An update, the kindness of friends and 2021 musings

It's been rather a bad week and to be honest I don't know why. I know from previous experience that recovery from surgery is non-linear - you have a few good days then a few bad days for no apparent reason.

Having said that, this is still mysterious. Being as critical a grader as I can be, I'd say my performance as a patient has been B+/A-. I really am trying hard to follow the RX protocol. But I've really been hurting for the past week. I've been having sharp, stabbing pains in my back and various sciatic symptoms. I've literally not been doing anything other than my twice or thrice daily walks and short rides in the car - no lifting, bending, twisting, etc. I'm hyper careful getting in and out of bed to avoid twisting and I "log roll" when turning in bed.

So I'm puzzled. Of course there's nothing to be done about it but still I can't help but wonder what's going on. My overall pain level and symptoms are definitely worse than pre-surgery, bad enough that I've had to take pain meds a couple of days. Time will tell I suppose.

As I've noted ("whined about" would be more accurate) in the past, I continue to be bored and rather low. No "pity party", just a fact. It's hard waking up in the morning with literally nothing to do all day, nothing to do tomorrow, the next day, ... And yes, there are things I could do, even within my severely limited capabilities but an endless series of small chores isn't exactly fun and certainly nothing to look forward to.

In "normal times", Marcia and I would travel, even if it was only for a few days, but these aren't normal times so here we sit. It's well past getting tiresome.

I've been filling the time with lots of RBA related chores. I took over the defunct Quad Cities region and have been setting up a web site (www.qcrandonneurs.org for those who are interested), putting together the 2021 brevet schedule for both regions, etc. Keeping in mind that I'm not supposed to sit for more than about 30 minutes, this has taken a while. I work on it for a bit, get up and walk around or do something else, work on it for a bit... 

One bright spot though has been friends from around the world checking in periodically to see how I'm doing. I'm touched that they're thinking of me. I feel like I'm letting them down by not having something more positive to say than "about the same" or "a little worse" but that's the way it is. I'm grateful for their thoughtfulness and concern.

Given all the spare cycles I have, I've been thinking about cycling (see what I did there?). As I've said in the past, pre-surgery the recumbent was noticeably easier on my back and I'm planning on riding it on the trainer when I'm cleared to ride. I've been thinking that it might be best to ride it exclusively for a prolonged period of time, perhaps all year next year, to let my back fully recover. I'm not sure yet that's what I'm going to do since it has a number of follow-on implications but I have been thinking about it.

I've had surgery on my shoulder twice. Most recently, I had AC reconstruction surgery about 5 years ago which called for almost three months of no use of my arm at all - I spent six weeks with it strapped to my waist. It was two full years before I could objectively say my shoulder was better than it was before the surgery. It's still not "perfect" but over a longer arc of time having the surgery was the right thing to do. 

Given that experience, I'm thinking that perhaps not putting my back under additional stress by trying to do long rides on the diamond frame might be wise. Maybe 2021 is "The Year of the Bent" and I'll resume riding a regular bike in 2022.

Stay tuned!

30 days gone by

Seems like an eternity but yesterday marked 4 weeks post surgery so I thought I'd take stock of where things stand.

When friends have asked how things were going with the recovery my response for the last few weeks has been "about the same" and that's mostly true. I would have to say that I'm neither better nor worse than I was pre-surgery: toes/forefoot still tingling or numb depending on what I do, back ranging from sore to outright painful also depending on what I do. It doesn't seem to take much at all to evoke an "electric shock" of pain down my whole leg. Turning over in bed and lifting my leg rather than doing a "log roll" will do it (tough to go back to sleep after that) and although I do try hard to be careful when I move in bed, I sometimes turn in my sleep.

