tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56798113406600625192024-03-15T10:49:08.718-07:00RC Triathlon and Adventure Blog2023 Goals: 1. Recover from Total Knee Replacement. 2. Figure out what's next!rcmiogahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02400850029280455954noreply@blogger.comBlogger1396125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5679811340660062519.post-20952503152402550592024-03-15T10:48:00.000-07:002024-03-15T10:48:23.470-07:0010 WEEKS IN!<p> Hard to believe we are almost 20% of the way through 2024! </p><p>Last week was unusual as Judy and I spent it in Turks and Caicos and then Naples, Florida enjoying a nice vacation. Training wise, this led to some nice outdoor swimming, both in a pool and in open water--a real nice change of pace and this led to a 9,000 yard Swim week--my highest of the year. I was able to string 8 swim days in a row and 11 out of 12. Not long sessions yet, but the frequency is really helping With my technique and my 100 times are now starting to drop into the low 1:50s on my longer swim sets. Not fast by any stretch of the imagination, but heading in the right direction.</p><p>My bike volume was low as I eased back a bit during this past week--214.5 miles, the second lowest week this year. My run/walk was also similarly cur back a bit and came in at 23 miles.</p><p>The biggest change last week was no gym time and consequently no PT/weights for week 10. </p><p>Here is a summary of how the first 10 weeks have unfolded:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQy-5spXo0AOS0iatIlQzf4_P8M-aws8GmCJP86h7PdcHGNUADomR7QI3EM_OTqTVylQKWUDKKxl8-rG18KWbRqWr5d-sHYC3TvgS2bhrD7ectGDGx6bNb3wcVrG8ugEfX92H_chtor_4iKiMLoBGsptNE3fYhWooVFwdrJJpVmrlCfcQLuYIZKF_ZYQs/s778/Screen%20Shot%202024-03-15%20at%201.36.25%20PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="382" data-original-width="778" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQy-5spXo0AOS0iatIlQzf4_P8M-aws8GmCJP86h7PdcHGNUADomR7QI3EM_OTqTVylQKWUDKKxl8-rG18KWbRqWr5d-sHYC3TvgS2bhrD7ectGDGx6bNb3wcVrG8ugEfX92H_chtor_4iKiMLoBGsptNE3fYhWooVFwdrJJpVmrlCfcQLuYIZKF_ZYQs/w640-h314/Screen%20Shot%202024-03-15%20at%201.36.25%20PM.png" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div>The table above is conditionally formatted and the larger weeks in each column are shaded towards green and smaller weeks shaded towards red.<div><br /></div><div>I started introducing some high Z2/lowZ3 running into what has predominately been walking as I begin to explore how far I can evolve my run with my new knee--more on that next week!<br /><p><br /></p></div>rcmiogahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02400850029280455954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5679811340660062519.post-84777284454694441762024-03-07T10:26:00.000-08:002024-03-07T10:26:43.729-08:00Week 9/February/Busy Building Base<p> A bit belated but here is what happened last week (week 9), which was spent mostly in Minnesota:</p><p>Swim: 5,050 yards</p><p>Bike: 224 miles</p><p>Walk/Run: 32.6 miles</p><p>Other: 3 hours</p><p>Total Time: 27:55</p><p>Minny limited my swim/PT to 0 hours from Monday-Thursday. When I returned to DE I jammed in 3 pretty big days (5:28/4:40/6:04). That last day, Sunday the 3rd was my first 6+ hour training day of 2024.</p><p>January and February look like this:</p><p><b>Swim: Jan: 17,500 yards; Feb: 21,100 yards</b>. Beginning to ramp swim now. Plan is to get to 30,000 yards or so in March. My basic, overarching objective, swim-volume wise is to be able to comfortably handle 10,000+ yards/week by the time I pivot to predominately open-water swimming, which is usually around Memorial Day. It doesn't seem like a big jump in February, but on a per day basis, Feb was up 29% vs. Jan. Also compared to last year (post knee replacement) I'm way further ahead swim wise....</p><p><b>Bike: Jan: 1,046 miles; Feb: 944 miles.</b> This is effectively the same volume/day (33.7 vs. 33.5 miles/day). Last year I wasn't even able to tolerate biking until February so way ahead this year. </p><p><b>RunWalk: Jan: 82.6 miles; Feb: 100.2 miles. </b>Beginning to get my volume up where I want it to be. Last year at this time I could only handle about 10 miles/week. I plan to pivot to a bit more running as March rolls on by.</p><p><b>PT: Jan: 20:30; Feb: 17:40.</b> As I discussed in the previous post, I continue to invest a lot of time into flexibility/strength training--both months had a 5-day period in Minnesota where I couldn't do so. Basically, most days I invest 1 hour or so into this Build Back project.</p><p><b>Total Time: Jan: 114:44; Feb: 111:46. </b>Pretty similar: 3:44/day in Jan and 3:51/day in Feb.</p><p>------</p><p>All of this effort is predominately Zone 1--well below my Aerobic Threshold. I clearly have a big Aerobic engine at this point as when I ride 17mph or so, my HR remains around 90bpm. In March, I plan to climb up into Zone 2 for a portion of my training and try to get my speed up and then hopefully see my HR settle back down into relatively low numbers after the initial stress of introducing a bit more intensity.</p><p>Onwards and upwards!</p>rcmiogahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02400850029280455954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5679811340660062519.post-7480257695693241472024-02-25T08:14:00.000-08:002024-02-25T08:14:27.159-08:00Week 8/Back to Minny/The Build Back Project<p>Well, this morning finds me at the airport and heading back to Minnesota for the 5th time since last May. Going to try help my brother sort out some of his medical issues.</p><p>From a training perspective it means a short day today and limited training resources for Mon-Thurs of the week coming up. I'll walk (in what looks to be some pretty cold weather) and ride at a community rec center about 10 miles from our cabin.</p><p>The net of it will be a bit of a "rest" week next week, which arguably I could benefit from given my recent training load. This past week, the 8th of the year, was probably the first week this year where I didn't have to travel for some or most of the week. As a consequence, I put up the highest weekly totals (so far, this year) for my swim, PT/weights and total training time and my second biggest bike week:</p><p>Swim: 8,100 yards</p><p>Bike: 252 miles</p><p>Walk/Run: 20.4 miles</p><p>PT/Weights: 6:20</p><p>Total Training Time: 30:30</p><p>Admittedly, 30+ hours is considerably more training than I need/should do but I must admit I do feel very strong and with the very modest intensity of my training, I seem to be able to handle the volume I've been throwing at myself. 7 of the 8 weeks this year (and the last 6 in a row) have had at least 26 hours of training.</p><p>Now a big part of this is my Build Back Project. This really started last October, when I came to the conclusion that my continuing post knee replacement limitations on my left leg were (at 10 months post-op) more a function of what happened to the leg before the surgery, rather than the surgery itself. Over the 25+ years I've struggled with a deteriorating knee joint, my left leg atrophied and tightness and imbalances developed as a function of the mis-aligned nature of my knee joint--the later increasingly severe over the last 5-8 years.</p><p>In any event, I decided last October to begin specifically rebuilding my left leg and I took what I had learned when I was in post-op rehab and began working on strengthening (especially) my left leg and working very hard to increase its range of motion. I also began working on a comprehensive weight-lifting/stretching routine that I really increased starting in January. I put 20+ hours in the gym in January doing this focused rehab/strength work-outs and have continued aggressively into February. This week, as I noted above, I went above 6 hours of this work.</p><p>I really think it's been a big success so far. My range of motion on my left leg is probably 95% of my right at this point and I've greatly narrowed the relative strength differences between my two legs. I look forward to measuring my actual L/R power output on my bike next month but am hoping to get my left to to 45-48% of my total power output (vs. 35% pre-surgery). if I'm able to do this I should be a noticeably stronger/faster cyclist this year!</p><p>I just had my physical and over the last 2.5 years I've lost 1.5 pounds of muscle mass. I was surprised by this as I know I've gained strength and added mass over the last 8 weeks--I can see it visually, in my left leg and my upper body and see the results as far as the weight/reps of the various weights I'm pushing. I'm also up to 700+ sit-ups/week and 100+ push-ups. I imagine my muscle mass loss prior to Build Back was actually a bit bigger than recorded here and is a reflection of the toll that the tail-end of my bad knee and then the replacement surgery placed on my body. One the plus side, my body fat is now nearing 10% again so I actually feel reasonably fit from a body composition perspective--still need to work on high end speed of course.</p><p>Anyways, I do feel excellent, much stronger and more flexible than I've been in quite some time. I do plan on continuing this Build Back Project through the end of May. By then I would hope to have replaced my lost muscle mass and also dropped another few pounds to set me up for a robust athletic summer of swimming, biking, walking and running as well a bunch of fun races doing the same!</p><p>But for the week ahead, probably a good time to throttle back a bit....</p><p>Onwards and upwards!</p>rcmiogahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02400850029280455954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5679811340660062519.post-39910889745945047352024-02-20T08:15:00.000-08:002024-02-20T08:15:20.918-08:00weeks 6/7<p> Very busy here with work and life admin stuff so going to update weeks 6 and 7 in this post. these two weeks were very similar and kinda fit my current "business as usual":</p><p><span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <u>Week 6</u><span> <span> <span> <u>Week 7</u></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br /></p><p>Swim yds<span> <span> <span> <span> 4,500<span> <span> <span> <span> <span> 5,500</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>Bike miles<span> <span> <span> <span> 237 <span> <span> <span> <span> 224</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>Run/Walk miles<span> 20.8<span> <span> <span> <span> <span> 24.6</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>PT/Weights time<span> 5:10<span> <span> <span> 4:10</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>Total Train time<span> 26:53<span> <span> <span> <span> 26:54</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>Through the 1st 7 weeks here are my weekly averages in 2024:</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>Swim<span> <span> <span> 4,357 yards</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>Bike: <span> <span> <span> 234.6 miles</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p>Run/Walk<span> 20.4 miles</span></p><p><span>PT/Weights<span> 4:32</span></span></p><p><span><span>Total time<span> 26:20</span></span></span></p><p><span><span><span><br /></span></span></span></p><p><span><span><span>Chugging along with lower intensity base building!