thoughts from an idle state
Okay, NO ONE is surprised that I'm thinking about races already. Disclaimer: I plan on taking things incredibly slow, despite the fact that I am itching to run, so you don't have to beat me over the head with "TAKE IT EASY" comments. I will be the Queen of TakeItEasyVille.
But I've still spent a lot of the weekend doing mental math. Try to follow along......
If I can start run/walking in another 2-3 weeks, I could probably run/walk a Thanksgiving 5K. That'd be about 6-7 weeks of PT and working up to the BIG MEAN 3.1. Emphasis on run/WALK. And if I can run/WALK a Thanksgiving 5K, I could probably run/WALK the Jingle All The Way 10K 2.5 weeks later, which is one of my FAVORITE DC races. And if I can run/WALK a 10K, I could probably - slowly - run the 4-miler that I do every year on New Year's Eve. Does that sound ridiculous?
If all that goes well, then I'd be hoping for a late spring/early summer half. Which would probably give me the base I need to plant my butt firmly in training for a fall marathon. If not, definitely a spring marathon, but I'd rather puke my brains out training all summer in the heat and then suddenly, magically improve when the temps go down than the other way around.
And as for cycling, I'm hoping to be a part of a relay the first weekend in December of an Olympic-distance tri. I don't anticipate 25ish miles being a problem at all by then - I think I'll see a much more rapid ramp back up to cycling than to running. Dr. P mentioned something last week about there being a possibility of being able to ride in the Oct 9 century I had planned - although not the 100-miler - which I'm going to ask him about today.
Other thoughts that are floating around...
It's very interesting to eat (and think about eating) when all I do is sit on my tush all day. Suddenly, I don't need to fuel for 2ish hours a day of exercise. So that takes out one breakfast (the pre- or post-workout breakfast) and cuts down on the lunch and it SHOULD take out the ice cream. Ahem. I've been craving lots of fruits and veggies, which I hope is a combination of needing water and vitamins. I haven't been craving a lot of carbs (other than ice cream), so I'm trying not to stuff myself with the sugar that I don't need right now, and focus on the vitamins and proteins that my body needs to heal. I've also started taking my multi-vitamin again (hangs head in shame).
I remember very clearly from the last surgery that I gained a lot of weight immediately post-surgery, so I weighed myself the day before surgery and won't do it again for a few weeks. I generally don't weigh myself very often - less than once a week, sometimes every two weeks - and I do it more of a check that I'm fueling appropriately than anything else at this point, since I am no longer attempting to lose (or gain) weight. I've been feeling very bloated since surgery, which I think it all the swelling from surgery plus no exercise. The pain killers that I've been taken have the unfortunate side effect of making my body want to hang onto all the food I put in it (was that PC enough?) so I'm sure that is contributing to the bloating. I've stepped back to only taking the painkillers at night the last two days, and I'm hoping that things will start to go back to normal. Soon.
As for my body, my right quad (and body in general) is cranky from a very serious lack of use. I've been trying to gently stretch the major muscles of my legs every day. If nothing else, I'm hoping to get back in the gym to do upper-body work this week, just to get some motion into me. My right IT band above the surgery site is very sore and swollen, although not tight, and feels like it would just love a masseuse to dig around in there and wash out some of that soreness. My knee itself feels very unstable - which makes sense, I just had one of my major stabilizers chopped into a Z then stretched - and will buckle if I try and walk quickly, or turn on that leg without thinking. Bending the knee has gotten easier, and I've been able to take the stairs quite a few times, and once like a normal human instead of step-drag-step-drag.
Fingers crossed that I get the go-ahead from Dr. P to bike and/or swim and/or aquajog!