I guess I'm making progress but it's like watching paint dry: you know it's happening but it's happening so slowly it's imperceptible. In this case, I don't know it's happening but I sure hope it is. I remain rather terrified that either by doing something I shouldn't (walking too far, bending too much, lifting too much, etc) I'm going to undo any benefit I might have had from the surgery. I've read numerous accounts on the internet of microdiscectomy recovery and they range from hopeful to terrifying with most trending toward the latter. I keep in mind that it's generally the case that the only people who post restaurant reviews on the internet are those who found a hair in their soup but the accounts are still alarming. I hope this narrative has a happier conclusion.

I'm really fragile. It doesn't take much to get me really hurting. For example, two days ago I decided on a change of venue for my morning walk and went out to the Kickapoo Nature Preserve. I'd never walked there before and they didn't have any trail maps so I just headed out. I've got a good sense of direction so when I'd gone as far as I wanted to go and there was a trail that headed back in the direction of the visitor center, I took it. It dead ended on top of a hill. I retraced my route and saw another trail that I'd passed that also went in the direction of the visitor center. It was a loop that went around the hill I'd just climbed. Long story short, I ended up walking 3.3 rather hilly miles rather than my usual flat 2 miles. Here are a few pictures I took while wandering about.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday, I really hurt. I stopped taking opiates about two weeks ago but I gave in and took one during the day and another at night in addition to repeated icing sessions. I'm a little bit better today but am going to spend the day sitting around.

And on that topic, I continue to be bored stiff. I've exhausted all of the little tasks I can do and really, keeping yourself occupied isn't the same as doing something "fun" so my days are rather joyless. This is obviously made worse by Covid-19. In "normal" times we'd undoubtedly take a short trip (I can be a passenger for 30-40 minutes before I need to stop and move about) but we don't want to incur the additional risk of restaurants, hotels, etc.

Our plans have changed with respect to the winter as well. We were thinking we'd stay here over the winter but I've been effectively "snowed in" since June 8. I just can't face not being able to ride outdoors until March or April. So we're going to go to Texas again this winter. We'll do what we did when we returned earlier this year: pack the car with food/drink for the drive and go straight through alternating drivers as needed. 

Once we're there, the situation is much like here. We don't eat out and our only exposure is going to the grocery store. In a worst case scenario, should something happen that either of us required hospital care (bike accident or something else), I've checked the neighboring hospitals and they seem to have capacity. I'll check again before we go.

My post surgery follow-up visit is in two weeks at which point I'm hoping to be cleared to ride, at least on the recumbent on the trainer. I said in posts pre-surgery that I was hoping to be able to do that three weeks post surgery but there's NFW that I should or could have done that. I'm just hoping that I can in two more weeks.

Stay tuned!

A trip down memory lane

I remember doing the Time Warp.
Drinking those moments when
The blackness would hit me.
And the void would be calling.
Let's do the Time Warp again.

"The Time Warp", Rocky Horror Picture Show

 A conundrum. This blog is supposed to mostly be about cycling and I'm not cycling.

What to do?

What everyone does when their best is behind them regardless of whether it's temporary or permanent: relive past glory!

One of the things that I don't like about the blog format is it's linear. You can't go back and add posts in the middle of 2015 so if there's an event you want to write about and don't have time about all you can do is post a place holder and get back to it. (N.B. I'm still whittling at my London Edinburgh London 2017 ride report, I'm just using a very small knife).

One victim of this format is my first 1200K - Endless Mountains - which I completed in 2013 which also happened to be my first year randonneuring. As I've said a number of times here, I was a long time rider and had ridden 10K miles/year for a lot of years before I started randonneuring but finally decided to give it a go in 2013. I was in pretty good shape that year and did a Super Randonneur series in the Spring. 

I also did a "RAGBRAI double crossing" in July where I rode from the eastern border of Iowa out to the start of RAGBRAI on the western border then turned around and rode back. Although the daily RAGBRAI regimen was shorter, I did 100+ miles per day for 11 days in a row so, as I said, I was in pretty good shape and decided to do my first 1200K.

