The road back...

I saw Dr. Brown today for my post surgery followup.  He went through the surgery pictures with me and showed me what he did.  It turns out that I'd only ripped the first two layers of muscle on each side, not all three.

Overall he was happy with the recovery although the bruising was worse than normal.  The good news is that he OK'd me to start some easy running. Nothing fast, and nothing far.  Just an easy 8-10 minute mile.  He said that if it hurts I should stop.  If I need to sit on the couch and recover for an hour afterwards I need to take a day off.  If it's OK then I can slowly increase the distance and see how it goes.  I need to let common sense be my guide, which may be a problem.....

So I went out and ran late this afternoon.  Just an easy mile and a bit round the neighborhood.  I didn't have any pain in the surgery area and it felt far more comfortable than my last pre-surgery run.  So it looks like it has been successful.

Fitness is a completely different matter.  I am pretty out of shape.  One of the key metrics I use is to look at my average heartrate for a run, divided by my average speed (miles per hour).  As fitness increases this decreases.  Obviously longer runs, and hilly runs can skew the data but I find it a reasonable measure of fitness when trended over time.  Here's a chart that shows how it has been since early August (when I was in the best shape of my life).

To explain the numbers consider a 10k race (6.2 miles).  If I run one of these I can pretty much expect my average heartrate to be about 170-172.  If my fitness (HR/speed) is at it's pre-surgery peak of 18 my speed would be 9.55 mph, which is 6:17 mins/mile, so 39:03 for a 10k. That's the kind of shape I was in (although I never actually ran a 10k that fast...).  At my post surgery fitness level of 21 that same 10k would be at 8.2 mph, which is 7:20 mins/mile, or 45:34 for the 10k.  So I have my work cut out to get back up to speed!

The plan is to run 3 days and then add 1/2 mile to the distance.  All slow miles in the 8-10 min/mile range.  That will be the routine for the next 4 weeks.  If that goes well I will be up to 5 miles by my birthday (November 29th), which will be about 6 weeks post surgery.

If that goes well, I can start thinking about adding in some faster and longer stuff.