</span></span></span></p><p><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><u><br /></u></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p>rcmiogahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02400850029280455954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5679811340660062519.post-45968199951964223552024-02-06T15:07:00.000-08:002024-02-06T15:07:17.443-08:00Week 5<p> I continue to generate pretty big training volume:</p><p>Swim: 6,000 yards</p><p>Bike: 246 miles</p><p>Run/Walk: 23.3 miles</p><p>PT/Weights: 4:05</p><p>Total Training Time: 27:58</p><p>This turns out to be high points in the Swim and Run/Walk for 2024 so far (albeit just 5 weeks) and the second largest training time for a week....</p><p><br /></p><p>Next week I'll update you on my Build it Back Better project (no this isn't a Biden thing)....</p>rcmiogahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02400850029280455954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5679811340660062519.post-44838676337136326242024-01-31T16:04:00.000-08:002024-01-31T16:04:07.213-08:002024-Week 4; January; and don't fire me coach!<p> Well, week 4 did not turn out to be a recovery week....this despite being on the road for 4 of the 7 days (road trip to/from Cleveland and two-days in NYC). My body seemed fine with the volume and I ended up doing more than I had originally intended--if I had coach, I'd be in big trouble if this is what I did with a recovery week:</p><p>Swim: 4,000 yards</p><p>Bike: 249 miles</p><p>Run/Walk: 16.1 miles</p><p>Weights/PT: 5:40</p><p>Total Time: 26:33</p><p>----</p><p>Today also ended January and it definitely turned out to be a big foundation month:</p><p>Swim: 17,500 yards</p><p>Bike: 1,046 miles </p><p>Walk/Run: 82.6 miles</p><p>Weights/PT: 20:30</p><p>Total Time: 114:44</p><p>In comparison, last year I did: 17,000 yards; 142 miles bike, 27 miles walk/run , 5:50 PT and total time of 31:48. </p><p>No surprises that I did a lot more this year as last year January was just my 2nd recovery month post knee replacement. But the delta between this year and last shows just how much further along I am at the beginning of this year that last.</p><p><br /></p><p>Bodes well for 2024--onwards and upwards!</p>rcmiogahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02400850029280455954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5679811340660062519.post-48880385499279186912024-01-22T10:18:00.000-08:002024-01-22T10:18:02.628-08:002024-Week 3<p> Originally, I was supposed to travel on Tuesday/Wednesday for work and then again Saturday/Sunday to take Jen's dog to her place in Cleveland. Both of these trips were delayed due to two separate winter snow storms. As it turns out, I'll be driving to Cleveland and back tomorrow and Wednesday and the work meeting is likely moved to next week. However, due to this schedule change, I ended up having a bigger training week this week than I had originally anticipated:</p><p><br /></p><p>Swim : 5,500 yards</p><p>Bike: 256 miles</p><p>Run/Walk: 19.7 Miles</p><p>PT/Weights: 5:15</p><p>Total Training Time: 28:40 </p><p><br /></p><p>So we are only three weeks in but all five of these metrics represent high points for 2024 and are very solid, frankly, Ironman-level training loads. I also begin to add some intensity in my swim and bike. As the week wore on I definitely felt this week's (and prior weeks') volume. My guess is I pare this back a fair bit this week with both the Cleveland trip and a need to recover/absorb my ytd training....all good so far!</p>rcmiogahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02400850029280455954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5679811340660062519.post-73549063426882575202024-01-15T10:38:00.000-08:002024-01-15T10:38:03.178-08:002024--WEEK 2<p> This week was strongly impacted by my Wed-Sun trip to very frigid Minnesota to help my Brother as he was moved from the hospital to a long-term rehab facility (he is recovering from a bad wound in his foot and getting ready to have his hip replaced--among other things). I also was at our Cabin on Ten Mile Lake getting it in fighting shape and ready to go into a bit of hibernation for the balance of the winter. Needless to say, my training was pretty impacted by the lack of good options (no pool for example) and the 200+ miles I had to drive each day to/and fro Dave's rehab place and the Cabin.</p><p>I also was there during the first major cold snap of the year and by default, my best training option was to walk outside. Here is what yesterday's walk was like:</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghRIXaCzNNumTAlcsb08I04UpXRPy-VzDZQjasi2uZ1_iQC7YFmY5s3ff8t2RFObdYF5ez5jlPAbH99LQHTBrXEc_OU4gcNH0tIPtiB8d03eyM2djzOSNHJa8tze0hH3BHZvhXud1hZNMqKykdGjybAGWe3gpA6e7tOEzHYYt298MNqM6v9LqCSZb3rBc/s1366/thumbnail_IMG_1559.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1366" data-original-width="1024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghRIXaCzNNumTAlcsb08I04UpXRPy-VzDZQjasi2uZ1_iQC7YFmY5s3ff8t2RFObdYF5ez5jlPAbH99LQHTBrXEc_OU4gcNH0tIPtiB8d03eyM2djzOSNHJa8tze0hH3BHZvhXud1hZNMqKykdGjybAGWe3gpA6e7tOEzHYYt298MNqM6v9LqCSZb3rBc/w480-h640/thumbnail_IMG_1559.png" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO5WS3SSZ6GzrL8_lIpW-eGKxjY5Nn90h6tGCzokC0lBsSIBscA_q1OHf78TqHEINoiVIDKOR_L1bipaLhVCrBs_cECAs-oz2o034MavrmsCS55nS5rOmp7uGZUu2ySboD99yJDLCFbcv0_0sLzk_4JFAJzo3EVUzSLDKS1hggUId4gg4gjKrnaOuqwmk/s1366/thumbnail_IMG_1560.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1366" data-original-width="1024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO5WS3SSZ6GzrL8_lIpW-eGKxjY5Nn90h6tGCzokC0lBsSIBscA_q1OHf78TqHEINoiVIDKOR_L1bipaLhVCrBs_cECAs-oz2o034MavrmsCS55nS5rOmp7uGZUu2ySboD99yJDLCFbcv0_0sLzk_4JFAJzo3EVUzSLDKS1hggUId4gg4gjKrnaOuqwmk/w480-h640/thumbnail_IMG_1560.png" width="480" /></a></div><p><br /></p>I had anticipated the cold and brought along a bunch of my high altitude cold weather gear and the walks I did there (every day) were actually quite enjoyable....Crazy to do an 87-minute walk and see absolutely no sign of human life!<p></p><p>Anyways, here are the totals for the week:</p><p><b>Swim: 3,000 yards</b>. Managed to up the volume by 50% over Week 1, as I begin the process of ramping up. I'll plan to up it 50% again this week to at least 4,500 yards....I feel pretty good given the 3-4 months off that I had (just a couple of easy swims down in Mexico over Thanksgiving).</p><p><b>Bike: 190 miles</b></p><p><b>Walk/Run: 18.9 miles</b></p><p><b>Weights/PT: 3:00</b></p><p><b>Total Training Time: 21:13</b></p><p>I have some work stuff to travel for this week but all-in-all this should be a more normal week...</p><p><br /></p>rcmiogahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02400850029280455954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5679811340660062519.post-43783075416563798632024-01-08T12:34:00.000-08:002024-01-08T12:34:32.111-08:002023, 2024 and I'm back in the game!<p><b><u> 2023</u></b></p><p>Well its been a very long Radio silence covering a fair chunk of 2023. I apologize but promise (at least) weekly updates this year....</p><p>2023 was primarily about getting used to and recovering from my Total Knee Replacement, which happened on 11/30/22. It was, in retrospect, a relatively slow and challenging process. It didn't seem so at the time as I expected it to take 9-12 months to fully recover and I had no way of knowing how hard it was supposed to be.</p><p>I just did the work, day-in and day-out. Following the Ortho's orders at first and then my PT guy, I finally got to the place were I actually considered doing some modest training (as opposed to PT or exercising) by May. I even did a 5k over Memorial weekend and ran the whole thing--first time I really ran since the operation. I managed to do a 34 minute 5k--just under 11 minutes/mile. I followed that up with the Stone Harbor triathlon in July where my son, Anders came and raced with me--he finished 2nd overall and I strangely enough, went a minute or two faster than I had in the prior year, pre-surgery...</p><p>I entered a few swimming races as well and generally did pretty well, even finishing in 2nd in my Age Group in one. All-in-all it was a modest year. One with low expectations and one ultimately marked by a lot of progress.</p><p>We had a ton of social obligations (9 weddings and my Mother and Brother both having major surgeries that I needed to help them with necessitating about 4 weeks in Minnesota and Florida). By September, I decided to really focus on rebuilding my all-around body strength and on especially rebuilding my left leg. In the 25 years I suffered with a deteriorating knee my left leg became increasingly structurally inefficient and as a result I favored my right leg. As a result, my left leg atrophied and loss a huge amount of my normal range of motion. I began to limp a lot and down the stretch had to run with a large brace. When I rode my bike, I generated 60-65% of my power with my right leg....</p><p>All of the PT and asymmetric strength training seems to have really paid off. In early November I went down to Shenandoah for what was supposed to be a 7-day through-hike of the park on the AT that had to be cut short for safety reasons because of unexpectedly bad weather, but I did manage to get a 21-mile, nearly 10-hour hike on the AT carrying 35-40 pounds and climbing just under 5,000 vertical feet. I felt very strong and had zero issues with my left leg. Very exciting!</p><p><b><u>2024</u></b></p><p>I've continued to spend about 5-hours a week on strength/flexibility work since September and frankly feel stronger and better than I have in a long time. I no longer limp. The relative differences in power and flexibility between my two legs has noticeably diminished. I'm highly motivated and frankly beginning to look for new Endurance challenges for 2024!