Water weight?! Peso d'agua?!

Pois aquí estou no mesmo peso e tamanho do que a semana pasada e nâo sei se é porque eu nâo nadei semana passada ou porque o que eu perdí nas primeiras duas semanas foi sómente peso d'agua! Treze libras nove kilos! De agua?! Será possivel?! Eu falei com um cara da Inglaterra que estava perdendo peso eu ando pesando mais que ele. Ele tava falando que baixou das 18 pedras (stones) a 16.6 pedras. Entâo eu fui ver o que 293 libras eram em pedras e era mais que ele. Eu nâo me vejo como o cara mais grande ai fora na bike, mais vai ver que eu sou! Vai ver que estou devolta ao desespero e eu sou um cara muito grande em realidade!

So, here I am at the same weight I was last week and I don't know if it is because last week I didn't swim or it's because all the weight I lost in the first two weeks was just water weight! Thirteen pounds, nine kilos! Of Water!? H20 Is that possible?! I spoke to a dude from the United Kingdom that was losing weight from 18 stone down to 16.6 stone. So I went to see what 293 lbs. was in stones and it was more than the guy! I don't see myself as the biggest guy out there on the bike, but I guess I am! Perhaps I am back at the exasperated state I was earlier and I am a Big Dude in actuality!

This can't be me cause I don't wear glasses! Nâo pode ser eu porque eu nâo uso oculos! (Google Image)

My New Miracle Drug - A Minha Droga Nova

Full-blown Atkins! Yup, I said it! No more sugar, no more carbs other than the ones we get naturally in legumes and such!

It was a desperate move, but a necessary one! Last week, I worked my butt off on the bike and the results? There were no results! Zilch, nada, niente! My rides were strong and as fast as I could do them, yet no results! My weight, ta da dam! Ballooned to 293!!! That's almost 300 lbs! Holy tish! Batman! So the only course was to quit sugar, including my beloved cereal and my drinks and to quit my love 'em/hate 'em carbs!

The result? Ta da dam! 13 pounds gone (actually: 13.25 and I broke 280 lbs! Poof! WTH?

I had always opted to do South Beach because I would still get some carbs! But my body cannot function with carbs and it can't function without carbs (I said that last thing because yesterday's attempt to go long was sabotaged by not having enough glycogen in my system to complete the task!) Sucked so bad! My only solution for this is either to go ride with the Cool Cats or with the Hill Country Touring and Adventure Club. Once I get fast enough, perhaps the Cyclones! Right now I can't even muster their lowest speed range for their slowest group.

I never did full-blown Atkins, because it was too much! I assumed as an athlete I had to maintain a higher level of glycogen in my system.

So, I am going to continue to work on my swimming, and my cycling without carbs until I reach a weight management level. That would be 200 lbs! Honestly, I do not know if I have what it takes to go that far, but I have to do something! Or a Heart Attack! No thanks, I don't want to be part of the zipper club!

Atkins em todo! Sim, eu ja disse! Nâo vou comer mais açucar ou os carbohidrados exceto aqueles que acurrem naturalmente em legumes e coisas!

Foi uma opçâo de desespero, mais foi necesario! Semana pasada, eu trabalhei duro, bruto sem fingimento na bike e os resultados? Nâo tive resultados! Zilch, nada, niente! Minhas pedaladas foram tâo fortes que podia e ainda sem resultados! Meu peso, ta ta tam! Aumentou as 133 kilos!!! Isso é quasi 150 kilos! Que droga meu chapa! Entâo o unica rota foi de desistir de comer açucar, incluindo o meu cereal favorito e as minhas bebidinhas e o meu amor mais forte os carbohidrados!

Entâo? Ta ta tam! 6 kilos disapareceram e baixei a menos que 130 kilos! Puf! Puxa vida!

Eu sempre tinha optado para fazer o jejum South Beach porque eu ainda ganharia alguns carbos! Mais o meu corpo nâo funciona com os carbos e sem carbos (Eu digo isso no final porque ontem quando tentei fazer uma pedalada larga eu nâo tinha glicogenio suficente para acabar o desafio!) Foi uma merda! A minha unica soluçâo pra isto é de ir e andar de bike com os Cool Cats, Hill Country Touring and Adventure Club, ou os Cyclones! Agorinha, eu nâo consigo nem fazer o escopo mais baixo do grupo mais devagar deles!

