Have you seen the early morning sky the last few days? The moon has been awesome to see on these clear mornings, plus there are some other bright objects (like Venus) still in view before the sun breaks the horizon.
This past Sunday (7/5), was one of those nice mornings where traffic was light and the weather was very reasonable. Under these conditions I was able to travel on a few roads I normally wouldn’t in fear of being a traffic casualty. I found myself pedaling to the next town over, then riding the country roads home as the sun was rising in my face.
Many people dislike the flat-land Midwest, however, I have grown to appreciate it, even more since I began my outdoor exercise journey more than eight years ago.
The new helmet with the built-in visor/goggles proved to be of value on a longer ride as well, as it is nice not having to struggle with sunglasses. So many things to be grateful for. Ride on!
My Quads ache. This is great! This means my knees can actually support a multi-mile run again. The average was a 10.21 min/mi which would have been sad to report previously, yet now, it’s exciting! A few of the miles were under 10 minutes, woo-hoo!
In case you’re wondering, I’ve been nursing knee issues for six-months now. Doing all the rehab I could and trying my patience more than it probably should. Yes, I’ve made some over zealous mistakes along the way, but things have been improving during the short and slow runs, so today I just kept going.
I did stop frequently to examine the knee and leg situation, just to be cautious.
I must say that it was so freeing to complete an actual run!
With our current social restrictions it’s great to have my country run time back. And yes, I’ll take it one day at a time plus I’ve gotten used to the bicycle now, so that will remain in the mix.
Here are the January and February 2020 stats. I will qualify these months as continual improvement yet rather plain. It’s still winter here and that changes the outdoor activities. I don’t even attempt to ride the bike when there is the high probability of ice, especially in the dark. Call me wimpy or overly cautious, I just don’t like the idea of crashing the bike in freezing temperatures a few miles from home.
This means there has been a lot of foot-on-the-ground time, which is alright as I’ve been slowly getting a little jogging blended into my walks. My knee recovery continues and I’m very cautious on that as well. After the “blow-out” in 2019, I really don’t want to risk that again. So when I “run”, I probably look like a duck or a hundred year old and I sort of envision those old Tim Conway skits playing the old-timer, but I press forward with the desire to run again. Like most things, you don’t appreciate them as much until you lose them and I miss the freedom of being on a long run in the country.
Here are the numbers for January and February, I am so grateful for the mobility to exercise!
There’s a fine line between wisdom and zeal. I ran 2 miles today. Slow, but a run nonetheless. It actually felt pretty good on the knees, this is where wisdom comes in. After being over zealous in September and making the decision to try a 6-mile run too soon after an injury which left me without running for three months I may have learned my lesson.
The desire to run longer and farther was there this morning, but the discipline of the last few months had me stop at two-miles and go for a bike ride to complete my workout.
Speaking of the bike(s), I’m learning more about the care-and-feeding of a bike and had to replace the bottom bracket bearing set on Goose after 1900 miles or so. Previously, I had not worked this extensively on a bicycle so it was new territory in parts and tools. The Internet is always helpful when learning new things so after learning about it I ordered the parts and tools. Things came together pretty well and I was able to get Goose back in action.
While Goose was down and out waiting for repair I purchased a cheap bike from Walmart I named Kermit (see Goose and Kermit below). It’s a long story, but I would have to agree with the majority of the Internet concerning the “Walmart bike” as they really don’t know how to assemble them well. Perhaps I’ll do a separate post about the department store bike experience.
Goose
Kermit
Kermit helped bridge the gap while Goose was down and now I’m thankful to have a backup bike when necessary. You may be thinking, isn’t that expensive to have two bikes? Kermit was $110 and Goose was $170. My shoe expense was about $125 a quarter when I was running every day, so I didn’t see this as an outlandish expense. Perhaps I do rationalize and say these costs are quite a bit cheaper than my copay at the physicians office was starting to accumulate before I decided to take control of my health, so there are other ways to think about it. 🙂
So I’m back to riding Goose when the roads are decent and I’m full of gratitude to ride and run this much in December as it’s been a mild month here in the Midwest.
I ran 11 total miles in September. Yeah, I know, sad. But, I learned I can run again and that I shouldn’t push so hard after an injury. Yup, I re-injured the knee on the second run. The first run of 5-miles left me recovering fairly well and I was ready to run again in 2 days. I now know I should have stayed with less than 5-miles, for when I exceeded five, I felt the pain increase and at the end of 6-miles I was done.
The injury isn’t as bad as the beginning of August, but enough to know I’ll be riding the bike for several more weeks to recover. I have continued walking at least 2-focused-miles a day as well. Focused miles means, I went on a 2-mile walk, not just that I had X number of steps in a day.
Not that riding the bike is bad, it’s just not the same workout as running. Below are the bicycle stats for September 2019.
Speaking of the bike, at the end of September, I’m 18 miles short of 1000 miles on it, not too bad for a low-end bike. I did replace the rear tire at 850 miles as it was pretty worn out, but overall it’s holding up well!