</p><p>I've decided to become a more dedicated triathlete again. I plan on racing at least 5 triathlons and several swim and running races in 2024. Most of this will be relatively short in distance, but I have decided to join Anders in Boulder in early June and attempt to do the Boulder IM70.3. I'm less concerned about how fast I am than I am in doing these challenges in a reasonably competent way and just really enjoying that I can still do them. More on my goals for this year over the next few posts....</p><p><b><u>Week 1</u></b></p><p>I just completed my first week of 2024 training. Solid effort that my body stills seems to be able to handle (although I was a bit sore this morning). Mostly low intensity aerobically at this point. I got back in the pool with a couple of easy swims and plan to increase my volume by about 50%/week until I get north of 10k/week. Most of my riding is indoor Z1/Z2 but I'm beginning to reintroduce Zwift rides, which will tend to drive higher intensity as the pre-season unfolds. I haven't run yet and all of this week's run/walk volume was in the form of hikes. My PT/weight training is going great and I feel myself getting pretty strong (for me). In fact I am benching 170+ pounds again for the first time in a long time.....</p><p>Here are the totals for the week:</p><p>Swim: 2,000 yards</p><p>Bike: 241 miles</p><p>Run/Walk: 19 miles</p><p>PT/Other: 5 hours</p><p>Total time: 26:03</p><p><br /></p><p>My plan is to report in every Monday, so please check back! My first Tri of the year is currently scheduled for a Sprint down at Lum's Pond in mid-May.....</p><p>Onwards and Upwards!</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>rcmiogahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02400850029280455954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5679811340660062519.post-60250490697873280782023-06-12T12:35:00.001-07:002023-06-12T12:35:35.268-07:00Total Knee Replacement: 6 months in.<p>Sorry for the extended delay in updating the blog--super busy times as I'll get into below. First-off, here is a summary of my volume totals for the first 6-months after my Total Knee Replacement:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFYG7yYl5TBzxsuu8ijVs6Qs6CQKvK5yUfkDh7JwQZyTiHz9ccrob3VvDn3SmnhxelP81IMdtLuL6O00w8ATq_oJ0Aipu2bEZbyIDT7wELrmoCHV9JOdfV7zszx4VQaxRlJiD0BDTb8Lv2YRvdhy-79CWVuSo12urIjDxErMkZO8etEjy5ig0e352S/s2068/Screen%20Shot%202023-06-12%20at%2012.21.58%20PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="704" data-original-width="2068" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFYG7yYl5TBzxsuu8ijVs6Qs6CQKvK5yUfkDh7JwQZyTiHz9ccrob3VvDn3SmnhxelP81IMdtLuL6O00w8ATq_oJ0Aipu2bEZbyIDT7wELrmoCHV9JOdfV7zszx4VQaxRlJiD0BDTb8Lv2YRvdhy-79CWVuSo12urIjDxErMkZO8etEjy5ig0e352S/w640-h218/Screen%20Shot%202023-06-12%20at%2012.21.58%20PM.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><b><u>Swim</u></b></p><p>As you can see, my swim totals are not that impressive so far. Comparatively, during the first 5 months of 2022, I swam 219k yards compared to just 88k yards this year. In other words, I've only swam about 40% of last year's volume so far this year.</p><p>This is really not that related to the TNK. Obviously, December was, as I still had the open wound and so had to stay out of the pool. However, since then I've had the green light and my limited kicking means the TKR really has not been a barrier to my swimming. What has happened is a series of life commitments as well as admittedly, less motivation to swim with no clear multi-sport plans laid out. From the life commitment perspective, I've already attended 4 weddings (out of 9 this year) and two of those were in Mexico (including my youngest daughter's wedding) that involved 5-day trips. I've also driven to Kansas and back twice and once to Cleveland to help my other daughter with her residency driven relocation. Also, we went to London for 5-days to support Alex/Rachel in the London Marathon.</p><p>I started to ramp up in May but then we moved our primary residence to the NJ shore and this necessitates open water swimming but for the first couple of weeks the water temp was below 60 degrees and my usual NJ swim crew was not yet back in town and this didn't help my motivation. I started June off strong but then we got hit with the Canadian wildfire smoke so that was another 3-day set-back.</p><p>Lot's of excuses I know, but I'm now starting to get wet more regularly and expect to do at least 100k yards for June-August and frankly will try to do more than that.</p><p>As a consequence, I'm swimming about 15 sec/100 slower right now than last year (1:55 vs. 1:40)....</p><p><b><u>Bike</u></b></p><p>It was quite challenging/painful for me to ride my bike much for the first ten weeks or so. My knee just didn't have the range of motion. I found it was a little easier on a recumbent bike but I wasn't able to really get going until the later part of February. My volume since then looks pretty solid but its really not, compared to my historical standards--for example, last January I rode over 1,700 miles in just that one month (more than April/May combined this year). The net of this is I rode 3,123 miles in the first 5 months vs 6,569 last year, which about 48% of last year's volume--not really what I'm looking for.</p><p>Early on, as I mentioned my TKR really held me back and while its noticeably better now, I still find when I push up above about 200 miles/week, my knee(s) start to get achey. Some of this is probably related to the TKR but I think some of it is a function of the detraining that may body went through post surgery and the difficulty one has, when you are 65-years old, when you ramp up again.</p><p>I'm at the shore now and able to ride more consistently outside so I expect my volume to climb up above 1,000 miles/month. I've also began to ride a bit longer (although I still haven't gone further than 50 miles in one ride) and I'm starting to add more intensity intervals/higher spinning rpms on my Zwift trainer and hope to begin to see my bike fitness begin to shape up. I'd say at this point I'm down about 30 watts relative to last year, which is pretty substantial.</p><p><b><u>Run/Walk</u></b></p><p>Almost all of the volume to date has been walking although I ran for the first time on the beach in Mexico for about 400 yards in early May and then I ran 1/2-mile in 5:30 in the 3rd week of May. I finally, on a bit of a whim, decided to enter the Stone Harbor Turtle Trot 5k run over Memorial Weekend and see what happened. Low and behold I was able to run the whole thing--although quite slow!</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3VTZivssIoL-UPM5NSRJ3AZ38kPqsShQQHeGfxLCdEsh8FKe3-BooOcn0dFQa5e-7P3ALN7O7ZwY5MEOIMYs1D9XqJesbWvV6JIqE5r7WvzgfS1YiAvRAwf7rqZLl9niuN7-BxmcqZGhDQ6GIpFOl2cyKkPkOgXakyQw2iP--cFG3_bANtQwCi5RD/s2732/Screenshot%202023-05-28%20at%209.24.20%20AM.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2732" data-original-width="2048" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3VTZivssIoL-UPM5NSRJ3AZ38kPqsShQQHeGfxLCdEsh8FKe3-BooOcn0dFQa5e-7P3ALN7O7ZwY5MEOIMYs1D9XqJesbWvV6JIqE5r7WvzgfS1YiAvRAwf7rqZLl9niuN7-BxmcqZGhDQ6GIpFOl2cyKkPkOgXakyQw2iP--cFG3_bANtQwCi5RD/w480-h640/Screenshot%202023-05-28%20at%209.24.20%20AM.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhisB5PGyQAozjw1aE1QMInGLZA76GRKMg1CGC_V12zZh0nt_C2PCoDBcQKxhbu4Nh6TYM-eDu69gakQi7RR6j-ATv73LKJnBhwmHMdHcSdM59w4gUMooOn3K9HXg2m7kFtRM4QLJ44_dgSZYZKEm9tKB9dNnqjJg8C8zDtd-AGsEMOm4ClQOgQK1cY/s1200/image000000.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhisB5PGyQAozjw1aE1QMInGLZA76GRKMg1CGC_V12zZh0nt_C2PCoDBcQKxhbu4Nh6TYM-eDu69gakQi7RR6j-ATv73LKJnBhwmHMdHcSdM59w4gUMooOn3K9HXg2m7kFtRM4QLJ44_dgSZYZKEm9tKB9dNnqjJg8C8zDtd-AGsEMOm4ClQOgQK1cY/w640-h640/image000000.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><p>You can see I managed to average 10:54/mile and I even negative split the run. It frankly felt normal and like I didn't have nearly as much of the limp that characterized my run pre-surgery over the last few years.</p><p>This is encouraging and I've started to run 2-3 miles 2-3 times week (which is about the most I plan to do--at least for now) and my knee seems to tolerate it reasonably well so far.</p><p><b><u>Physical Training</u></b></p><p>You can see that I peaked out in March with 20 hours of dedicated PT. I'm still doing this fairly regularly but I suspect that will be down around 10 hours/month or less going forward.</p><p><b><u>Looking Ahead</u></b></p><p>I think I'm going to try to do 2-4 super-sprint/sprint triathlons this year including the Stone Harbor Sprint on 7/9 with Anders when he comes out and visit. I'm also planning on doing several open water swim events and in fact have a 1.2-mile OWS on that same day in July!</p><p>I'm also planning to do, in October, a solo through-hike of the Shenandoah NP AT section, which would be about 105-miles over 6-7 days.</p><p>I'm hopeful that these events will help with training motivation and that I can begin two ramp up my post-surgery fitness some because while I've recovered well from the surgery, and the knee pain is by-in-large gone at this point, I'm not in very good endurance shape and I suspect my races will clearly show that...</p><p>Time to work harder!</p><p>Onward and upward!</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>rcmiogahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02400850029280455954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5679811340660062519.post-28156475906304497492023-04-16T14:14:00.000-07:002023-04-16T14:14:14.348-07:001st Two Weeks of April<p> Here is what the first two full weeks of April looked like</p><p style="text-align: left;"><b><u>Week of 4/3</u></b></p><p style="text-align: left;">Swim: 6,000 yards</p><p style="text-align: left;">Bike: 201 miles</p><p style="text-align: left;">Run/Walk: 16.4 miles</p><p style="text-align: left;">PT: 3:15</p><p style="text-align: left;">Total Time: 23:05</p><p style="text-align: left;"><b><u>Week of 4/10</u></b></p><p style="text-align: left;">Swim: 5,000 yards</p><p style="text-align: left;">Bike: 211 miles</p><p style="text-align: left;">Run/Walk: 14.6 miles</p><p style="text-align: left;">PT: 3:15</p><p style="text-align: left;">Total Time: 22:11</p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;">Solid weeks and I'm continuing to rebuild post-surgery. I'm also having to juggle a very intensive travel schedule (was just in Cleveland for 5 days helping Jen find a new apartment) and will be shortly over in London. It's going to be a challenge to hit 30,000 yards on the swim and 1,000+ miles on the bike for the month but I'll do what I can given the circumstances.