When I told friends I was thinking about doing Endless Mountains, which featured somewhere between 45-55K feet of climbing they questioned my sanity. My response was that either I'd finish or it'd cure me of the desire to do a 1200K.

I finished.

So, a little over 7 years later, here's the story. This is taken from an email report I sent to friends at the time which I've taken the liberty of editing for clarity. One advantage to this retrospective view is that I can comment on a few things that didn't seem noteworthy in the initial ride report. In particular, I made a number of friendships that persist to this day including Dan Diehn, Mike Fox, Mark Thomas, Vinnie Muoneke, Joel Lawrence, Mark Olsen, Bill Olsen and John Pearch. I would ride with all of them again in the future, I just didn't know it then.

Well, to get this one out of the way right off, it was hilly. How hilly? Well, here are a few “highlights”:

• Fox Gap. This was at about mile 60 on the first day and it's a damned good thing. If it was on day three I'd have been handing somebody my brevet card. Five miles at what seemed like a near constant 14%.
• Two big climbs on day two, both more than three miles long and with gradients of 12%-18%, never less.
• Three big climbs on day three but two that really stand out. The first one was three miles of 12%-15% topped off by about two tenths of a mile at 22%. There was a secret control at the top of this one. The second one was four miles at a near constant 14%.
• One big climb on day four. This was at mile 700 or so and, needless to say, everybody was pretty tired. 1.75 miles at a near constant 14% topped off by .2 of 18%. I stopped for a few seconds at the top and my leg muscles were quivering and a LOT of people either did the mailman or walked on this one. See my discussion on gearing later on. Norm and I agreed that if there were a secret control at the top of this one whoever was manning it would've gotten their ass kicked but no one was there.

These were in addition to lots of hills that were “only” 8%-10%. The descents were pretty damned amazing but there were very few where you could “let it go”, they either had a 90 degree turn at the bottom or were very heavily potholed. One at mile 92 on the first day had so many holes, cracks and crevices it had me on the brakes literally all the way down and I was really worried I was going to blow a tire due to overheating the rim but fortunately I didn't. My top speed for the event was 52 MPH, I'm sure I could have gone faster but there was a limit to how fast I was willing to go on unfamiliar roads.

Having said all that, the course was very beautiful. Sections that stand out:

• Long sections along the Delaware river. Old mills, stone houses, beautiful scenery.
• The town of Tioga (NY?) had lots of beautiful old mansions with signs out front of who had lived there.
• The “Hawks Nest” a long climb through a rocky river gorge with a beautiful view at the top.
• Lots of rolling farmland, very similar to Wisconsin.
  

Climbing to the Hawks Nest

The ride

As is usually the case, I couldn't sleep the night before the start and got about two hours or so. This was worrisome as I knew I wouldn't be getting a whole lot of sleep over the next few days but wasn't unexpected.

I had put together a spreadsheet that estimated average speed, time at the controls and arrival times at each control and overnight. On the first day, I rode mostly by myself until the end of the day when I hooked up with Norm Smeal and Don Jagel. As a result of riding by myself for most of the day, I arrived at the first overnight within 10 minutes of my plan. Norm, Don and I agreed to ride together on the second day and set a start time of 4 AM. I was in bed by 11:45 and up at 2:45 so three hours sleep.

Now I admit I'm more punctual than most but when I say “start at 4 AM” I mean “ready to clip in and start pushing the pedals at 4 AM”. Apparently to Norm and Don it meant “be downstairs with your bike but having breakfast at 4 AM”. I debated going on and if I had to do it over again I would have but I decided to wait. I ended up riding with Norm for the rest of the ride and, once again, if I had it to do over again I would just have ridden at my own pace and perhaps hooked up with someone during the night sections but not tried to stay together with someone all day. It turned out Don was nursing a little tendonitis so he dropped back after less than 20 miles and Norm basically wanted to do a sit down meal at every control so we took 40 minutes minimum at each control. Since the overnights were fixed this didn't affect my finish time except on the last day, it only meant I got less sleep. Who knows how it would have played out had I ridden by myself? Perhaps I'd have pushed harder than I should have and blown up and the longer breaks worked in my favor but it could also be argued that if I'd have gotten two hours more sleep every night I'd have been fresher.