Eu nunca fiz o Atkins todo, porque era muito! Eu fiz assumí que um atleta tem que ter um nivel de carbos ou de glicogenio mais alto no sistema.

Entâo, eu vou continuar a trabalhar na minha nataçâo, e o meu ciclismo sem carbos até que eu alcançe um peso de mantençâo. E isso seria 90 kilos! Em toda honestidade, eu nâo sei se eu tenha a força pra fazer isso mais eu tinha que fazer algo ou um ataque de coraçâo! Nâo obrigado! Eu nâo quero ser parte do clube do ziper!

Why? Por qué?

Not that I've been researching this, but it is the best idea I've heard in a year!

So, for a year, what I normally did to lose weight stopped working such as: walking a lot at school, doing intermittent fasting, and keeping up with my cycling! It's almost like the three months I took off from activity last Summer changed something! I have been active all my life, but last Summer when I couldn't be active because of my knees caused me to spin into the abyss of being a couch-potato! Blame it on eating worse than normal, but that's not the case. Blame it on not being active enough, but no that's not it either I'll explain in a sec. Or perhaps my metabolism took another dip. I wasn't expecting another dip until my sixties, but maybe because I have been so hard on this old body, it came early. In the fall last year, I noticed things were not progressing like they should have been. What to do? It was now Christmas, my knees were coming along fine, but my back on the other hand was hurting almost constantly! Now what? Over Christmas, I took a few days off the bike to see if it would go away, nope!

https://greatist.com/move/beginners-power-yoga

I also picked up my power yoga that would normally knock out the pain in two or three days and that didn't work either! Now it's New Years and time to change some things so I decided to streak! A streak is something you do everyday no matter what! So, for the new year I decided I was going to spend twenty to thirty minutes on the bike everyday in order to push away the back pain through activity and it worked!

I had noticed that with all the spinning (easy work, light efforts on the bike to get my knees active again and increase synovial fluid in my soft tissue and musculature around my knees) was causing me to be weak off the trainer out on the streets. My solution to the back pain and transition away from all the lite spinning I was doing for my knees was to do some weight-lifting on the bike. So twice a week I would spin on the hardest, most exhausting gear I could manage on the trainer and the other days of the week I did a speed session, a tempo session and a long ride. This worked, like I said, to knock out the pain in my back! But what about the weight-loss? No dice, I yo-yoed through-out the year without any definitive results! What to do? I had relegated myself that I would in my later years be a bigger big guy than I really wanted to be. I was very close to getting rid all of my clothing that was not extra-large! Actually, that's still on the table, we shall see!

I read lots of athletic stuff, training stuff, studies, research etc. all the time to stay with it for my own training and for my e-blast and my blogs! I came across a phrase that stuck with me recently that I wasn't even looking for for any reason. I think it was an add for an e-book on RoadBikeRider.com

https://www.roadbikerider.com/earticles-training/

I'm not 60 for a couple of years yet, but there it is in black and white! As you get older, you don't want to slow down, you want to ramp things up! So, on the New Year, I started streaking on the trainer to keep the pain in my back away. I have never been one to ride my bike every freaking day or even when I was a runner, I took two days off per week at least! And now that the Summer is here and the Fall Semester is just around the corner I have picked up swimming for a total body workout and am encouraged that the swimming will take me into my twilight years feel fit and strong!

I pray that it will also allow me to get back to faster riding and lose some of this extra weight I have been carrying around. Remember, as you get older, don't slow down, ramp things up!

Eu nâo estive pesquisando isto, mais é a melhor ideia que eu tenho ouvido em um ano!

Entâo, por um ano, o que eu normalmente fazia para perder peso paró de trabalhar pra mim como: caminhando bastante na escola, fazendo um jejum intermitente, e mantendo o meu trabalho no ciclismo! E quasi como os tres meses que eu nâo pude fazer exercicio o verâo passado mudou tudo! Eu tenho mantido uma vida activa minha vida inteira, mais o verâo passado eu nâo pude continuar com minha actividade favorita, o ciclismo porque os meus joelhos e me causou cair no abismo de ser um surfista de sofá. Eu posso culpar porque eu tava comendo peor, mas nâo foi isso. Ou eu posso culpar que eu nâo estive tâo ativo como antes, mais nâo foi isso tâopouco, esplicarei em um minutinho. Ou vai ver que foi o meu metabolismo que tomou um outro pulo pra baixo. Eu nâo estive esperando um outro destes ate que eu tinha sesenta anos, ou vai ver que eu fiz tanta coisa dura com este corpo velho, que viu cedo. No outono do ano pasado, eu notei que asa coisas nâo estavam progredindo como deviam. Que deveria fazer? Ja era Natal, cuando os meus joelhos ja melhoraram, mais as minhas costas estavam doendo quasi todo dia. E agora que? Durante as ferias do Natal eu nâo andei de bike pra ver se podia ajudar. E nâo, de novo!