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Here is what the last few weeks look like:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq2lsv7BOCXyOt1gFTr9Gf5G5-19xyeWyhWN0P1n5Lc4_AnwIv9MIKXINz7xYvNTOet0H64Zh4UAnSCs_o7LKq4UZ5BSBo5uYBt8kUqwQvZshHUonCXV6WE5e7S6RYnNGBFlNWVREFaCGVTLXVkLfcQ75xclz3ClL1g9RXQmyQbuVXJl-ZV4rnqc32/s1820/Screen%20Shot%202023-04-16%20at%205.12.38%20PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="712" data-original-width="1820" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq2lsv7BOCXyOt1gFTr9Gf5G5-19xyeWyhWN0P1n5Lc4_AnwIv9MIKXINz7xYvNTOet0H64Zh4UAnSCs_o7LKq4UZ5BSBo5uYBt8kUqwQvZshHUonCXV6WE5e7S6RYnNGBFlNWVREFaCGVTLXVkLfcQ75xclz3ClL1g9RXQmyQbuVXJl-ZV4rnqc32/w640-h250/Screen%20Shot%202023-04-16%20at%205.12.38%20PM.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p>rcmiogahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02400850029280455954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5679811340660062519.post-75991636792797636502023-04-05T15:06:00.002-07:002023-04-05T15:06:31.933-07:00Total Knee Replacement--What the first 4 months look like from a volume perspective<p> OK, my TKR surgery was 11/30, so Dec-Mar represented my first 4 months of recovery/rebuild. Here is what that aggregate volume stats look like:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidfTqg9fWn-_SjekVMMvh1MJw3ewh8RV8jcGTosmEi50nSH7n0jzZMpDAAnQKOUfFw8RNB0oiJ-w1MgUmV0wUiAL7tOolChNtn2KoCnu27MunhMmPH2B4-zfPYDQmlpu9lXh-LEtOt5jlyOPQKECKMJwQy3aBhPqV4Ru89qYh2zkWMS8lFxt1jvYi-/s1436/Screen%20Shot%202023-04-05%20at%205.47.33%20PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="390" data-original-width="1436" height="174" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidfTqg9fWn-_SjekVMMvh1MJw3ewh8RV8jcGTosmEi50nSH7n0jzZMpDAAnQKOUfFw8RNB0oiJ-w1MgUmV0wUiAL7tOolChNtn2KoCnu27MunhMmPH2B4-zfPYDQmlpu9lXh-LEtOt5jlyOPQKECKMJwQy3aBhPqV4Ru89qYh2zkWMS8lFxt1jvYi-/w640-h174/Screen%20Shot%202023-04-05%20at%205.47.33%20PM.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Here is a description of what's been going on:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><u>Swim</u></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><u><br /></u></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">After the surgery there is a period of time where you have an open wound and can't swim--basically I had to wait for a while after I had my staples out. This then bumped into the holidays so I decided to start swimming in January. For my start-up swim month I ease into it and swim just 2-4 times/week and relatively short.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">February brought a whole host of travel and other commitments, so I decided to back away from much swimming and focus on the other aspects of my recovery. In the last 3 weeks of March I've begun to ramp again and hope to jump up to near 30,000 yards in April--from there I can return to my normal swimming volumes (40,000+). today, I swam for the 8th time in the last 9 days.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><u>Bike</u></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><u><br /></u></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The bike is my main thing. I've tried to push it along as quickly as I could but was definitely limiteds by pain/mobility over the first 2-3 months. Finally in March, I began to return to quasi-normal bike-wise and you can see that I'm approaching 1000+ miles/month. I would expect to be above 1,000 miles/month going forward and I will also begin to start building both intensity and the length of my longer rides.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><u>Walk/Run</u></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><u><br /></u></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">All walk so far. I got a little carried away in December but my docs shut me down and I've been slowly rebuilding. I still have trouble walking much beyond 5 miles so this is my area of biggest disappointment so far. I just took a whole week off to settle my knee down a bit. I definitely want to build this number and begin to push up more towards 10 miles at a time. I'd like to be able to do full on legit hiking/climbing down in Shenandoah by May and maybe even run a bit (not much).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><u>PT</u></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><u><br /></u></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">My docs were mostly against this at the outset but you can see that I'm spending significant time on it now. I expect to do so for another month or two and then hop[e to back off from the time I'm investing there.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><u>Total Time</u></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><u><br /></u></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">For the first time since the surgery, I feel like I was beginning to be a real athlete again in March. Almost 100 hours! Pretty low intensity, but beginning to get there!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">------</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Here is what the last few weeks look like:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpOniLsh-n4LmRoutkSkSBXO4VxNQhX-FsJ5dD8tGbUvTIhoN06RoHdOGesNvdFC9-anBIaoXjF3IATUYwgS8tMww18vSrRJfh-XmkjajbR8FQhzkEOf2F11OtDkvDBr0Y04cIA2VCk7cm0BZfSwxMYN1b0UkKoF-UQwjxXl5VeHwzNjhDGhGL-kjs/s1868/Screen%20Shot%202023-04-05%20at%206.04.44%20PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="718" data-original-width="1868" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpOniLsh-n4LmRoutkSkSBXO4VxNQhX-FsJ5dD8tGbUvTIhoN06RoHdOGesNvdFC9-anBIaoXjF3IATUYwgS8tMww18vSrRJfh-XmkjajbR8FQhzkEOf2F11OtDkvDBr0Y04cIA2VCk7cm0BZfSwxMYN1b0UkKoF-UQwjxXl5VeHwzNjhDGhGL-kjs/w640-h246/Screen%20Shot%202023-04-05%20at%206.04.44%20PM.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><u><br /></u></b></div>rcmiogahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02400850029280455954noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5679811340660062519.post-31720413908959468392023-03-27T07:46:00.001-07:002023-03-27T07:46:38.405-07:00Pretty solid 4-week block in the books--backing off this next week....<p> Yesterday completed a pretty solid 4-week building block, considering that I'm still in my 4th month post-Total Knee Replacement. Here are the volume stats:</p><p>Swim: 4,500 yards</p><p>Bike: 224 miles</p><p>Walk: 13 miles</p><p>PT Time: 5:10</p><p>Total Time: 24:40</p><p>At first blush, with 24:40 of training time, this almost looks like a legit Long-Course Triathlon training week. However, with over 5 hours of dedicated PT/rehab time for my knee, my SBR time was sub-20 hours, so a relatively light week by my historical standards. You can see that reflected in my SBR volumes which are all below where I would normally expect to be this time of year (10,000+ yards/300+ miles/25+ miles). These reduced totals are also a reflection of the very modest levels of intensity/effort I currently have in my SBR training. Here is a graphic showing the last few weeks (other is PT):</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN4N-h_Ay26LJGxJtCBsfk69u-X4vFr0-8s1e4SlsyxA_vvsNgdzKzAOdSVrqqQ7ljRitHFOZ7rFgc3TBVV9Z1hmVwb6emDhQjos62FiSz6rEPoxGcah_JYyvl70liAZhVemQ8Id-VNHbMKbzwao1003VT9DAZs6FCixClxJyIWlZlXRL1wqfeD87O/s1844/Screen%20Shot%202023-03-27%20at%2010.22.32%20AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="722" data-original-width="1844" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN4N-h_Ay26LJGxJtCBsfk69u-X4vFr0-8s1e4SlsyxA_vvsNgdzKzAOdSVrqqQ7ljRitHFOZ7rFgc3TBVV9Z1hmVwb6emDhQjos62FiSz6rEPoxGcah_JYyvl70liAZhVemQ8Id-VNHbMKbzwao1003VT9DAZs6FCixClxJyIWlZlXRL1wqfeD87O/w640-h250/Screen%20Shot%202023-03-27%20at%2010.22.32%20AM.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>You see the general rise in effort and the consistency of my training in the above. I even went over 4 hours on back-to-back days last week. You can also see the prevalence of my PT efforts--I did sone form of PT in 26 of these 35 days--about 3/4ths of the days I do PT.</p><p>I'm also now able to easily tolerate biking most days and will begin to increase the length of my longer rides beyond 2 hours. You can also see I'm getting my feet wet again and getting ready to build up my swim volume in April.</p><p>My recovery continues a pace. Still making progress but also still quite a ways to go. I underwent dry-needling this week to try to trigger my calf and hammy on my left-side to loosen and lengthen a bit so I can get the last 5-10 degrees of extension that I'm lacking. Also, I feel my walks (in the knee) once I get up around 5 miles or so. I'm definitely still a ways away from being ready to head out on my more substantial (5+ hour) treks/hikes/climbs. </p><p>For the upcoming month of April, in addition to getting to the point where I might be able to do legitimate long-distance hiking again, I plan to bring my swim up into the 30,000+ yard range and add a lot of intensity, especially to my bike and swim. I'll keep doing the PT as long as necessary but hope that I can eventually get it down to a more maintenance like schedule--say 2 hours/week, vs. the 4-5+ I'm doing now.</p><p>I'm heading to Florida today to help my Mom out a bit and will use this trip as an excuse to ease back on my volume a bit this week to consolidate the last 4-week block and to get ready for the greater volume/intensity I envision for April.</p><p><br /></p><p>Onwards and upwards!</p><p><br /></p>rcmiogahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02400850029280455954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5679811340660062519.post-14910230073004299542023-03-20T08:40:00.001-07:002023-03-20T08:40:38.225-07:00Last week volume<p> More of the same--so 3 pretty similar weeks over the last 3--my knee feels a bit better so I seem to be adjusting to the volume....will try to do more of the same this week:</p><p>Swim: 4,500 yards</p><p>Bike: 210 miles</p><p>Walk: 14 miles</p><p>PT: 4:15</p><p>Total time: 23:07</p><p><br /></p><p>At my rehab this week we are going to try dry needling to see if I can get the last 5-10% of leg extension. My flexion is pretty close to normal. pain continues to diminish!