Recovering From Microfracture Surgery

Did an Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT) with cadets this morning. I did 76 push-ups in 2 minutes and 83 sit-ups in 2 minutes followed by a 11:30 2 mile run. Beat all of the cadets on the run. Run felt ok. Then hit the trail and met Sasha for 8 more easy miles. Once again official temps were -2.2'F at 6:15am and warmed up to a whopping 1.4'F by the finish. So it looks like we are in for another week of negatives and low single digits. I sure hope this is not the normal for Utah!

Easy 10 miles along Provo River with Sasha at 4:45am. Temperature was 3.2'F when we started but 1.4'F by the end. Ran relaxed and time was just over 71 minutes. Still feeling under the weather with this cold. I have been waking up congested and my throat has been a bit sore. More cold in the forecast! I just keep telling myself to keep putting in the effort and it will all come around eventually. Slow and steady I guess.

 This afternoon I went for a 14 mile mountain bike ride. Worked hard on the hills and could feel the burn in the quads. Only I learned a lesson today as I underestimate the cold weather and the wind chill effect when riding the bike. My hands starting really getting cold and painful about halfway through the ride. At this point it was too late to do anything as we were doing an out and back course. The pain started to subside on the way back but I knew this was not a good sign as my hands were frozen enough that it became difficult to even shift gears. When I finished the hands were pretty much frozen. A couple of minutes after getting inside and taking the gloves off the hands began to thaw and the pain was one of the most intense sharp pains I have ever felt in my fingers. The pain finally subsided about five minutes later but it was pretty bad. I think I finally have full movement back and it has been about an hour. The fingers still feel funny but I think they will be ok. There is a saying in some units that there is a "fine line between hard and retard" and I think I crossed it today! In the future I need to invest in a good pair of cold weather biking gloves or not bike in the cold. I also wore biking shoes that clip in to the pedals for the first time today. It made riding alot easier overall. However, I had not practiced unlocking from the pedal and when I came to a stop at the end of the ride I underestimated the motion required to unclip. Therfore I fell over. Besides being embarassed I dont think I hurt anything. I hit my knee but it feels ok.

I am sure my legs will be a little tired in the morning but right now they feel ok. We will see how tomorrow goes. I have never done much biking in the past but hopefully it will add some strength training to my routine.
 

From BYU at 4:45am and met Sasha on trail. Considering yesterdays 10 miles and 14 mile mountain bike ride my legs were better than I thought they would be. My hands are still not 100% recovered from the freezing episode on the bike but to make sure they were not cold this morning I put some hand warmers in my gloves and kept them toasty warm. Offical temp during run was 6.8"F today but it dropped to 3.8'F at the end of the run. So one of the warmer days in quite awhile! Easy day today averaging just under 7:20 pace. Did 100 push-ups and 100 sit-ups routine as well.

6.8'F!!! Starting to get warm! Well, I still had about 2-3 layers on but did feel a little warmer finally. Ran with Sasha and he wanted to do  the 2.5 mile tempo. My legs (quads) were tired from the 14 mile mountain bike ride a couple nights ago so I was not to excited about it but figured I would just try and relax and gradually get things going. As I took off I was not to sure how things would turn out but decieded to not look at the watch and just run. Hit the end of 2.5 miles and watch read 14:48. Splits afterward show that I did 6:04, 5:56 and then 2:48 for last half. So I was able to gradually speed things up the whole way. It felt pretty comfortable and did not feel like I was pushing too hard. I did pick it up a little the last 1/2 as Sasha had stopped to go potty and he was in hot pursuit. He caught me right before the end but he had to put in a 1:18 400m to do so. I am pretty happy overall as I really did not expect much with the 10 mile run and 14 mile mountain bike the other day.

Very easy 10.04 today with Sasha. Left BYU at 4:45am and met on the trail as usual. Today for some reason I took note of how quite and peaceful it can be at 4:45am on the trail. Ran easy and chatted the whole way. Averaged just under 7:30 pace. Also did 125 push-ups and 100 sit-ups and played ultimate frisbee with the cadets for 30 minutes. So some short fast sprints off and on for 30 minutes. Temperature was 8.6'F at the start but had dropped to 6.8'F by the finish. It dropped even further after the run to a low of 3.2'F for the day. Unfortunately it looks like we will remain in the low single digits for another week or so for low temps.

Woke up not feeling so well. My throat was scrathy and I had a bit of a cough. On top of that my hip flexors were pretty sore from playing ultimate frisbee yesterday. Needless to say I almost called Sasha to tell him I did not want to run. However, I forced myself out the door and met Sasha at 7:15am. Official temperature when we started was 14'F but I told Sasha shortly after we started that it felt like it got colder. Sure enough the airport reported that it dropped to 12.2'F for the majority of our run. Still the warmest run in quite a while! Anyway, I knew Sasha would want to do the 10 mile tempo run. I did not feel like I would be up to running very fast so we decieded to have Sasha give me a one minute lead and then I expected him to catch me by about 2 miles or so into the run. Things went much better than I would have ever guessed for me. I did not pay much attention to my times until the first  turn at 2.5 miles. Sasha had not caught me and when I looked at my watch it said 14:35 for 2.5 miles. I did not feel like I was running that fast or pushing the pace but I knew I better slow down if I wanted to finish the 10 mile tempo. I kept an ok pace from there to the finish and Sasha ended up catching me just about 8.5 miles into the run. Of coures he had a bathroomn break as well. I ran 61:48 for the 10 mile course with the following splits: 5:55, 5:53, (14:35 for 2.5 = 2:47-800m) 6:02, 6:12, 6:15, 6:20, 6:15, 6:15, 6:20, 6:20. Overall I am very pleased considering how I felt going in and the conditions of the trail were still pretty icy and slippery.