https://greatist.com/move/beginners-power-yoga

Eu também começei a fazer yoga de poder que normalmente me ajudaria a relaxar as costas en dois ou tres dias mais isso nâo ajudou tâopouco. Entâo agora ja é o ano novo e era hora de mudar as coisas entâo decidi fazer uma maré na bike! Uma maré é uma coisa que um idividuo faz todo dia sem falhar! Entâo pro ano novo eu decidi que ia passar vinte a trinta minutos cada dia na bike pra poder expulsar a dor das costas usando atividade e funcionou!

Eu notei que com toda a pedalada fraca que estava fazendo (trabalho facil, esforços fracos na bike pra poder alcançar um nivel de atividade na bike outra vez e aumentar o fluido sinovial nos tendones y musculos ao redor dos meus joelhos) que estava causando estar fraco quando nâo estava no treinador e afora nas ruas. Minha soluçâo para a dor nas costas e fazer uma transiçâo e me afastar de toda a pedalada fraca que estava fazendo pros meus joelhos foi fazer um pouco de levantar pesos na bike. Entâo duas vezes por semana eu faria uma pedalada be bruta na marcha mais dificil da bike e os outros dias eu faria uma seçâo de corrida, uma de tempo ou LT e uma pedalada bem larga. Isto funcionou, como eu disse, acabou com a dor das costas! E entâo e a perda de peso?! Nâo deu a pé, eu fui como um yo-yo durante o ano enteiro sem resultados definitivos! Que vou fazer? Eu ja tinha rebaixadome que nos anos mais velhos eu seria um homem mais grande que eu queria ser. Eu estava bem pertinho de mandar todas minhas roupas pequenas pra rua que nâo era de tamanho extra-grande! Na verdade, isto ainda esta sobre a mesa e vamos ver!

Eu leio muitas coisas atleticas, coisas de como treinar, estudos, pesquisas, etc. todo o tempo para estar pronto pra escrever o meu blog e também estar lado ao lado com o meu treinamento e também o meu disparo de correio eletrónico! Eu ví uma frase que ficou comigo recentemente que eu nem estava buscando por qualquer razâo. Eu penso que foi um anuncio pra um livro eletrónico no RoadBikeRider.com

https://www.roadbikerider.com/earticles-training/

Eu nâo vou ter 60 anos por ums dois anos ainda, mais ainda esta ai em preto e branco! Dizem que cuando amadurecemos nâo queremos ficar mais devagar, mais sim queremos aumentar o ritmo! Entâo no ano novo, eu começei a maré na bike pra manter a dor fara das minhas costas. Eu nunca fui um desses caras que andava de bike todos os dias tâopouco quando era corredor de atletismo, eu sempre tomava dois dias de descanço! E agora que verâo esta aquí e o semestre do outono esta bem pertinho eu tenho acrecentado a nataçâo pra um esforço do corpo enteiro e ja estou incentivado que a nataçâo vai me levar aos anos de velhez me sentindo forte e em forma adecuada!

Espero que também me ajude a voltar ao ciclismo com mais força e perder esse peso extra que ando carregando. Lembre, ao envelhecer, nâo queremos estar mais devagar mais queremos aumentar o ritmo!

Mo Pool Time

Thank you US Masters Swimming for the Summer Fitness Challenge and getting me in touch with Coach Susan Ingraham! If you had told me I would be back in the pool in two days, I would have said you were nuts! There is a strange calling from the pool though! I want to get back into it and do more. I forgot how refreshing it is. I also forgot as you're getting out you feel like your upper torso and arms are like Dwayne Johnson's! On Monday, I did 300 meters plus or minus. Today I went to North East ISD Sports Park and did another 400 ladder with 3 min. rest. Still haven't done the 2K, but it's there calling my name! I'll get it done! Felt good, but still feel out of sorts on my breathing. Never too late to get back in the pool! Thank you again!