At any rate, as I said I rode with Norm the rest of the way. For the most part, we were evenly matched on pace except for the last day when I had to wait for him a lot but we weren't matched on the desired length of times at the controls. The biggest reason I decided to wait was to have someone to ride with at night. It turned out that on the second day there's a big climb about 40 miles from the finish, he cramped at the very start of it and told me to go on because he wanted to stretch and I rode the last 40 miles by myself anyway... I got in at 2345 and in bed by 0045, up at 0245 so two hours sleep.

On the third day, we once again “started” at 0400 which meant we started pedaling at about 4:35 or so. Norm had forgotten his USB charger for his Garmin so I loaned him an extra to use on the second overnight. This turned out to be a mistake as it changed my morning routine and as a result the next morning I forgot to move the USB cable from the charger to my jersey pocket so I'd be able to use it to recharge the Garmin during the day. About 60 miles in it was apparent that there was no way it was going to make it all day. Norm's feet were blistering so we decided to go off course to a Wal Mart so he could get some moleskin and I could get a USB. The ride there was miserable on a narrow road with lots of traffic and it turned out they didn't have the USB cable I needed anyway (seriously Wal Mart? A friggin' mini USB cable and you don't have it?). I called Marcia and asked her to bring mine to the next control which she did. This cost us a few extra miles.

The third day was also the hottest so far and the two big day three climbs I mentioned were both in the afternoon. On the last of the two there was a very steep descent where you could actually let it run with a control at the bottom 2.1 miles away. I asked Norm (who had a rack bag with the cue sheet on top) three times what the control was (gas station, c-store, restaurant, …) and for some reason he didn't want to tell me. I should have pulled my cue sheet from my pocket and looked but didn't. There were two other guys at the top (Mike Fox and Dan Diehn), I started down and they followed. Long story short, we covered that 2.1 miles so fast it “seemed” like the Shell station we passed was too soon (I hadn't checked the mileage) so I blew past it figuring that between the three of them one would know which was the control and at worst I'd have to turn around and ride back a little.

Turned out they all followed me and we ended up riding about 4 miles (all downhill) past the control. I think they were pretty pissed but I cut off any complaining by saying “there were four guys with cue sheets in their pockets who passed the last control”. That pretty much shut everybody up.

The overnight on the third day was the same as the second (Lewisburg) and featured a long descent into town. On the second night it was fairly warm so no problem but on the third it was about 20 degrees cooler and I'd not packed knee warmers in my bag. The descent had long sections at 25 MPH then a brief part where you had to pedal and my legs would get really cold on the downhills and really hurt when I started pedaling again. Finally made it though and in bed about 0145.

Norm and I decided to “sleep in” on day four and get on the road at 0600 so I was up at 0445 (three hours sleep) and we left at about 0620. At the start Norm announced that he'd not packed his night gear. I thought “that seems risky” but since I'm not his Mom I didn't say anything. Day four included the really hard climb at 700 miles that I mentioned previously. Norm bailed about a quarter of the way up and walked the rest so I told him I'd finish the climb and wait for him at the bottom. It turned out I waited about ten minutes and the control was only another two miles. Norm was really dragging on day four, both riding slower and taking even more time at the controls but I figured since I wasn't really riding for a fast finish time and since we'd ridden that far together I'd stay with him.

