Stretching as Endurance Activity

At times, it felt like my hospital stay went on forever, but my bones really did heal in a very short period of time. In six weeks, I was basically repaired, actually. Muscles and soft tissue, on the other hand, take a bit longer to get back to normal. In fact, the protracted healing process itself calls into question what will become the "new normal." Recovering from shoulder surgery is one thing (that requires 3-5 sets of stretches each day), but the stiffness in my left hip joint and the tightness in both sets of hip flexor muscles has me feeling a bit too much like a creaky geriatric for my own taste. I've been walking, stretching and lifting every other day at the gym, but I need to redouble my efforts and stretch at least daily, which is tricky because it's so important to warm muscles up before stretching and that in itself can be quite time consuming. Slow as it goes, I am feeling improvement.

Finding time to adequately attend to all of my healing needs is a serious challenge. Ideally, I should be spending over 2 hours every day on exercises and stretching. This IN ADDITION to the thrice weekly visits to the physical therapy office. Needles to say, despite my best intentions, something needs to give. As a result, I've not been able to get any significant aerobic activity in for some time and I feel like I'm really letting my base aerobic fitness slip away.

Luckily, I have the week off from school and will be able to catch up with sleep, physical therapy, stretching, sorting out hospital bills and RIDING. This week, I hope to ride at least 6-8 hours on my trainer. I'll jump on for an hour this afternoon and I've put out a call for a 3-hour session with a few of my local riding buddies later this week. This is the week where my aerobic training will really get serious. My first brevet is not too far off. While I still haven't been given permission to ride a free-standing bike on the open roads, I hope to register soon for the Princeton 200K held this year on April 23. It's a route I love that attracts a group of randonneurs I'm eager to ride with again. Onward!