</p>rcmiogahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02400850029280455954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5679811340660062519.post-12629726112307180052023-03-13T08:36:00.003-07:002023-03-13T08:36:19.012-07:00Last two weeks--volume wise almost returning to normal....<p> Here are my last two weeks of total training volume:</p><p><b><u>2/27-3/5</u></b></p><p>Swim: 0 yards</p><p>Bike: 185 miles</p><p>Walk: 12 miles</p><p>PT time : 4:10</p><p>Training time: 19:49</p><p><br /></p><p><b><u>3/6-3/12</u></b></p><p>Swim: 3,000 yards</p><p>Bike: 194 miles</p><p>Walk: 13 miles</p><p>PT time: 4:20</p><p>Training time: 21:30</p><p><br /></p><p>Objectively, from a volume perspective, these last two weeks haven't been that far off. Just starting to ramp back up the swim. Solid bike mileage and lots of PT emphasis leading to 20ish hours/week, which is pretty solid 3.5 months after my knee replacement.</p><p>Still, it's all very low intensity and my knee definitely feels it. I hoping to stay near this volume for a couple of more weeks and see if my knee fully adapts or if I have to back it down again. If I can hold this volume then I'll look to begin adding intensity in April.</p><p>The PT has shifted from being focused on mobility/flexibility to that plus strength. Both legs, but especially my left are still very weak--lots of rehab to go!</p>rcmiogahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02400850029280455954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5679811340660062519.post-81565073420878292472023-03-03T06:12:00.005-08:002023-03-03T07:30:25.977-08:00New Knee: 3 Months<p> Well, I had the TKR on November 30th so I recently clicked over 3 months post surgery. Everyone tells me my recovery is going great....but I really don't know what that means.</p><p>From my perspective four things are true:</p><p>1. I can do a whole more today than I could even just 1 month ago and I've made huge progress from those days immediately post surgery</p><p>2. I can't do nearly as much as I want to do and still have my painful moments, although for the most part I can almost always get a good night's sleep now, so thankful for that!</p><p>3. I don't know if I should feel good or bad about this cause no one has ever been able to articulate a specific set of quantifiable measures that establish the expected or normal recovery time table.</p><p>4. I still don't know when I'll get to the point that I consider "fully recovered" except that it doesn't seem to be very imminent.</p><p>I am pretty much able to bike and walk (more briskly) every day if I want and I'm working hard 4-5 days/week on my PT. I have a one-hour PT session with Hash each week and then 3-4 on my own where I'm generally working on my knee for 45-60 minutes. I do notice progress from these efforts on a week-to-week basis--especially if I look back over 10/15 days to where I was. Individual days can be up and down however.</p><p>My schedule has been crazy with a trip down to Naples, FL to help my 86-yo mom, who is struggling a bit after her bike fall and fracture. We also had Kara's wedding down in Mexico City, which was basically a week-long affair (and out of this world fun!). I did however contract a pesky cold (no CoVid) that has been bugging me for the last 10 days. Oh, and I forgot to mention that Anders, Alex and I did a last minute trip out to Phoenix to see the Super Bowl.</p><p>A couple of highlights along the way was the 10 miles I walked on Super Bowl Sunday and a couple of everyday 5-milers. At the wedding I found that I could jump up and down again (not a lot of vertical of-course) on the dance floor, which is something that I haven't been able to do for 10+ years. Also, the other day I was late to catch a train and actually ran about a quarter-mile, with a backpack, reasonably quickly and PAIN-FREE (!!!!) and was able to make the train--I can't remember the last time I was able to run pain free!</p><p>So the net of this is I've come a long way from the beginning of this New Knee journey but I still have a significant ways to go and I'm not sure how long it will take to get there. Nothing to do but continue the journey!!</p><p>Training wise, February saw more productive physical work in vs. January but still a very long way from my "normal" February. Notably, I decided to skip the pool work for most of February to concentrate on my rehab and scaling up the walking/biking. I'm anxious to start a full swim program this month that I expect to continue for the balance of the year, but am off to a slow start so far in March with this pesky cold. I'll probably give it the weekend and then start my swimming in earnest next week:</p><p>January Totals:</p><p>Swim: 17,000 yards. Bike: 142 miles. Walk: 27 miles. PT: 6:30. Total Time: 31:48</p><p>February Totals:</p><p>Swim: 6,000 yards. Bike: 329 miles. Walk: 52 miles. PT: 10:20. Total Time: 49:01</p><p><br /></p><p>Onwards and Upwards!</p>rcmiogahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02400850029280455954noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5679811340660062519.post-58625693681344518412023-02-06T05:54:00.001-08:002023-02-06T05:54:28.385-08:00New Knee--10 weeks in...<p> Looks like I'm starting to turn the corner a bit now. I've been going to PT and this has helped (or at least not hurt) my recovery a bit. I'm getting a lot more m ability in the knee and for a fair amount of time each day I can actually walk around fairly normally--no limp! The pain is far more manageable and I'm off of all pain killers including Tylenol and am now able to sleep close to 8 hours a night--I still wake up 3-4 times a night but shift around a bit and the pain subsides....much easier to deal with now!</p><p>The big news is I am now able to tolerate riding on my Wahoo Kickr/Zwift set-up and after driving home from Kansas last Monday and Tuesday morning, I was able to ride for 6 consecutive days starting Tuesday afternoon. My last 4 weeks my bike mileage was: 19 miles; 60 miles; 36 miles and 128 miles this past week! I'm not putting out very impressive power (100-140 watts generally) but Its definitely heading in the right direction. I'm a little surprised at how challenging it is for my left quad, but I guess the inactivity has really detrained my left leg (and right for that matter).</p><p>I'm still just walking about 10 miles/week but I actually did a 2.2-miler yesterday, which was the longest of my post surgery and I plan to do more on it this week.</p><p>I'm just swimming 1-3X week right now mostly because of my schedule but I plan to ramp that up after Kara's wedding in a couple of weeks......</p><p>Onward and Upward!</p>rcmiogahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02400850029280455954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5679811340660062519.post-84236631924598011372023-01-09T19:35:00.000-08:002023-01-09T19:35:26.753-08:00Me and my new knee, Day 40<p> Lot’s going on post holidays on many fronts, including with my post surgery rehab.</p><p>I began to log up to 3 miles a day in 4-5 walks towards the end of December and into January. I began to spin on first my Wahoo Kickr/Zwift trainer and then on my recumbent. I started a regular swim block (did 4th swim of year today) which my plan would be to build on.</p><p>I suppose, not surprisingly, my knee started complaining louder. Sleep was a real challenge (never more than 5 hours a night). Hard to walk first thing. My Docs had an intervention and I just went through a 6-day stretch of minimal stress on the knee. To be sure, I’m still doing a lot of PT (more on that in a second) and as I mentioned above, hitting the pool every other day.</p><p>I also started working with James Hashimoto “Hash”. He has given me some pt exercises that are not so much focused on stretching as they are on recruiting and properly sequencing muscle activation so I can regain normal knee mechanics. It’s been so long since I could straighten my knee when walking that some of my muscles deactivated due to limited use. Because of this my tibia doesn’t glide relative to my femur in a way that allows me to strike the ground with my heel and a 180% extension of my leg. So I have to retrain them to fire and in the right sequence. Turns out you can do this by walking backwards. Reach back with your toe and then roll your weight back to your heel and presto, your tibia glides and you have a straight leg. So I walk backwards and then slowly forward to try replicate the activation sequence but in reverse.</p><p>Anyways, after sprinting out of the gates, my rehab progress has slowed quite a bit. I’m still progressing but slower than I’d like. I think patience is required and I’m optimistic that it will be rewarded. Just going to take a while.</p><p>My main near-term fitness goal is to walk my daughter down the aisle, without a limp, in the middle of February. </p><p>Onwards and Upwards!</p>rcmiogahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02400850029280455954noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5679811340660062519.post-77715121379720864132022-12-25T04:45:00.003-08:002022-12-25T04:45:25.134-08:00Day 25<p> <span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">Merry Christmas!</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">Day 25 of my Total Knee Replacement recovery. Progress is not particularly quick and there is a fair amount of tedious work that I process through each day, but progress is happening.</span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">On day 13, I had my staples removed which led to being able to add baths and swimming back to the menu. I did my first post surgery swim….just 1,000 yards but it was my first aerobic activity in 2+ weeks.</span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">On Day 22 and yesterday, Day 24, I was able to do very easy spins on my Wahoo Kickr bike. The first ride was just 1-mile and that took 6:35 to complete with a whopping avg power of 41 watts. Yesterday, I spun for 10 minutes and managed to cover 2.6 miles (15.6 mph) with an average power of 84 watts.</span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">The key thing each day is to keep upping the stress on my knee and pushing my range of motion, without causing excessive swelling. In addition to the above, I’m going on 5-8 walks a day and while I haven’t gone as far as a mile yet, most walks now are 10+ minutes and near or over a half-mile. I also have 3 sets of range of motion exercises that I’ve been able to do 3-5 X/day. Lots of elevation and icing as well….