I made one really good decision at the start of day four. I almost didn't pack any bag balm in my saddle bag thinking “it's only 139 miles, I won't need it” but at the last minute decided to put it in. We'd had two long sections of rain on previous days and I'd not brought a cover for my saddle (a Brooks Swift). As a result, the area where my “sit bones” go completely collapsed putting more pressure on the center of the saddle. As a result my “taint” was really sore. At about 50 miles in, it felt like someone was pressing a branding iron against me every pedal stroke. I stopped right there and put on some bag balm right on the side of the road (must have made one hell of a sight for passing cars!). Had I not packed it there's a good chance I would have DNF'd, been in misery to the next store where I could buy some vaseline or alternatively had Marcia bring bag balm to the next control. Glad I packed it.

As the day went on, it became increasingly clear that at the pace we were making we'd not finish before dark and Norm started sweating his decision not to pack his reflective gear. After a while he asked if Marcia could get into his drop bag and get his reflective gear and bring it to us at a control. I agreed to call her and ask and she said she would.

The rest of the ride was uneventful. I'm guessing that had I ridden by myself on the last day I'd have finished a number of hours earlier but I wasn't really riding for pace anyway and mostly wanted to just finish rather than get a fast time. As it was, I was the 15th finisher out of 28 starters.

The weather

We had two huge rainstorms. On the first one it rained for a really long time (about four hours) and pretty hard most of that time. We hit the second one at the very top of a long climb and it started to rain REALLY hard. As luck would have it, there was an old barn with the door open about 50 feet away so we stopped to put on rain jackets. This was really fortunate as it had gotten very cold and we had a long descent.

Overall though I have absolutely no complaints about the weather. Sure, it would have been great if it hadn't rained but the temperatures were relatively mild, no screaming headwinds to fight, no heat indexes in the 100's, etc.

The volunteers

Enough can't be said about the work the volunteers did. The ENTIRE 770 miles of the course was marked and marked very well. If you were attentive you could have thrown away the cue sheet and Garmin and just used the course markings. The logistics of marking every turn on a course of that length boggle the mind. At the overnights there was plenty of good food at night and in the morning. The volunteers were at some of the controls that weren't stores with snacks and water and one of them periodically showed up throughout the ride with a cooler of water and sodas and snacks. They were just awesome, there really isn't any other way of saying it and they made a hard ride much easier.

The rider

Overall, I was really happy with how I did. This was my first 1200K and it was a pretty damned hard one, maybe even the hardest, to do as a first one. I felt “good” the whole time, wasn't sleepy, didn't have any stomach issues (with one exception), had good energy and was able to ride strongly the entire distance. My ride average for each day was between my estimated 13 MPH and 14 MPH which I'm pretty happy with given all the climbing.

The only “stomach issue” I had was about 2200 every day I got a case of heartburn that would light up the sky. I kept thinking “pick up some antacids at the next stop” but there wouldn't be one between there and the overnight and I'd forget about it the next day. Lesson learned, next time some Tums in the bag.

The equipment

I pondered which bike from the stable to use for quite some time prior to the ride. I knew I wanted light weight and lots of gears given all the climbing so the candidates (in order of weight) were:

• The Calfee with a Shimano compact double and a 34x32 as the easiest gear.
• The Hampsten with a Campy triple and 30x29 as the easiest gear.
• The Serotta Coors Team with a Shimano Dura Ace triple with a 30x32 as the easiest gear.
  

I ended up going with the Serotta but changing the front crankset to a Sugino with 48x36x26 gearing so my easiest gear was a 26x32. That's a lot of gears and I'm not at all ashamed to say I used 'em all. I didn't get down to the 26x32 very often but on that 22% after three miles of 12%-15% it sure came in handy (I was having a very hard time keeping the front wheel on the ground at that point).

Bike and rider before the start

I maintain my bikes pretty well and all three were ready to go. I put on a new chain (now toast), brake pads (now toast) and tires on the Serotta. For tires I used Vittoria Corsa 700x25's which some people complain are “flat prone”. No flats for the whole ride though I'll admit there were a lot of times I was riding along in pouring rain saying “please don't flat, please don't flat”. No mechanical issues whatsoever on the whole ride.

