4 Weeks Post Surgery!

Did a long hour and fifteen minute walk on saturday and an hour and fifteen minute mountain bike ride on sunday. Today I did 30 minutes hard on the exercycle and all the usual suspects for upper and lower body strengthening. Of the three procedures I had done, the chondroplasty seems to be causing the most difficulty. That is the procedure where they wet sand the back of you kneecap to make it smooth like a baby's ass. My left kneecap seems twice the size of my right, and no amount of icing does much. It also seems to block me from getting the leg those last few degrees needed to go full straight. From what I have read, it could easily be three months before the kneecap stiffness and swelling goes down. The rest of the knee feels o.k., and remains slightly stiff, but otherwise fairly pain free. Still feel like it is someone else's knee. Just kind of like I don't trust it yet. Will try a few short jogs on it in two weeks. That way, I will have a few chances to test it before I see the doctor on the 22nd to whine and bitch. Patience has never been my strongest suit, but since I have made my mind up that my racing career is done, I am a little more comfortable taking whatever time this takes to give me whatever amount of running I may eventually get. Have also decided that no matter what, bike riding will have to be a substantial portion of whatever I do going forward. With that in mind, I talked to the boy over the weekend, and he can get me a 30% discount on a bike I have been looking at to allow me to bicycle more comfortably for one or two hours at a time. It is a category called either urban fitness bike or city commuter, but what that means is a bike with a more upright riding position (for us broke back souls), 9 speed gear train, wider more forgiving tires, and a geometry that will take the harshness out of these crappy roads around here. The two I have settled on are the Trek 9th district and the Orbea Carpe H30 (the one pictured). They are very similar, both are sold by haymarket cycles in VA where Terrible can get me the discount, and would run around $650 after the discount has been applied. So, not much noticeable progress in the past week, and probably will not be much in the next few. What it is, is what it is!