Muito obrigado Nataçâo de Mestres do EEUU e o desafio de Fitness do Verâo e também me por em contato com a treinadora Susan Ingraham! Ela me disse que é provavel que eu posso entrar gratis nas piscinas do North East o distrito aonde trabalho. Si voce tivesse dito que eu estaria na piscina de novo em dois dias eu teria dito que estavam doidos! Mais tem uma chamada estranha da piscina! Eu quero regressar e fazer mais! Eu esqueci quâo refrescante era. Eu também esqueci como um se sente que os ombros e os braços sentem como os braços do Dwayne Johnson (The Rock). Na segunda-feira eu fiz ums 300 metros. Hoje eu fiz 400 metros de escalera com 3 minutos de descanço entre os esforços. Eu fui pro North East ISD Sports Park e como faz parte do meu distrito eu entrei gratis. Ainda nâo fiz o desafio de 2 mil metros mais ainda esta me chamando pra completar! Lo farei! Me senti bem, mais ainda estou sentindo estranho na minha respiraçâo. Nunca é muito tarde para entrar na piscina de novo! Muito obrigado outra vez!

Torture by Any Other Name is Still Torture: Swimming Laps for the first time after years of dryland training!

Tortura por Qualquer Outro Nome Ainda é Tortura: Nadando Voltas por a primeira vez depois de anos de treinando na terra seca.

A little background: Thirty years ago, give or take five years, while I was getting my second degree in education, I swam regularly three to five times a week. At that time I was able to get my mile or 3000 meters down to 23 minutes and change. The first time I completed a mile it took me 46 minutes. I know I can do the work and improve, I just have to reach for it and relax into the stroke.

A little more background: If you are reading this blog for the first time it started out as a cycling blog, but last year before the summer I suffered a catastrophic activity ending injury to my knees and ended up spending three months inactive in order to regain use of my knees with little to no activity and have been building up use of my knees over the past year. None of the strides I have achieved would have been possible without the guidance and encouragement I received through reading savingmyknees.blogspot.com! (Two days ago I did a 40 miler with some hills in there on the road bike. Something I thought I had lost last year!)Richard Bedard, the writer of the book titled Saving My Knees and the preceding blog which chronicled the work from debilitating injury in the knees to the extent that he had to quit work to being able to ride his bicycle competitively again on the weekends. This was way out of the norm, because the only research one could find on the internet or otherwise at the time had one strengthening ones knees through the use of weightlifting concepts to strengthen the surrounding musculature. Richard Bedard promoted the concept of regaining use and strengthening soft tissue and even regrowing soft tissue through the implementation multiple slight movements many times per day. For example taking 90 steps with a cane or walking stick three times day and increasing that to as much as two miles plus still taking multiple times per day to keep circulation to the affected muscular tissue as well as soft tissue.

Right before the Summer Break, I'm a teacher, I Gallow-Walked ten miles on the World Running Day that was celebrated on my campus! (Feel free to research Jeff Galloway and find out about his belief that one can finish a marathon by people call Gallow-Walking the distance which basically is walking a few steps every mile or in my case on the track I only ran the straight-a-ways and walked the curves). Totally doable!

Since the Summer started my wife and I have been helping the neighbors out and they have a pool! So I have been doing some swimming after I come back from a bike ride in their pool! Very refreshing in the extreme heat. Coincidentally the US Masters Swimming national program has been pushing people to regain their shape over the summer. Today was my day at the Jewish Community Center in town! Another coincidence was that today was the 2000 meter challenge. Ha! I was hoping to be able to pop in the pool and knock out 3000 meters without much effort! Ha! Ha! I had to work in lengths rather than in laps. I did a couple of laps and a couple of Olympic turns for good measure. I couldn't control my breath well enough to just relax in to the stroke and do the turns and just keep going. I had planned to do a ladder but I could not get that going. I pop out of the pool with a whole 300 meters under my belt! So there is time, and I need to build! I need patience and reach out with my stroke and relax in order to control my breath and everything else. We all have to start out somewhere so today was just the first day back. Oh wow!

