 20 meters, my first “jog.” I was elated and exclaimed, “Look at me Levi!
I’m running!” As I did some strange looking shuffle run at a pace Levi could
easily walk next to. The people playing kickball must have thought I was nuts. Next,
I tried 50 meters and made it. Then I got ambitious and told Levi I was going
to jog to the end of the field and back. I made it half way and turned around
and decided to call it quits for the day and we walked home. I could now
justify eating my favorite Pecan Pie since I had jogged maybe a total of 200
meters.
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| (Lilyana gets her exercise wrestling her toys) |
Fast forward a few
weeks and things are progressing. My jog is actually looking like a jog and the
minutes I spend walking are decreasing. For instance today I started with a 5
minute walk. Then I jogged for 20 minutes (around a 9:20 minute mile), followed
by walking for 5, jogging for 15 then a walk cool down totaling 5 miles. On the
walk portions I put the treadmill at 5% incline and the jogs 0%.
My knee is feeling more and more stable every day. It
is not painful but I am being careful not to push it too soon. We are leaving
for Nevada tomorrow to see Levi’s family which should keep me in check as I
will be busy visiting family and not thinking about exercising too much. When I
start seeing gains in my healing it is hard not to want to dive head first into
plotting out my training and future racing goals. I have a ways to go before I
am at this point. On top of my jogging I am cross training a few days a week on
the spin bike and am doing strength work 2-3 times per week. My left quad has
some catching up to do with the right one as it has definitely atrophied a bit.
Even before the surgery it was noticeably smaller than the right as I was
unable to really use those muscles properly due to my knee pain. I am
optimistic that things will heal properly and I will be back to training and
racing in no time.
For the first time in awhile I actually look forward
to being on the treadmill because it sure beats being laid up on the couch.
