Cycling Again

Yay! 6 weeks post surgery and I'm able to ride a bike again. I put on my old TEVA sandals and just took a nice leisurely ride. M is just back from Canada and wanted to go for an easy 3 mile run so I thought I'd follow him on the bike. I gave him a head start and then caught up with him around the 1st mile. Then I went down to the turn around and headed back to M. He said he changed his mind (surprise!) and was going to run around the block. So I back tracked and went around to the other side of the block and took in a side road too. He beat me home but I got in 6.44 miles to his 4.

It really shouldn't have been a surprise that my "injured" leg, the one that has hauled around a 4 pound boot for 6 weeks, was stronger than my "good" leg. I guess I should have followed up on my joke and wore an ankle weight on my right foot so that everything balanced out. ;)

My sis-in-law got a new Apple iPad and brought it to Sunday dinner. She wanted to demo the facetime feature of it so I suggested that she call my daughter. You should have seen my mother-in-law's face light up when she saw Katie on the screen! I think she was ready run out and buy an iPad on the spot! LOL! SIL showed MIL how to easy it is to use a lot of the features and MIL was running through all the APPS in no time. I will give Apple credit, they've made it easy to use.

Chickening Out

After serious consideration I think I am going to "chicken out" of any serious workouts this week. Cycling is out because I'm afraid that if I'm out there somewhere and have to stop suddenly I'm going to mess up my foot. Yeah I can take the cell phone with me, but it's still going to be complicated to call someone to come get me and haul the bike back too. As to the swimmming yes, I know someone would be right there. But 56 years of swimming has produced some motions that are just automatic. I've thought of swimming with fins on to prevent pushing off with the toes, but what if I do anyway? I think the foot is strong enough it won't "break" but it would probably be very sore. I have a lot of watering of plants and feeding of animals that HAVE to be done. Once M is back then he could handle those chores if I couldn't do it. So I think I've talked myself out of it. The weather is supposed to break today, so tomorrow I can get on the exercycle and do a couple miles.

Post Surgical Hallux Rigidus Adenosis

I had the adenosis surgery on my left toe to relieve the pain of Hallux Rigidus on April 12, 2012. This type of surgery involves removing the damaged tissue & bone and then fusing the two bones together. Which then restricts the movement of the big toe. Since this is the toe that runners push off on, it will extremely limit that movement. I am by no means a serious runner, I do the halfs just because I like to get out and walk/run. Crazy I know. I run/walk half marathons and my best time for that is 3:15. Some of that I could blame on my foot because I knew if I pushed it harder the pain would be worse. I had already entered the 2012 Disneyland Half in Sept when I could no longer stand the pain in February. I had put off the surgery for several years because of the long recovery time, but I noticed that in favoring my foot I was starting to mess up my knee, my hip and my back. I've had problems in the past with bad knees (from skiing and field hockey) and when I stopped exercising, I developed sciatic nerve problems in my lower back. Run/walking has alleviated all those problems for several years, so when I started having problems with them I knew I was ready for the surgery. I did not want to mess up my knee, hip or back again. My surgeon is an athlete too and is very sympathetic to my need to move. (I have ADHD and being able to exercise is very important to me. I've found that regular exercise helps me concentrate better.) He has been very firm with me saying "If you follow my instructions EXACTLY, I will have your foot ready to do the run/walk, probably with more walking then running, by Sept 1st. It will be up to you to get the rest of your body in condition to do that type of mileage, within my guidelines". So now it's 5 wks post surgery, I still have to wear the boot for 3 more weeks BUT if I can find a stiff soled shoe I can start cycling less than 5 miles a day starting today. Several days ago I tried to put on a tennis shoe but it was a ridiculous effort. My foot was just too swollen and would not bend. BUT TODAY, I just tried it and YAY, the shoe fits! I feel like Cinderella!