I brought two pairs of shoes and riding sandals. I alternated between the shoes but never did use the sandals because I'd have needed to change the pedals and I was just too tired at the end of the day to do it. Toward the last four hours or so of days 2-4 my feet (toes) hurt SO BAD it felt like someone had them in a vice and hitting a bump or going over railroad tracks almost reduced me to tears. Assuming I don't sell all my bikes and give this silly shit up, I may try sandals next time.

I used an eogear 6.8 (I also have an 8.0) and it was perfect: big enough to hold everything but not so big I was encouraged to carry a bunch of shit. Here's what I had in it:

• Large multi-tool
• Two tubes and tire levers
• Spare derailleur cables
• Rain jacket
• Reflective vest and ankle bands
• Night (day) glasses
• Arm warmers
• Knee warmers (except for when I needed them)
• Bag balm (in a small vasoline jar)
• Sandwich bag full of Hammer (half Perpetuem, half Sustained Energy)

For lights, I had two cheapo battery powered LED taillights and a Dinotte 300 tail light. I used one of the battery powered tail lights all the time, turned the second one on at night and kept the Dinotte in reserve. For headlights I had a dynamo powered (Son 28) Luxos U and a Dinotte XML3. For night riding, I mainly used the Luxos and switched on the Dinotte (which I had aimed farther out) as a “high beam” on steep descents. This worked really well and I never felt like I was outrunning my lights. The Luxos has two beam patterns, one of which is more penetrating and the second which is both the penetrating beam and a broad beam that lights the sides of the road. I was very happy with this lighting setup. I charged my Garmin during the day by connecting it to the port on the Luxos U. This also worked very well and brought it to full charge from 15% or so in about two hours.
 

I had a 70 oz Camelbak and two insulated bottles. Water in the Camelbak and 6 scoops of a mix of Perpetuem/Sustained Energy plus a big shot of Hammer Gel in one of the bottles and water in the other. This setup worked pretty well as I was able to switch between drinking the Hammer stuff and plain water and the Hammer Gel (Chocolate) made the Perpetuem/Sustained Energy combination taste better (like chocolate milk) so I could actually stand to keep drinking it.

So that's it. Overall I'm very happy with the performance of both man and machine and “enjoyed” the ride. I'm pretty darned proud of myself for finishing. Now to go work on those eBay bike listings.....

All done!

I also have to thank Marcia both for coming and for all of the support. She really did everything she could to make things easier on me by having things organized, filling bottles and Camelbak in the morning, reminding me not to forget things, etc. I know how hard it is to wake up in the middle of the night (on very little sleep), be very busy for a couple of hours and then try to go back to sleep. She did it with a smile and was waiting out front at the overnight control each night. No wonder she's the light of my life!

 

Epilogue (2020)

There was a lot of debate (dueling Garmins) over how much total elevation there was. Here's the data from Strava for the ride:

Day 1

225.08 miles, 16:11 moving time, 13.9 mi/h moving average speed, 14,102 feet of climbing

Day 2

222.81 miles, 15:50 moving time, 14.1 mi/h moving average speed, 9,476 feet of climbing

Day 3

200.06 miles, 15:18 moving time, 13.1 mi/h moving average speed, 12,652 feet of climbing

Day 4

139.52 miles, 10:28 moving time, 13.3 mi/h moving average speed, 8,965 feet of climbing

 

Totals:  787.47 miles, 45,195 feet of climbing

Ain't misebehavin' - too much

 It's been a while since I updated the blog and I was reminded of that fact by a good friend so here's an update.

I'm writing this just short of three weeks post surgery. I guess I have to say day in, day out that I'm about the same as I was pre-surgery. Back sore, toes tingling, overdoing it even slightly results in whole foot numbness and sciatic pain in various places along my leg.

