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July 10: Another super day temp wise, and I couldn’t help but to think about doing like a four hour ride today what with such wonderful 70-degree weather, but after doing nearly three hours yesterday I really wanted to try to be moderately…er mildly…er infinitesimally compliant with my workout parameters. My heart just wanted to go out and ride half a day, but my mind told me to cool it and be good, so I kept it at around two hours. Maybe I’m justifying here, but I was so bloody good and compliant for 6 weeks. I mean I was fanatically compliant. And now that I’m kind of cleared to bike and hike at higher intensity levels, zone 3, and for longer periods of time, I just feel like pushing the envelope a tad. I’m not racing people, I’m not killing myself climbing while on the bike or hiking, and I’m not taking myself to exhaustion. Just feels so good mentally and physically to be out there for stretches that are longer than prescribed. 

Still sticking to almost all bike trail riding, this because my docs for sure don’t want me doing anything off-road stuff because of the jostling to my upper body, and would prefer I don’t go on-road due to the car accident potential. They LOVE the bike and hike because it’s all paved with a low likelihood of accidents. Their biggest concern is me crashing or hitting a big chuckhole and possibly causing injury to my sternum. So back to the bike and hike. Three weeks ago I would have killed to ride the bike and hike - PERIOD! Now I’m getting just a tad tired of the same old bike and hike trail riding. I’d just love to do some riding out on the backroads of Portage Co., which was my stomping ground before any of this heart stuff began. Love it out there because there are zero cyclists, few cars and just miles and miles of beautiful old broken down country roads and abandoned rail lines. And believe it or not PO CO also has some great climbing, though not as sustained as the valley, there’s some steep stuff out there. 

Anyway, rode with Judy today, taking the bike trail north towards Clev. As I said at the beginning of this blog, after going for 3 hrs yesterday, I decided to dial it back a bit today, so my “zone” effort for today was pulling into a headwind going out to Alexander Rd, and then noodling while Judy pulled going back with the tailwind. That way I could go low on both the intensity and volume scale. Felt good on the pull into the tailwind and stayed in about the low to middle of end of my prescribed zone. Judy did a great job on the return trip pulling strong and steady. Ended up with about 2:10 hrs total with maybe 30 min in my zone. 

Made dinner for pop and later in the day I took Pepper for a walk for about 45 min. Funny, but I’m going through times now where I feel like the old me again, where I actually forget what’s happened for a few hours and I don’t have all these freaking physical and institutional  stipulations ruling my life. Like I didn’t even think about making dinner or hiking with the dog for those couple of hours. I just felt…good! Then something jolts me back to reality where I have to think, “should I do that because of my surgery?” Those occasions occur most often now when having to contemplate whether or not to lift objects, and of course with my cycling. But I do have these fleeting chunks of time where I don’t feel encumbered by the parameters. 


July 11: Did a ride with Marie, where today was her REC day due to her racing a 6-hour race yesterday. Now from my perspective that’s good, because that meant I wouldn’t be drafting off of a chick for the entire ride!  She’s a strong cookie, and I knew that I’d be an anchor around her waist on any other day other than her REC day, and I’m not too proud to admit it!

Met Marie at the bike and hike and we did the same ride Judy and I did yesterday, out to Alexander Rd and back. She was in the little ring…shit that’s the first thing I looked at when we began. Just wanted to make sure I wasn’t in for some “Euro Start” thing with her in the big ring. Got going and the pace still had me in my “zone” damn near right from the start. And once we got rolling I’d say I was on the high side of my zone, if not several bmp higher for almost the entire ride. I just love watching people mature as cyclists, and Marie is one such person who has really taken to the bike. She’s gone  from being a biker triathlete to a real cyclist, a pretty darned good competitive cyclist. It really shows when your recovery day is 19 mph on the flats! That was her today. 

But man it felt good to be pushing on those pedals today riding with Marie. And what was real nice was the fact that she wasn’t half wheeling me (going faster and faster as we rode side by side), rather she just kept a nice consistent pace and tempo as we talked, another sign of a good cyclist. My only concerns were our riding up the north and south hills at Brandywine Falls, where  a week or two ago I had to back off and go pretty slow because I was going above my zone. Now yesterday’s ride with Judy was good in that I could push harder and not go above my zone. That gave me hope in today’s ride where we were carrying more speed into the climb, and I just knew I’d be cheating a bit on this one! Well, I did indeed cheat a bit, topping out about 8bpm higher than my zone, but dang did it feel good. Felt WAY better than that first time. 

I’m also beginning to notice the fact that my bounce back time is getting shorter and shorter on these little climb efforts, that’s the amount of time it takes for your HR to come back down after a hard effort. So we flipped it at Alexander into a headwind and headed back to Hudson. Again, the only real kicker was the climb out of Brandywine where my HR went a bit above the top end of my zone. Now I’d asked my exercise physiologist last week about this and she said it’s ok to go over on climbs etc, but just not to make those efforts long and sustained. So what I did today was to really back off the pedals once I topped out such that the HR would begin to go down as opposed to go up if I kept the effort consistent over the top. 

I told Marie I needed to back off with about 2 miles left, that just to let the old ticker rest a bit considering it had gone nearly an hour at or above zone today. Ended up with 1:45 hrs total, and this was definitely my best ride since surgery…Marie keep me in mind on your REC days! Got home and cranked down on 2 quarts of water, one mixed with an electrolyte, and then I ate 2 bananas, one GU and two oranges. In the old days I’ve had had just a quart of water and some left-over spaghetti or a ham sandwich. 

Now as I sit here working on the computer, my legs are nice and sore, a good kind of sore, a soreness that I have not experienced for months! Funny how we can associate sore legs and high HR’s with a good workout? But that’s exactly how I’m seeing it right now. Well, got to work for a bit, then cook some dinner. Nice to be getting further and further away from May 11, 2016!