Shout out to Coach Susan Ingraham for giving me some pointers on my stroke. I forgot to tell her I broke both of my elbows two years ago and that has affected my reach on my stroke. Hopefully I will still be able to improve my reach. US Master Swimming seems to be a new facet to my training! God bless the USA and US Masters Swimming!

Tortura por Qualquer Outro Nome Ainda é Tortura: Nadando Voltas por a primeira vez depois de anos de treinando na terra seca. (Note eu estou substituindo o â por o a com ~. Infelizmente eu nâo encontro a combinaçâo de teclas para imprimir isto. Muitissimas desculpas!)

Um pouco de contextualizaçâo: Trinta anos atrás, mais ou menos cinco anos, enquanto eu estava fazendo o meu segundo grado em educaçâo, eu nadava regularmente 3 a 5 vezes por semana. Naquele tempo eu podia fazer 3000 metros em 23 minutos e picos. Começei com 46 minutos. Eu sei que posso fazer o trabalho para melhorar, eu só tenho que alcançar mais com cada braço e relaxar em cada braçada.

Um pouco mais de contextualizaçâo: Se estás lendo este blog por a primeira vez começou como um blog de ciclismo, mais o ano passado antes do verâo eu sufrí uma lesâo catastrofica que podia acabar com toda actividade com os meus joelhos e acabei passando tres meses sem fazer quasi nada para readquirir o uso dos meus joelhos com pouco o quasi nada de movimento incrementando o uso dos joelhos por este ultimo ano. Ningum dos avançes que eu pude fazer seriam possiveis sem ajuda e apoio e conselhamento que eu recebi atraves da leitura do blog savingmyknees.blogspot.com! (Dois dias atras eu fiz uma pedalada de 40 milhas [64 kilometros] com umas lombas tambem na bike de estrada. Eu pensei que tinha perdido esse dom). Richard Bedard, o escritor to livro entitulado Saving My Knees e o blog antecendente que o analisador relatou o trabalho necesario desde uma lesâo debilitante nos joelhos até que ele teve que parar de trabalhar até poder andar de bicicleta outra vez competitivamente nos fims de semana. Isto estava fora da norma, porque a unica pesquisa que um podia encontrar na rede ou qualquer outro modo naquele tempo fazia o atleta fortalecer os joelhos atraves de coneitos de levantar pesos por fortalecer os musculos ao redor dos joelhos. O Richard Bedard promoveu o conceito de readquirir o uso e o fortalecimento dos tendoes atraves da implementacâo de varios movimentos levianos muitas vezes por dia. Por exemplo levando noventa pasos varias vezes por dia com uma vara ou bengala ao menos tres vezes por dia e acrecentando isto até as duas milhas (3 kilometros) e também fazendo os outros movimentos varia vezes por dia.

Logo antes das ferias de verâo, eu sou professor, eu Caminhei a la Galloway dez milhas (16 kilometros) no Dia Mundial de Corrida que celebramos no nosso campus! (Esteja disposto a pesquisar ao Jeff Galloway e encontrar informacâo sobre seu conceito que um pode fazer uma maratona de caminhar a Galloway a distancia que diz basicamente que um caminha um pouco cada milha (ou quasi dois kilometros). No meu caso eu caminhei as curvas na pista e corrí as partes retas da pista interna. Totalmente possivel!

Entâo quando começou o verâo a minha esposa e eu andamos ajudando aos nosso vizinhos e eles tem uma piscina! Entâo eu tenho feito umas mergulhadas depois que eu volto de uma pedalada na piscina deles! Muito refrescante como uma mergulhada no mar depois de uma corrida na praia. Coincidentemente os Mestres de Nataçâo do EEUU um programa nacional tem tratado incentivar a populaçâo a readquirir sua forma física durante o verâo. Hoje foi o meu dia para ir ao Centro Comunitario Judeo aqui na cidade! Uma outra coincidencia foi que eles estavam fazendo um desafio de 2000 metros. Puxa vida! Rs! Eu estava esperando entrar na piscina e fazer ums 3000 metros sem problemas! Rs! Rs! Eu tive que trabalhar em meias voltas em vez de voltas enteiras. Aiaiai! Eu fiz umas voltas enteiras e umas duas voltas olympicas também. Eu nâo pude controlar a minha respiraçâo suficentemente para relaxar em cada braçada e fazer a voltas e manter o embalo. Eu tive planejado fazer uma escada atletica mais eu nâo pude nem fazer isso! Eu saltei da piscina com so 300 metros de distancia. Entâo tem tempo e eu preciso reconstruir a minha abilidade! Eu preciso paciencia e alcance com cada braçada e relaxar em ordem de controlar a minha respiraçâo e tudo mais. Todos temos que começar em algum lugar e hoje foi só o primeiro dia de volta na piscina. Ai meu Deus!