I've been trying hard to follow Doctors orders. The challenge is that I'm bored out of my mind and have basically done all of the small things that are clearly within my limited ability. I have been "bad" on a couple of occasions this week though:

• I sold a bike and needed to ship it. I didn't have a box that fit and needed to cut down a bigger one. My wife doesn't have enough strength in her hands to do it so I did it. This involved much bending at the waist and some amount of twisting.  Then I needed to pack the bike which I did with Marcia's help. I really paid for it the next couple of days.
• I had a graphics card fail in a computer (a Mac Pro). The computer in question is ten years old and probably needs replacing anyway but I'm not ready to do it yet, especially since a new one would involve a fair amount of lifting to unbox, get in place, etc. I had a lower resolution graphics card on hand so after I figured out that the graphics card was indeed bad - which meant pulling the computer out from beside the desk, lifting it up (with help from Marcia) onto the desk so I could pull the old graphics card out and put the new one in, putting it back in place, ... 

After these two activities I was really hurting, to the point that I was worried I'd done far too much and herniated the disc.

I called the UW Spine clinic and spoke to one of the surgical nurses. Long story short, I'd probably done no harm but was admonished to take it easy. I recapped all of my post surgical activities and pain levels and was completely forthcoming and honest. She suggested I cut back my walking to no more than a mile and that I definitely take it easier.

So I'm trying.

I've got three weeks until my first post-surgical exam and the RX was no aerobic activity, no lifting more than 5 lbs so I'm going to try very hard to religiously follow it for the next few weeks. I was thinking in the past that I'd try riding the recumbent on the trainer after three weeks but that's out the window. I'm just going to keep walking and not try to do too much, too soon. I really am worried that I'm going to undo any benefit I might get from the surgery and I definitely do not want to do that.

So I'll behave.

Stay tuned!

A setback?

I hurt. A lot.

As I noted previously, I'm trying pretty hard to be the model patient and adhere closely to the post surgical RX. As also noted, I've been weaning myself off the pain meds and haven't been taking anything stronger than ibuprofen and am trying to reduce my intake of that.

Yesterday and today my back hurts - pain focused specifically in my lower back - and I have significant nerve involvement with sciatic pain in my hamstring and calf as well as numbness in my foot.

OK, as I confessed previously, I *have* done some inadvertent bending/twisting but not really a lot of that and it doesn't seem as though I've done enough to upset the apple cart to this degree. I really am trying hard not to do it and it's only the occasional slip, it's not like I'm doing toe touches or anything. I've been extra careful not to lift anything heavy. Ten pounds is the limit and I've not even come close to that.

I have been trying to increase the distance I've been walking up to about two miles. I've been doing a single long walk coupled of course with normal around the house/yard walking. Here's my step count post surgery:

 

As I said in my initial blog after the surgery, I did a long walk the first day post surgery and that was a mistake. Couple of easy days then a gradual build to a longer day followed by a shorter one.

Nothing crazy there, or at least it doesn't seem crazy and yet I really hurt. Is that the cause? Darned if I know.

I'm really puzzled and hope I've not done anything that's undone any benefit I might have gotten from the surgery. That seems unlikely but I just don't know.

At this point, I'm going to try multiple shorter walks, 1/2 mile or so, and see how that goes.

Obligatory cycling content: I love riding in the fall in Wisconsin. It's my favorite time of year - cool, crisp days, clear skies, low humidity, generally light winds. Today is a case in point, a real stunner. 70 degrees, bright sunshine, barely a breath of wind. Really painful not to be able to ride. 

Stay tuned!

Another update - man overbored!

This will likely come across as a bit of a pity party but it's really not.

Here's the update after a week.

As noted previously, I took the dressing off and it's fairly obvious why my back is hurting. I have a 4" square area in my back that's a beautiful black and blue. The first 2-3 days after the surgery the wound itself hurt but now it's back to "normal" back pain with some amount of sciatica. It doesn't take much at all to provoke either e.g., bending at the waist slightly to get in/out of the car and it really hurts when I do that.