</span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">The biggest struggle is sleep. I can generally get 3-4 hours in but then my knee has enough discomfort in it that it wakes me up. This is usually around 2-3am. I usually struggle to get back to sleep and most days (like today), I just get up and start the day (it’s 7:45am as I write this and I’ve already been out for 3 walks in the single digit outside). I take a nap or two later, but the sleep challenge is probably the hardest part of the recovery so far.</span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">Onward and upward!</span>rcmiogahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02400850029280455954noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5679811340660062519.post-855049736276768342022-12-20T12:59:00.001-08:002022-12-20T12:59:21.073-08:00New Knee Day 20: In the grind now!<p> It's been 10 days since the last update on life with my new knee. </p><p>Brian came over to watch Argentina take down Croatia and during halftime on Day 13 he removed my 27 staples. This turned out to be mostly a non-event (with the exception of one spot where there was a matt of clotted blood and superglue). Since then, the incision has continued to look better and better--I'll update with a new pic at some point.</p><p>With the staples out I was cleared to submerge my knee beginning on Day 14, which meant that baths and swimming were back on the menu. I've been taking a warm bath each night, which helps with sleeping and I even went swimming on Day 16--just a 1,000 yds, which took almost 19 minutes, but it was good to actually do something quasi-aerobic again! I'll probably swim a few more times before the end of the year but plan to get into a regular swim routine in January.</p><p>I've also been cleared to begin riding my bike trainers at no or very low resistance. I tried yesterday, Day 19 for the first time on my recumbent and it's still a no go--too much swelling and resistance as my knee gets close too my body on each rotation. I plan to check my Wahoo Kickr tomorrow but expect that I would be regularly on the bike before the New Year.</p><p>I still elevate for lengthy periods of time each day and spend about 2 hours on my Game Ready ice machine each day. I've found it difficult to do 6-8 cycles of all 3 PT exercises and 5-10 minute walks each day without my knee swelling and suffering a set-back the next day. I have to take it easier than is my nature but I'm really trying to listen to what my knee has to say about what I put it through each day and right now it's telling me to slow down a bit.</p><p>I still wake up from the pain around 2 or so in the morning (after a 10pm bed time) but have recently been able to get back to sleep for another 2-3 hours before dawn--still not enough sleep but a definite improvement. </p><p>As my swelling has subsided my knee has started to "click" a lot which is annoying and a bit disconcerting. But it appears to be fairly common and the hope would be as I continue to improve my range of motion the clicking will diminish and hopefully go away.</p><p>The other issue I have is first thing in the morning (especially at 2am) after a fuller day of PT the day before, when I get up, my knee is very tender and not super functional so I have to baby it a bit until it wakes up. This also tells me I have to go slow on the day's activities.</p><p>I'd say my knee is at about 20-25% of the functionality of my good knee so still a long ways to go. for reference, I'd say my left was at about 50% before the surgery so I'm hopeful I start moving ahead of where I was over the next month or so....</p><p>Trying to be a patient Patient! Onward and Upward!</p>rcmiogahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02400850029280455954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5679811340660062519.post-87192873230074950402022-12-10T08:41:00.002-08:002022-12-10T08:41:24.130-08:00Day 10: Life with the new knee...<p> The last three days since my Day 6 post have been all about settling into a routine of sorts. My knee continues to progress, albeit at a slower rate and with steps backwards mixed in with the advances.</p><p>Dr. Galinat came by late on Day 6 (Wednesday 12/6) and changed out my dressing for me. The wound looks good--healing well with no signs of infection:</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEOb0xb-9c2Rbsg6mnxn2UxE3Ldulvu19wl-EjcClOmGD06-_urcCjbEm_uH1PakrE36WzVEmEKK5198SsnbLuDlDnXJcWae2wb0R-F37BvwZsPqjy9FkRr_baa47PVETiyPgahQGsjbENTN-reHwCqUzAEbwJih_HEcQy5cuagxo5OXhqnrDum-oB/s4032/IMG_6743.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEOb0xb-9c2Rbsg6mnxn2UxE3Ldulvu19wl-EjcClOmGD06-_urcCjbEm_uH1PakrE36WzVEmEKK5198SsnbLuDlDnXJcWae2wb0R-F37BvwZsPqjy9FkRr_baa47PVETiyPgahQGsjbENTN-reHwCqUzAEbwJih_HEcQy5cuagxo5OXhqnrDum-oB/w480-h640/IMG_6743.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoQvy8kw3u6FlJzc_0l2ByIQvrNCh89l50MzJqMZ6zC1z97CxemoLbOt4NtP488umgntqk_5rO_naFMkxFcdLaXM0sWi_X7ikbnb41Kp9I96qaW5R4aUF2BsQCproWENeI4cniphFe35C9xaM_jMSwobXJeC2EzuydJQ_aEaUL1-xjFwHF1IwhRmYB/s4032/IMG_0806.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoQvy8kw3u6FlJzc_0l2ByIQvrNCh89l50MzJqMZ6zC1z97CxemoLbOt4NtP488umgntqk_5rO_naFMkxFcdLaXM0sWi_X7ikbnb41Kp9I96qaW5R4aUF2BsQCproWENeI4cniphFe35C9xaM_jMSwobXJeC2EzuydJQ_aEaUL1-xjFwHF1IwhRmYB/w480-h640/IMG_0806.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQt0uZ9h9FpLKLPavMP2fQvIqhI-7UpHwvGdVM6oxsq90tfR86JuBpcXCvHjMfB9RcK4g6aDmpAGMS-aM7-nYsa5Ems7eNRGVZvNInYO3KrxNcdmSaQVtWmJsExofKhP75BbiRgAc5yexFWwXypr-iZeSNWJeM-3cniF498ZES3x-Q989Gh7TYGXsj/s4032/IMG_0807.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQt0uZ9h9FpLKLPavMP2fQvIqhI-7UpHwvGdVM6oxsq90tfR86JuBpcXCvHjMfB9RcK4g6aDmpAGMS-aM7-nYsa5Ems7eNRGVZvNInYO3KrxNcdmSaQVtWmJsExofKhP75BbiRgAc5yexFWwXypr-iZeSNWJeM-3cniF498ZES3x-Q989Gh7TYGXsj/w480-h640/IMG_0807.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidQMYGIACo9fhc7B2UvYX7PXIHngjEagD_mpmiouOC-jZsNsmfXTKDZ9lGdmT1bNPuEvU0mhBFyi-cmbMy3rmc7YpDQES4YpelmuBMp_VruYvrSQcVSy7B8aI2a4iSPtnkhVg792dgeNflVF46EVeWSuDJh4BXwiKnkdqi73zbxujJOBDFJe4IvJB1/s4032/IMG_0808.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidQMYGIACo9fhc7B2UvYX7PXIHngjEagD_mpmiouOC-jZsNsmfXTKDZ9lGdmT1bNPuEvU0mhBFyi-cmbMy3rmc7YpDQES4YpelmuBMp_VruYvrSQcVSy7B8aI2a4iSPtnkhVg792dgeNflVF46EVeWSuDJh4BXwiKnkdqi73zbxujJOBDFJe4IvJB1/w480-h640/IMG_0808.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><p>As you can see, my knee still has quite a bit of swelling (although well down from its cartoonish-peak!) My range of motion is within the target range but hasn't materially changed over the last 5-6 days. I can bend to 90 degrees (as you can see above) but its not easy and a bit uncomfortable. I can't quite get all the way to 180 when I straighten it unless I push it down. 90/180 are my targets for these two exercises until the staples come out.</p><p>With the swelling comes a modest bit of pain that unfortunately manifests itself at night and is leading to low quality sleep. I seem to sleep pretty solid for 2-3 hours and then as the Tylenol begins to wear off, the pain is enough to make me uncomfortable enough to only get little bits of sleep here and there. My docs both warned me that this second week would probably be the hardest with respect to sleep. I'll try to muddle through.</p><p>I took a PATIENT PATIENT day yesterday as I felt like my knee swelled a bit form a full day of rehab (with my longest walks) on day 8. Today, I'm going to be a bit cautious again and will walk 4-6 times vs. 7-9, which is a full day. I've also gone back to limiting the duration to 5 minutes.</p><p>My staples will come out early next week and a day or two after that I'll be cleared to swim/take baths again. I may wait until January before starting a regular swim program but I'll be all over the baths in hopes of helping sleep better.</p><p>I've started driving again which is good for my spirits and takes some of the burden off of Judy. I'm not certain when I'll get cleared for low-resistance cycling but maybe not too long after I get the staples out if I can keep the selling down.</p><p>All good! Onward and upward!</p>rcmiogahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02400850029280455954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5679811340660062519.post-11067789790739484962022-12-06T10:49:00.002-08:002022-12-06T10:49:26.390-08:00TKR Recovery Day 6<p> A couple of quick updates. I received these Cat Scans of my new knee:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2rNwAHHJg2eSdE2JC7n3pIurZ4p50nP-kBXc1wszE1fdhtfLIAMMkTnRvzCbnj8IOvH3xSp6_DKdsFy9iZnF3ej8NGDk7JlpubFS0ABsRJRQ5RQ3R_-K-Q1nBB8G8JJhzrc0FSsJO2Wmvzb1RBCgFTbvyyf51CQCx_lujR9LKTkH3ni8owPQCgO_z/s723/Screenshot%202022-12-05%20at%2010.26.35%20AM.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="723" data-original-width="494" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2rNwAHHJg2eSdE2JC7n3pIurZ4p50nP-kBXc1wszE1fdhtfLIAMMkTnRvzCbnj8IOvH3xSp6_DKdsFy9iZnF3ej8NGDk7JlpubFS0ABsRJRQ5RQ3R_-K-Q1nBB8G8JJhzrc0FSsJO2Wmvzb1RBCgFTbvyyf51CQCx_lujR9LKTkH3ni8owPQCgO_z/w438-h640/Screenshot%202022-12-05%20at%2010.26.35%20AM.jpeg" width="438" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">In the first picture, a frontal view, my new knee is obviously on my left (right side above as it is a frontal view). My left leg is a bit lower in this pic as I must not be lying on the table perfectly straight in the picture. A couple of things to note: 1. you can see how much smaller my lower left leg is than my right by looking at the outlines of the skin. It's especially evident the higher up the calf you go. This is due to many years of my right leg doing more of the work as my knee deteriorated. This is the longer term rehab I need to undertake--probably a couple year project and realistically, I'll probably never get back to a 50/50 balance. But I'm sure I can do better than the 62/38 power balance I had on my bike this summer. Second, you can see the extra wide channel (above my knee cap) for the new more athletic implant.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxY0zEJEEEXvgx2BF0HL9hsxdZxSOdmfRo8iEaDumoUOyu-xpd19hYJ9vNzt4J7PbN6OJIlq-khaqvnUlMGcYe2-uTnzENYfdZ_iw0_XHPlTcRXMq4vTJbe6wBlS0iI_PuO0t283LUDQuri7SgEStfOTlQTO44BwDZ0ECMZwS2zU9BXBiJlf17e2SI/s496/Screenshot%202022-12-05%20at%2010.26.47%20AM.