Um grito de reconhecimento a a Treinadora Susan Ingraham por darme umas dicas na minha braçada. Eu esquecí de dizer pra ela que eu quebrei os meus dois cotovelos dois anos atras e isso tem afeitado o meu alcançe. Espero poder melhorar o meu alcance. Parece que os Mestres de Nataçâo do EEUU vai ser uma parte nova do meu treinamento! Deus abençoe a os EEUU e também os Mestres de Nataçâo do EEUU!

Developments in Making a transition from blown out knees to regularly riding without pain!

This was a couple of days ago on the trainer downstairs.

On my Caloi Strada Pro set up on the CyclOps trainer time seems to fly. One of the components is that I have recently found an app that plays radio stations from my home state of Rio de Janeiro,  Brasil! The samba makes time fly!

I'm doing this daily now without counting it as mileage because I need it to keep my muscles primed and my back-muscles from screaming at me. (A simple example: Today I fell asleep sitting-up and napped for about two hours. Nice! Then about four hours later I was paying the price and could barely drive the car. Ouch!).

So, the reason for this post, more than ever before I am fully convinced that balance is imperative in training. If you've been following this adventure then you know I blew out my knees and took three months off to recuperate with baby steps. I actually never had pain on the bike, but I couldn't walk or carry on daily tasks without a whole lot of pain in my knees. Luckily I found savingmyknees.blogspot.com! It was a Godsend and just what I needed to develop a plan to recover my previous activity level. Just what I needed! 

I took the idea of baby-steps and applied it to the spinning I was doing on the trainer in the basement. The idea worked great and I was able to build time in the saddle. Very important to redevelop the ability of the sit-bones to take that pressure again. I have been using limited padding because the shorts that have a lot of padding are very expensive. Try $600! Ridiculous! 

But one's body needs more than the ability to carry out small movements repeated times! It also requires the ability to carry out more strenuous activity during the day without becoming re-injured. Over Christmas vacation, I found myself with lots of pain in my back, so I stopped riding and did my old stand-by when faced with pain in my back, namely Yoga! After three days of reduced activity and lots of yoga, I was no better! WTHeck! 

I took to spinning a huge gear to get my back to feel better because the above fact became apparent. So now I regularly/daily spin a huge gear dirt slow 30 RPM (Gospel music like Kirk Franklin and others works great).

To take this even further, I have recently as in the last three days added HIIT sessions to what I was doing and slowly even out of the saddle efforts are becoming doable without pain and without pain afterwards!

Yes, spin like a twelve year old, but also mash a big ole gear for the yin-yang, balance of what we love to do! Please comment below so I know I'm not just talking to Google (they have a lot on their plate)!

Coldest ride so far in the low thirties!

It's important to mimic actual workout conditions! After an hour! 

After an hour and half workout. Since then have done two two hours with HIIT interspersed.

So, Pardon me As I Attempt to Recapture the Blogging Bug

The beginning of school has been a roller-coaster ride to say the least! New location on campus, still not used to it. Everywhere I go including the restroom takes forever to get there. I am often late and Principal Rubio, I promise I am working on that issue!

My kids are fantastic, I have the cream of the crop at my school! Fun, fun-loving, and smart! Krueger Middle School and KSAT Krueger School of Applied Technologies (Fancy title for, "Why? Yes, it is Rocket Science"). Our KSAT SLI team often comes from my Spanish Classes and of course I believe it is all because of me! Ha! Not! But our kiddos regularly outperform High School, Junior Colleges and even some techie Universities. Last year, our kiddos got the height award or mile award for going the furthest up! Very exciting!