I'm trying really hard to be the "model" patient and follow the post-surgical advice which is:

1. No lifting over 10 pounds.
2. No bending or twisting.
3. No aerobic activity.
4. Walk 3x daily.

Have you ever tried not to bend at the waist? I mean seriously, it's really hard! I find myself doing it without even thinking about it. Bending down to scratch my ankle, drop something and bend to pick it up, etc. I've spent my whole life bending at the waist and it's really hard to just stop. I'm doing my best though because doing it really makes my back hurt.

My first walk post surgery I did too much (2 miles) and really paid for it. Went full on narcotics the next day to deal with the pain. Since then, I've been trying to wean myself off the narcotics. At first, this was ibuprofen during the day with the hard stuff in the evening so I could sleep. I've now (today) tried to go "cold turkey" but it didn't go particularly well. Mid-day after a two mile walk my back was really hurting so I did an ice pack and took an ibuprofen. 

It's been surprising to me how little I'm able to walk without pain and how much my back hurts. I was expecting 2-5 days of pain but we're at 8 days now and it still hurts quite a bit and takes nothing to invoke both back and sciatic pain. I'm hoping this is residual to the surgery and will fade with time.

On to the pity party.

I'm bored. I mean really bored. To put this into perspective, I've ridden 10K miles or more every single year for a long, long time. That's 200+ miles per week average. That's 50 miles at least 4 days or more usually 40 miles 5 days per week. That's 3-4 hours on the bike, 5 days a week. My normal day is get up, have something to eat, head out to ride for 2-5 hours, come back, stretch/exercise, shower, eat and lo and behold it's 14:00. My big problem in the past has been there's so little time left in the day that it's hard to do more than one other thing each day.

But now, I've got gobs of time on my hands and I'm physically unable to do much of anything. It's rather amazing how limiting my post-surgical restrictions are. 

So I get up in the morning and I've literally got nothing to do all day.

I've been doing a bunch of small chores - sharpening drill bits, sorting inner tubes, straightening up the work bench, stuff like that. The thing is though there's only so much of that to do. I've also been doing a lot of reading. I'm starting to play piano a bit. On this note (see what I did there?) I really suck. I always say "there's nothing worse than a remembered skill" and boy is it true. I used to play Rachmaninoff, now I play chopsticks. Badly. I honestly don't know if I'll be able to stick with it but it's something to do. 

For your listening pleasure, here's me playing BITD. It's ironic that it's kind of a New Age piece and I mostly played classical but I heard it somewhere, liked it enough to buy the sheet music and record it. Note that I couldn't play this again now to save my life:

Nature's Fury

For reference, this was recorded on my Mason & Hamlin BB which I hardly ever touch now. I sit down and play a few scales (badly), am disgusted and get up after a few minutes. Part of the problem is I have serious damage to my left hand from a bike accident (what else?) at the Taste of Carolina in 2013. I fell on a wet steel grated bridge, broke both of my thumbs and did ligament damage to my ring finger and thumb in my left hand so I have no stretch in that hand (I used to be able to play a clean 10th) nor do I have any strength in it. Regular readers will also recall I've got issues with both hands from nerve impingement in my neck.

I'm hoping that three weeks post surgery (which, bear in mind, is 2 weeks away), I'll be able to ride the recumbent on the trainer. My wife and the surgeon had a discussion about this post surgery and TBH, he wasn't too warm for the idea. I think he's got a bit of a misconception about the position on the recumbent so my plan is to do a rigorous self-assessment in two weeks and, if I feel I'm able, do easy spinning on the recumbent on the trainer.

My hope after then is that I can ride the recumbent on the trainer and perhaps the DF in a full upright position from 3-6 weeks post surgery then go in for my follow-up at which point I'll be cleared (hopefully) to ride on the roads. I hope to be able to get a bit of riding in on the DF before the weather goes to hell. This will be mid-October so it should be possible to get 4-6 weeks of riding in outdoors.

Stay tuned!