Thursday, January 6, 2011

My butt lasted 75 minutes

I'd been meaning to get on the bike again and see what my knee thinks of that. Tuesday didn't work out, and SUAR is the one that I know for sure would understand, and that's all I'm going to say about it. TMI and all. Wednesday was the prolo shots so I barely felt like walking afterwards.

But today things are feeling pretty good. Started with 30 minutes of core and leg exercises. 100 crunches and 15 pushups. Another record! I have never in my life ever been able to do 15 pushups at once. I do admit the last few were getting a bit sloppy. I'll probably stay at 15 for a while and try to firm them up. Didn't do squats, what with the impending bike.

I didn't have any idea how the bike would go, and didn't want to have to get off for lack of planning. So I got ready assuming I was doing a two hour ride, lots to drink, snacks, towel, and phone, even though I didn't think I'd really last that long. My knee and I had a careful chat before hand, then I started easy. It took about 20 minutes to feel warmed up and comfortable. I wanted to settle in about 85-95 rpm, starting in an easy gear. About the 30 minute mark I tried the next harder gear and that was ok. A while after that I tried what recently was time trial minus a gear, and that was a bit too much. My knee twinged at bit so I backed off.

In the end it was my butt that called it quits first. Just as I went into cooldown I got one semi-major twinge on my knee, though it went away as I eased down. The towel didn't get used, though I munched the snacks. The effort level was just were I was starting to get a bit of sweat, but it wasn't running anywhere. The heart rate monitor didn't get over 107 the entire time.

After a short transition I headed out for a run. I was thinking 15 or 20 minutes, 30 at most, nice and easy. I got just to the 20 minute mark and my knee and legs started complaining. That was fine. I walked back and stretched a bit. Iced things while eating a snack, then showered.

I'm pretty pleased about this. For a long time spinning was actually painful, and today it wasn't. I'm still not putting any real power into the pedals, that will come later. For the next little while I want to spin easy and rebuild the muscle memory of how to do that. As my knee improves I'll gradually get into harder gears and get past 100 rpm. Very gradually.

Though I just saw the swim camp schedule last night. 3.5 hour spin session. Holy Hannah! Hope I'm up for that.

Tomorrow I'll find out if the hordes that aren't at Renfrew are at Canyon Meadows.

4 comments:

  1. I've been meaning to read your blog for a while, just love the comments you leave on Mary. Iron Matron's blog. Bummer about the knee, but looks like it is getting better. I had bad knee pain a couple of years ago and found that knee strength exercises have been keeping them healthy thus far.

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  2. Good to see some progress on the knee!

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