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="496" data-original-width="308" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxY0zEJEEEXvgx2BF0HL9hsxdZxSOdmfRo8iEaDumoUOyu-xpd19hYJ9vNzt4J7PbN6OJIlq-khaqvnUlMGcYe2-uTnzENYfdZ_iw0_XHPlTcRXMq4vTJbe6wBlS0iI_PuO0t283LUDQuri7SgEStfOTlQTO44BwDZ0ECMZwS2zU9BXBiJlf17e2SI/w398-h640/Screenshot%202022-12-05%20at%2010.26.47%20AM.jpeg" width="398" /></a></div><br /><p>The second picture is a side view. Notice the nice big space between the two implants--yea! You can also see the 27 staples on the frontal surface of my skin. (yikes)</p><p>-----</p><p>I had a really active day yesterday PT-wise. I had 5 cycles in by noon but found that I was getting some selling and I started to feel a bit fatigued so I backed off in the afternoon. I also decided to forgo my 2nd dose of Tylenol last night (and had some red wine with dinner--yea). This might have been too soon as I didn't feel a lot of pain last night but it was enough to lead to more sporadic sleep. I've decided to go back on it today and for the next couple of days. My meds now are 2 Aleve/4 Tylenol/2 aspirin a day.</p><p>Lastly, I'm now walking outside as part of my PT and up and down stairs with no assistance! It's slow but its feels quite easy. I hope to start driving tomorrow.</p><p>Onward and Upward!</p>rcmiogahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02400850029280455954noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5679811340660062519.post-27842365211809670592022-12-05T06:49:00.003-08:002022-12-05T06:49:39.581-08:00TKR surgery recovery: Day 5<p> Right of the flight path with my recovery. On Friday, poor Judy had to drive use at dusk in a fair amount of rain from Lodi to SFO all the while enduring my directions. We made it. We got to the airport 5 hours early (am I becoming my parents?) to manage all the transitional stuff with my knee but it was a real breeze and it turns out the Harvey Milk terminal there is fantastic. Was able to spread out and find a place to elevate my knee and read and chill prior to the flight.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXJaOfScGBsGiIJXZGnOuQAuaBrB6fA_ZVQBJKKn00u_PSzXykP-V4UjkD9DJqrV8Onl-fREXI5FQGehQBHFZUiX3DSd-SsNDhi8eZ-7h4n_ZaHb9eytk_OAVeziELb249aV5XGgGHhDELU0gZfOfKldizHsOEmOywGsX6P-ikBL0m31sYoCwZTJ57/s4032/IMG_6716.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXJaOfScGBsGiIJXZGnOuQAuaBrB6fA_ZVQBJKKn00u_PSzXykP-V4UjkD9DJqrV8Onl-fREXI5FQGehQBHFZUiX3DSd-SsNDhi8eZ-7h4n_ZaHb9eytk_OAVeziELb249aV5XGgGHhDELU0gZfOfKldizHsOEmOywGsX6P-ikBL0m31sYoCwZTJ57/w640-h480/IMG_6716.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>We left an hour late because the inbound from the East coast was an hour late due to exceptionally strong headwinds. This in fact turned out to be great news as the same wind actually got us to PHL early despite the late start. In total our flight time was just over 4 hours, which must be close to a record of some kind. I wasn't able to elevate my leg, even though we were up in First Class but it didn't matter as the leg felt fine. I got up to go to the restroom at one point and just used my $11 Walmart cane.</p><p>We arrived in Philly and had an easy transit home to our house in DE where I set up shop for the day on my couch watching yet more soccer and the EAGLES! I did 7 cycles of PT (walking/exercises) and did the last walk without the walker, which has now been retired. I have a Game Ready Ice Machine and I spent 100 minutes on that--its amazing!</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg17kJGljgXhpiDdALb-Wfw3jqDT47INak7XDbho8Mpx6nWI6-ynOIvtAAZijCGjhmtjewN-S5fwOErt6mP78pUoIys11gShTOd4NNU4H3VygrPoO6uo5cUujbcdX-91HEqkjDX2W_nObkr71hO5eHXUW6uVBMLlLpCVI5L-_eDjq-B4tkaI8CfiZtl/s4032/IMG_0792.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg17kJGljgXhpiDdALb-Wfw3jqDT47INak7XDbho8Mpx6nWI6-ynOIvtAAZijCGjhmtjewN-S5fwOErt6mP78pUoIys11gShTOd4NNU4H3VygrPoO6uo5cUujbcdX-91HEqkjDX2W_nObkr71hO5eHXUW6uVBMLlLpCVI5L-_eDjq-B4tkaI8CfiZtl/w640-h480/IMG_0792.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I ended up only taking 1 Percocet during the day (I'm prescribed 6) and after talking to my surgeon decided to take one last night and that chapter is not thankfully closed. I ended up taking 14 of them out of the 42 they had given me for use over 7 days. So day 5 is Oxy free! </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I'm settling in for a routine recovery week where I expect to basically do the same stuff every day. 7-8 cycles of PT with gradually lengthening walks--line maybe up to 10 minutes a few times a day by the end of the week--most will stay at 5. I want to be on the Game Ready for at least 2 hours a day.My range of motion is slowly getting better and when I'm sitting around it occurs to me that I have the least amount of pain I've had in 5-10 years!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtL-lAp3L0P_Wv_avkTOh_A32ueXSgd-qQe1X-p5nXlnC7n2N4IrrIsbz3n9p5L-tXLBLL-Vt1MZT3JaPQBMmKj9tijS2Pu8-wF7iC6ShHb3GhkiO6LOi6QTozVF954anjY4cWwL_UTRrfuh7JdzQ5FpCXoZRpvsK-HeLfweeOT1Om-_eysqiyKE6N/s4032/IMG_6737.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtL-lAp3L0P_Wv_avkTOh_A32ueXSgd-qQe1X-p5nXlnC7n2N4IrrIsbz3n9p5L-tXLBLL-Vt1MZT3JaPQBMmKj9tijS2Pu8-wF7iC6ShHb3GhkiO6LOi6QTozVF954anjY4cWwL_UTRrfuh7JdzQ5FpCXoZRpvsK-HeLfweeOT1Om-_eysqiyKE6N/w480-h640/IMG_6737.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Onward and Upward!</div><br /><p><br /></p>rcmiogahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02400850029280455954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5679811340660062519.post-47009559658958297452022-12-03T10:21:00.004-08:002022-12-03T10:21:59.362-08:00Post Knee Replacement Day 3 and details on what they actually do when they replace your knee<p>Pretty good night last night. I’ve learned a few tricks on how to sleep on my back with my leg elevated. That plus, my body reaching a bit more of a equilibrium on fluid retention/swelling means I actually first slept for 5 straight hours! This is an important aspect of my recovery process as I’m sure my body is busy trying to adjust to the radical changes that I’ve inflicted on it and needs the sleep to do its thing. I also was able to get an additional couple of hours after that so really positive on that front.</p><p>My pain level has greatly diminished at this point. I went 8 hours between meds last night and without doubt the pain is still there (and increasing as morning rolled in) and I need to stay on the pain killers for a bit longer, although at a lower level. Even with the 8 hour gap I’d say the pain only got to about a 4 or so, which frankly has been a pretty common level of pain for me over quite a few years and is not that big of a deal.</p><p>I’m settling into my PT routine which is quite basic at this point, just entailing 2 exercises designed to get my range of motion to 90-180 degrees at this point. 90 is easy, 180 a bit more difficult…I probably top out at about 170 degrees so far…still too much swelling. These exercises combined with the walking takes about 20 minutes and since I repeat hourly, it’s a bit of a time sink. It’s surprisingly challenging but since I can’t work out I’m fine with it.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2Qu0xyvsJDxRsYRSQSSO6qJRcHEvvd11KVLwa21HI05dDm_4EHUlmq0KTIfnKjgMbjTmCsCyI3_Lh1ue7YzvvO54kvzj4fIG_3UVoH5rsYrMx-AvMNDxDUFMoOwqhlkzgoi0-9q3TUo27EIEI3MLw_8dXgz5U6TqOzDuKL7Nbs1C6-6BsWJRmOV7a/s4032/FD33684C-90DC-4784-9ECE-D7177F940D0B.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2Qu0xyvsJDxRsYRSQSSO6qJRcHEvvd11KVLwa21HI05dDm_4EHUlmq0KTIfnKjgMbjTmCsCyI3_Lh1ue7YzvvO54kvzj4fIG_3UVoH5rsYrMx-AvMNDxDUFMoOwqhlkzgoi0-9q3TUo27EIEI3MLw_8dXgz5U6TqOzDuKL7Nbs1C6-6BsWJRmOV7a/w480-h640/FD33684C-90DC-4784-9ECE-D7177F940D0B.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><div><br /></div>We're getting ready to head back home and I'm looking forward to getting into a routine there and really rebuilding my leg!<div><br /></div><div>------</div><div><br /></div><div>A final quick note on what they actually do when they replace your knee--here are the general steps:</div><div><br /></div><div>1. They cut open your knee from above your knee cap to below it down on the upper shin--about 8 inches or so.</div><div>2. They move your kneecap to the side taking care to not strain the tendons attached to the knee cap.</div><div>3. They remove your ACL so they can get at the back of the femur and tibia. The basic design of the artificial knee mitigates the need for the stabilization normally provided by the ACL. They leave the PCL in place.</div><div>4. They remove about an inch or so from the bottom of your femur. I'm not sure how they do it because frankly when it happened I wasn't paining attention!</div><div>5. They drill a couple of holes in the bottom of the femur and then cement the cobalt (basically steel) implant in place.</div><div>6. They cut a similar amount of bone off the top of your tibia and put a couple of holes in it and cement that implant in place.</div><div>7. They insert a plastic type part on top of the tibia implant and this basically serves as my meniscus. The femur implant glides back and forth across this plastic.</div><div>8. They cut part of the back of the knee cap off and cement a plastic insert there, which also glides against the femur implant.</div><div>9. They move the knee cap back into place and make sure it all moves well.</div><div>10. They then staple your skin together with about 20-25 staples and wheel you out to recovery.</div><div><br /></div><div>Pretty amazing really!<br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p></div>rcmiogahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02400850029280455954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5679811340660062519.post-17768242970321085372022-12-02T20:14:00.002-08:002022-12-02T20:51:05.244-08:00My new knee!<p>Here’s the update on my total knee replacement.</p><p>First off, I had what’s called a Kinematically Aligned Total Knee Replacement (KA) by Dr. Stephen Howell out in Lodi, California. This procedure was invented by Dr. Howell back in 2005. This differs from the more common surgical technique which is called Mechanical Alignment (MA). I think about 85% of procedures are Mechanical and most of the remainder being Kinematic. There are a number of differences between the two philosophies and both have strong proponents with very good efficacy track records.