My Soccer Club Leadership Team is in full swing, and club hasn't started officially yet! But, we are getting around thirty middle-schoolers out there ready to rock! Thank Krueger MS PTA for the Goals and equipment! The kids are loving it and so are we the coaches, Mr. Reyna STAN Counselor and yours truly Mr. Sharpley, the Spanish Guy! I mention the soccer club because my original knee injury started on the soccer field. Despite stretching regularly with the kiddos, I overdid it on the field. I am being so cautious on the field now that I feel like a slug, but I'm out there helping the kids!

Another thing that has affected us is the loss of our Fourteen Year Old, Brinca Dorada Caramelo, Brinks for short. As in, Brinks Security! Ha! She was a running dog and very playful even up to the weekend before we lost her. We normally go out in the country and bury our pets. The tradition continued, so for two weekends there: the weekend Harvey hit and last weekend was finally the weekend we actually put her in the ground. The rains were large and in charge. No we did not get anything close to H-Town, but I was afraid the dog was going to get washed away so I went in to the bedrock. So she is safe and secure on the rainbow bridge! Again, I mention this because digging is awfully hard on the knees so three weeks ago, ouch and then last weekend ouch again. Even though I didn't ride but once in there when I rode to school/work. My knees were screaming because of the digging and all the walking I do at soccer. Oh, yeah, I forgot, I had to show the leadership team how to do the stretches I like for soccer so of course I paid for that! I think it was Friday that week before my knees felt like normal. Normal is relative, now!

If you read this far thank you, share with your friends: Andando-de-Bicicleta.blogspot.com and for Richard SavingMyKnees.blogspot.com Again, thank you Richard. I would not be on the road to recovery if it were not for you, your blog and your book!

OCN: 24.X in two hours and change, spent more time spinning in the lighter gears because it had been three weeks since my last cycling confession. Two hours or so later my knees feel warm and cozy and no adverse effects! Came across a bycicle criterium race that actually took racers in front of the Alamo on the cobble stones. Cobble stone in Porutguese, my first language is a gas: paralelepipido. One of the longest words in Portuguese! Ha!
LBS: 276.2 Woo-hoo! I hinted at this lower number last week-end when we were installing four window unit air-conditioners (my task for the last two weeks). AC company quoted us 15 grand to upgrade our failed unit. I teach, I never see that kind of money! Ha!
Nutrition: Still in the positive! Losing a little at a time trying to solidify my jejum, still doing intermittent fasting at school! "Hooked on phonics worked for me!" obscure reference to a tv advertisement, which means, it's working!

Hurricane Harvey Interruptus

So, I was slated to do a two-hour ride the weekend that Hurricane Harvey Hit and was not able to complete that plan until this past weekend! Boy was it a joy to finally get out there and do something longer than one hour and even longer than two hours. Again, I will be continuing with the two hour for quite a while. A friend asked when we would ride again and I shared with him that it would probably be at and around Thanksgiving!

Because I did not do the long ride in consecutive weeks, I can feel strength in my knees because of what I'm doing, but then I am also having to baby them a bit! On Saturday after my first two-hour ride, and I've done three now. I could feel that I almost stretched the envelope a little too much! So, in order to fight the fact that I am doing a lot I am keeping my knee warm. Amazing, the healing properties of warmth to the knees. Richard from savingmyknees.blogspot.com would totally agree! Thank you Richard!

Speaking of Richard, I am also finding some pushback from folks who believe in a different method of recovering from knee-injury (which really is a non-method if all it's going to do is re-injure your knee). I was recently applying my newfound knowledge and method of rehabilitating soft-tissue of the knee to an ankle injury and this person did not even want to hear about it. I have jumped on the band-wagon of knee rehabilitation stating that soft-tissue can be healed and I want others to know. Unfortunately, not everyone has ears to hear!

My initial plan to ride the trainer everyday has gone by the wayside! Since the last time I wrote, my classroom was relocated. I am no longer in the core of the building, but I am in a portable about as far away from any other place on the campus as possible. I timed how long it takes to walk from my steps outside my portable to the other side of the campus and it takes a full six-minutes at a leisurely walk. Even though I am able to fast-walk now, I choose not to so as to not aggravate anything in my knees. The professional development week was hard enough because I still had to physically move many items from my old classroom to my new location. The actual first week of school was wrought with trying to get accustomed to how much walking I had to do that I figured I didn't need to poke the bear. There were days last week where my circulation was impacted and the fatigue was immense and caused me to wipe out as soon as my wife and I arrived home.

