Returning

It was just over eight weeks ago that I wrote in an email to a friend about how every time I got to swim, bike or run was like a wondrous celebration of life. Since I had spent most of my adult life overweight, often very much overweight, the fact that I had finally conquered the demons of weight loss, fitness and health improvement was far more important to me than anything else I had accomplished. Little did I know that a week later my life was about to change significantly when it came to health, fitness and training.

Since then my life has been more about dealing with pain and injury (and surgery) recovery. I've been able to return to work with most of a full schedule this past week, having worked from home and slowly increased office time the last three weeks. I expect that I will continue to become increasingly effective at work over the next few weeks as well. I also start physical therapy this week. While I don't entirely look forward to that, I do look forward to the health benefits it should ultimately provide me.

I had my follow up appointment with my surgeon this past week. X-rays show my bones are healing and I have been cleared to return to some activities as long as they are not painful or harmful to me. My surgeon said he was very happy with my progress and told me that I was ahead of his expectations. I go back to see him in mid-January and hope that could be the gateway to return to more serious training.

This weekend also marks the start of what I hope is my return to fitness and will also ultimately lead to a return to running and triathlon events. Yesterday I spent a little under a half hour on an indoor bike at the gym. It was at low resistance and easy to moderate intensity, but it went well with no pain. Today I ran 1.75 miles with some stiffness, but no unexpected pain there either. I can tell that I have lost a lot of fitness in the last 50 days, and I also know I cant push myself too hard when my body is busy working on healing itself.

I've taken my first steps back, so let's see if I can build from here.
I promise I will keep it slow.
:-)