When life hands you lemons, you make lemonade. And when the doctors operate on both of your knees within six weeks of each other, you have to find a way to maintain strength somehow - while maintaining patience with the recovery process. Chris, getting closer every day to his 30th birthday and that #360to30 goal, wasn't always patience but he has pushed through - cross training with swimming and weights and, finally a couple of weeks ago, getting back into the saddle.
Read on....
Left knee, August 8th. Right knee, September 12th.
The doctor informed me that recovery was at my own pace, but that it would be about three months before I was back to doing the types of workouts I had been doing. So I have spent the last few months focusing on parts of my fitness that I had been ignoring.
I joined a local gym (come January I will be a member/employee of three fitness places here in town), and started swimming as part of my training for the Red Hills Triathlon. But in the back of my mind the only thing I was REALLY looking forward to was the day I could get out on one of my bikes waiting for me at The Great Bicycle Shop.
A few months before I decided to have surgery, I stopped in and had a good talk with these guys. Josh was great and very helpful helping me decide what bike would be best for me. I went in looking for a hybrid, something I could ride on the road and take off road. He asked me what I planned on doing and I mentioned the triathlon. They said I would be ok on the hybrid, but if I wasn’t ok with EVERYONE passing me, go with a road bike. After LENGTHY discussions and research (and visiting other bike shops) I decided that I was going to go with the Giant Revel 2 as my mountain/commuter bike, and the Defy 3 as my road bike.
So I had the bikes, but I couldn’t ride them. No fun. Every time I drove by the shop all I could think of was “soon.” Well, with some slight encouragement from my friend Sterling, "soon" came last weekend. With my Revel, we took a trip down to the beautiful St. Marks Trail. I went with the mindset that “just go half, don’t push it, listen to your knee.”
Well, we all know better than that. More than 30 miles later, as I tossed the bike onto the back of my car, all I could think of was the hard work that I had put into therapy the past few months. I thought of how much it hurt to look at my leg and see the loss in definition, and the fact that I am still far behind where I would like to be. But I also thought of where the future will take me. That I have gone from just wanting to sit around on the couch, to taking two hours on a Saturday during football season to push my body. I also thought about how I will NEVER DO 32 miles on a mountain bike ever again! That HURT!! The next weekend I grabbed the Defy and SMOKED Sterling (who had crushed me the weekend before).
I will say it’s good to be back. I am looking forward to the next few months of training, and I thank all of you for your support. Oh yeah, check out this video for a preview of my next blog (NSFW due to some language).
Coming this week: The Badass 2012 Official Resolution document, and what to pack in that holiday travel carry-on.
