Bouncing back

The last bit up to the top of Mt. Washington is very steep. I’m not sure how, but with the help of some nameless guy running (probably walking) alongside and yelling “encouragements” the whole time, I managed to crest the final rise and make it across the finish line.

Fortunately, Dad, B, and some others were there to grab me and to support the bike with me on it. Somehow I managed to climb (or fall) off of the bike and find a place to sit, since I really couldn’t walk at that point.  So, yea, I was quite the sight. 

But after a bit, B and the kids headed up to the little plaque at the very peak of the mountain. So, I went up there to take some pictures of and with the kids. Unfortunately, I resisted the urge to take my bike and get a picture of me hoisting it over my head. So after a couple of pictures and standing around in the wind and cold, we packed up and headed back down the mountain.

But in Dad’s telling of that story, the thing that was most amazing, was not the effort to get to the top nor the total destruction of me sitting there under an aluminum emergency blanket. It was the fact that five minutes after being unable to walk, I was walking around “good as new.” At least that’s the part that flabbergasted him.

I mention this because I think that recovery is one of the things that I do reasonably well. 

So in that theme, I am hoping that that will also be true during this recovery process, too. Slow as things have seemed to go at times, I think that all in all things are progressing well and progressing apace. 

I’ve been doing 10 minute spells on the trainer just about every other day. That 10 minutes was good for a mile and a half initially. Then two miles. Then today, in a little over 13 minutes, I put in three miles. Heart rate got up there, too. Oh yea, and I did it in my cleats, too. But I think the big thing is that I decided that next time, I need to get back into a kit. That seems like a milestone.