</p><p>I could ramble about how they are different (Kinematic takes into account 3 dimensional alignment vs. 2 for Mechanical for example) but the basic difference is that the more common MA design intent is to give the patient a straight leg from the hip, through the knee to the foot, while the approach I went with is designed to replicate the geometry that the patient was born with. </p><p>Lots of people are born with quite straight legs but some are either bow-legged or knock kneed. I’m not talking about disease caused crookedness but rather normal and relatively slight variation. I was born a bit bow legged. For people like me, if I were to have a MA procedure I’d essentially end up with one leg straight (my new knee) and one leg bowed (my natural shape). This tends to lead to unnatural feelings and results in less patient satisfaction, especially among more active people, which given the age of most knee replacement people, I’m at the far end of the activeness bell curve.</p><p>In general, straighter legged, generally older, generally heavier people are better suited for MA, while bow-legged/knock-kneed people who are more athletic tend to be better candidates for KA.</p><p>As it turns out, Dr. Howell is a colleague of my ortho, Dr. Galinat in Wilmington and as we reviewed my case we all quickly agreed I would be a great candidate for a KA knee from Dr. Howell, hence my journey to Lodi for my knee replacement.</p><p>Wednesday 11/30</p><p>Judy and I drove to the hospital and checked in at 5:45am as I was first on the docket, scheduled for 8am. I went through all the pre surgery prep (and btw, I had been cleaning my nose, mouth, and skin for 5 days prior and attended a 2.5-hr class on Tuesday). I won’t bore you with all the details but at one point my blood pressure came in at 155/120, which is very high relative to my typical 120/90…I guess my calm exterior belied an underlying nervousness about what the day would bring.</p><p>Anyways, about 7:45 I said goodbye to Judy and was wheeled into the OR. I looked around and marveled at the high tech lights, the various beeping, clicking machines and the 7-8 people there including a couple in full hazmat like surgical gear. I didn’t see Dr. Howell and then….</p><p>The nurse was waking me up and asking me how I felt. Apparently, I didn’t even know I was going under or maybe it was erased from my short-term memory but the procedure was done and I had a new knee. Judy soon walked in and there were 4-6 people buzzing about talking in cheery tones and doing various things like adding fluids to my IV drip. I wasn’t that engaged because frankly I was a little loopy at that point.</p>Here is a pic in my surgery attire pre-game:<div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj45SBemD2Id0p5bYFIjVWu-JfU_dzHWQKnTdMGwbv5j3RF8m_QdHWxdzrCM6xE-m_u9iLLcl5cn4T-2W0LT18QuBDD7h1RakC-dw42XW1uAOQvPKr79u38c5Z1ZWF1wWrrqRVqHy13H-aGZhdWMZnmFleSmrgVQWQFmQNI0tgBGSmrkotaOXpDPFrv/s4032/IMG_6653.JPEG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj45SBemD2Id0p5bYFIjVWu-JfU_dzHWQKnTdMGwbv5j3RF8m_QdHWxdzrCM6xE-m_u9iLLcl5cn4T-2W0LT18QuBDD7h1RakC-dw42XW1uAOQvPKr79u38c5Z1ZWF1wWrrqRVqHy13H-aGZhdWMZnmFleSmrgVQWQFmQNI0tgBGSmrkotaOXpDPFrv/w480-h640/IMG_6653.JPEG" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This is the somewhat anxious moment when I said goodbye to my bride and was wheeled into the OR:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9UT1urNTp4SSo3zYqHRvn6HGBmsIgOONCWFWkIFXDi3hFz9mcWdFIY1WhBFe9XVVCqoMbRkXtC5bhg6ONuAnFpL-4rJIEo_zPG6O4zQtwuEIzY-ew1TC3xjbq899i1p0KhjEbr5rzw5Dwm0hH_LLndVOGS5WLaKBFwlA7B_51r2r-Oik6cnXkNTXl/s4032/IMG_6656.JPEG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9UT1urNTp4SSo3zYqHRvn6HGBmsIgOONCWFWkIFXDi3hFz9mcWdFIY1WhBFe9XVVCqoMbRkXtC5bhg6ONuAnFpL-4rJIEo_zPG6O4zQtwuEIzY-ew1TC3xjbq899i1p0KhjEbr5rzw5Dwm0hH_LLndVOGS5WLaKBFwlA7B_51r2r-Oik6cnXkNTXl/w480-h640/IMG_6656.JPEG" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Back in recovery feeling pretty good but definitely a bit loopy:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQIZG17Un62DVueTWEGbKtdFb9DX94WcfEfCpJXB7toA_9YeJS7HsdI50pJRE3k_gbFYog3392bzXO-0E3bMRckZ4vm7FB1iMmCxbg1vQ1JcQe8zcgVre-dx6HCwLoKq4eCbCjzpqss06D27umo4bIy1obPuvDmd3ea8ShGvfwB_SYwJr_hmdFaQnz/s4032/IMG_6664.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQIZG17Un62DVueTWEGbKtdFb9DX94WcfEfCpJXB7toA_9YeJS7HsdI50pJRE3k_gbFYog3392bzXO-0E3bMRckZ4vm7FB1iMmCxbg1vQ1JcQe8zcgVre-dx6HCwLoKq4eCbCjzpqss06D27umo4bIy1obPuvDmd3ea8ShGvfwB_SYwJr_hmdFaQnz/w640-h480/IMG_6664.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">My femur implant was of a relatively new type that has a wider channel for my patella which in theory will giver me greater athletic performance potential down the road. Due to this I am taking part in a study that will track its effectiveness and as a result when I got my wits about me I was wheeled off to get a Cat Scan of my knee:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv67iRO8hWXWtvsq-yPedVSaIgf1cAXKKJb3wZ_VIEpsj_ynBEb8d9AP8yPJhSs5N93fGeFpWbpeKuVInBtKguA7FF3DMF9WTwECxeaS-A5F9dYpuEG_z8eJTY0vuX4fa4B0WsO2wIf_wOkV1djVZg86hJJbzJgvkJBXXUG6LR895emtuOC4HAvGF5/s4032/IMG_6667.JPEG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv67iRO8hWXWtvsq-yPedVSaIgf1cAXKKJb3wZ_VIEpsj_ynBEb8d9AP8yPJhSs5N93fGeFpWbpeKuVInBtKguA7FF3DMF9WTwECxeaS-A5F9dYpuEG_z8eJTY0vuX4fa4B0WsO2wIf_wOkV1djVZg86hJJbzJgvkJBXXUG6LR895emtuOC4HAvGF5/w480-h640/IMG_6667.JPEG" width="480" /></a></div><br /></div>Hopefully this new device will lead to a better outcome for me and others down the road!</div><div><br /></div><div>After a while, they came in and had me walk for about 100 feet or so on my new knee with the assistance of a walker. Apparently, the implants are cemented in and one can walk on them in as little as 10 minutes after implantation. The PT also demonstrated some exercises for me and showed me how to climb up and down stairs properly during the early stages with the new knee:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHk2s0yjEnAzUtO9ZSmUCJw3DjGoTL6OeRj_uhnagDyKridYG_xU4T8DR5ua7QIRc7biPTMq30ZUcWs5sXvrCyDRJXI8rlWQR-ZCBQPOCPI4fr4IkwB8Vg7fSf3P0I9QEngJRA6CCKgN1M_Jbai-6-b8OvxBgEDH1fOYO_GYcwF9FaC_qZFn3b9b_w/s4032/IMG_6665.JPEG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHk2s0yjEnAzUtO9ZSmUCJw3DjGoTL6OeRj_uhnagDyKridYG_xU4T8DR5ua7QIRc7biPTMq30ZUcWs5sXvrCyDRJXI8rlWQR-ZCBQPOCPI4fr4IkwB8Vg7fSf3P0I9QEngJRA6CCKgN1M_Jbai-6-b8OvxBgEDH1fOYO_GYcwF9FaC_qZFn3b9b_w/w480-h640/IMG_6665.JPEG" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div>Dr. Howell came in and chatted for a while and told me 25 times to take it easy in the early days and after I was able to demonstrate that I could still pee I was allowed to exit via wheel chair and Judy drove me back to the hotel. I went for 6-7 5-minute walks and frankly felt like I didn't even need the walker. Later, I elevated and iced my knee and watched Argentina crush Poland on my iPad:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBDMFKDDieMFR8C-y6rZN-JaTbOQIHoGUL1c2R-raqRX1igQAeOnpWNaRBaijpYLME9V8MVXjDfVmSFCdgVAKs-p_GG7TUUvXGTgAW7fK9nD4-Aluvs0syUYCrOYhJLSEBEF7qVpXnSq4DSxlRoRzhsrKrnuoy_101XdiWQgtb75SghjylndkbQwPd/s4032/IMG_6679.JPEG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBDMFKDDieMFR8C-y6rZN-JaTbOQIHoGUL1c2R-raqRX1igQAeOnpWNaRBaijpYLME9V8MVXjDfVmSFCdgVAKs-p_GG7TUUvXGTgAW7fK9nD4-Aluvs0syUYCrOYhJLSEBEF7qVpXnSq4DSxlRoRzhsrKrnuoy_101XdiWQgtb75SghjylndkbQwPd/w640-h480/IMG_6679.JPEG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div>Late Wednesday/Thursday</div><div><br /></div><div>I knew the pain would come at some point over the first 36-48 hours but mine arrived early. About 9 or 10 pm my knee and quad (from the tourniquet) began to swell to an amazing size and with it some pretty, disheartening pain. It was a rough night that led to zero sleep. Not fun. In retrospect, we were too slow to dip into our pain killer arsenal and I paid the price the night.</div><div><br /></div><div>By morning, we flipped the switch and began throwing Aleve, Extra Strength Tylenol and Percocet at it. I also walked much more timidly and tried the various PT moves to try to get the swelling and pain under control. The meds kicked in and I begin to get my pain level down to about 5 on the 10 point scale.</div><div><br /></div><div>By nightfall things improved greatly and I was able to actually sleep for 30 minute stretches. These were interrupted by trips to the bathroom for amazing amounts of pee as my body began to dump the accumulated fluid. By morning my knee had deflated considerably (really crazy to experience) and with it the pain subsided to quite manageable levels. We removed my ace bandage to reveal the incision and it looked very good indeed (or at least as good as they things can).</div><div><br /></div><div>Friday</div><div><br /></div><div>48 hours after surgery my knee was down to a much more manageable size and the scar, while quite big looks pretty good:</div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoCVNYNHsLfy3i5x235TQ---tQSRdJStTpwMtpVxNEjBbjbJSGrzJUamsH6MCidj7eDfyBc4ASFnuIDxOwzyxBHUpNEHkl4myV_ipjZwp9BpQrzxYubFkez5eOBIER32TVHbkycd-LEW281i51-mhaFavluCusTMlGbvSHc3Agi3k4DtN8xjzN1jUq/s4032/IMG_6685.HEIC" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoCVNYNHsLfy3i5x235TQ---tQSRdJStTpwMtpVxNEjBbjbJSGrzJUamsH6MCidj7eDfyBc4ASFnuIDxOwzyxBHUpNEHkl4myV_ipjZwp9BpQrzxYubFkez5eOBIER32TVHbkycd-LEW281i51-mhaFavluCusTMlGbvSHc3Agi3k4DtN8xjzN1jUq/w480-h640/IMG_6685.HEIC" width="480" /></a></div><br /></div><div>As we roll into Friday night things are progressing nicely. I had a consult with Dr. Howell and he is pleased. My pain is manageable and I'm able to walk a bit further, which I do with my walker every hour or so. I've also stepped up my modest PT exercises but am taking things very easy at this point.</div><div><br /></div><div>My GI track is back on line and I have no blood clot symptoms so we are good to go for a return to DE tomorrow night. My prognosis appears excellent and I am motivated and optimistic!</div><div><br /></div><div>As a result of the surgery my left foot has shifted inward by about an inch and half and now my feet are nearly together when I stand (like normal people). Look back at my pics from Kona and you can see that was certainly not the case before surgery. I'm excited to see what its like when I get to put the new knee through its paces but first I have a bit of road to travel before I can ditch the walker and see what it's like to walk like a normal man and to hopefully be relatively pain-free after 20+ years of chronic pain.</div><div><br /></div><div>Onward and Upward!<br /><p></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p></p><p><br /></p></div>rcmiogahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02400850029280455954noreply@blogger.com0