This second week of school will actually be a sign of what is possible so after a couple of rest days, I'll see if a spin on the trainer is in order to keep my knees fresh. I completed three consecutive days of training and I can feel it in strength as well as tenderness. That tells me I am pushing the envelope appropriately, but also not too much!

Over the weekend, I was able to increase my RPM (revolutions per minute) or modify my RPMs with the middle gear of the triple that I have on two of my bikes. I will continue doing some of this with gears that overlap and push the envelope a little from there.

OCN; 60 Miles over the weekend
LBS: 281.6 (5 lbs less than last week!)
Nutrition: In the negative still!

Coming Back From Debilitating Knee Injury!

Training Variables: 

Coming back from debilitating knee injury! Inspired by Richard Bedard who wrote Saving My Knees and who also blogs weekly or more on the subject.

When looking for information on how to save my own knees. I blew out both my knees three months ago. I came across his blog and immediately could see he knew what was going on and built a program based on what I knew about cycling, running, and walking. I am not a PT physical therapist or a doctor. I am a certified teacher and as such have had training on teaching physical education, but I believe the majority of the information found here can be gleamed off of online exercise sites. Its specificity for knee-pain sufferers was inspired by Saving My Knees.
http://savingmyknees.blogspot.com

Only you know what you can do. Tenet: Less is more. Caution is better than grit!

This year with much analytical concentration and caution: fall '17

Paradigm Shift:
Not just patience, but you're dealing with soft-tissue time. (Richard's Pitch Experiment). Weeks -n- months although you'll know the next day you did something wrong. 
Remember, do not ramp up too fast or like old times. No accelerations, never out of the saddle, no hills, no kidding!

Good Knee Care Habits: After a bout of exercise 1 to 1.5 hour rest before next thing. (Cycle).
Below 60 degrees embrocation or knee warmers.

10 minute rest half way on long walks in order to not start hurting.(2k steps @ a mile) 4k steps per day maintenance

Beginning 70 steps several times a day walking the dog, going back to the car.

101 steps around X every 10 minutes (Richard started at the pool, I have started walking the dog.

10% increase every two weeks. As a runner this was the rule of thumb. In marathon running it moved to one week, but then on the fourth week you go back to where you were at the beginning of the month. Remember: less is more.

Minutes before 15 : now 5, 7, 13 - Primes

80 rpm @ first for 15 min. 1200 revs
Build time in the saddle up to thirty minutes 2400 revs. Once you can do two sets of thirty then you're adding thirty to what you can already do. 15/16/17/18/19/20/21/22/23/24/ 25/26/27/28/29+30+30+30+30+30

~£¥$|¢^√π°=÷×{}¶∆\∆¶}{×÷=°π√^¢•|£
4th year with cautious optimism:

Saturday ride - long, strenuous, hilly up to three hours 40 miles Fast and 20 miles easy

Sunday-60 minutes flat or trainer easy pedaling

Tue. -N- Thurs. 45 minutes on trainer or flats 10 easy warm up and 35 minutes faster, but still not intense 

Mon. Wed. Fri. Walk 2 miles each day

@#€_&-+()/@#€_&-+()/@#
Eventually - eventually:
After a year of cautious progress:

Less is more keep three steady and change one to improve

Duration - how long - 2hrs conversational pace

Frequency - #of rides per 10 daze

Volume - combo of dur. N freq.

Intensity . Ride 4 60-90 mins warm-up n cool-down . 6x6mins w/4mins recovery (recovery equals easy cheesy

Reco : 45 mins whistle ride (a whistle ride is one where you're going slow enough to whistle) not as easy as it sounds!


VvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvV
5-20 minutes in the pool adding minutes as you get better trained.

Sort-Of, Sort-of, Sort-Of!

This post if for today Friday the 18th and although I'm riding tomorrow, my wife says she can see that I'm physically tired in the way I'm moving so Sunday will be off and next week I'll be back on the trainer for 30 to 45 minutes a pop if it works. Next week I'm back at work and therefore my time with the kiddos will start taking most of my time. I'm not sure if I'll do trainer rides and then Saturday and Sunday outside rides. I know that next week there will be some time devoted to moving furniture and setting up my classroom! I'm hoping to keep my knees healthy, but time to post will be at a premium again. So I will move to once a week like our good friend Richard has done since the birth of his sweet children! Thanks again Richard for all the encouragement and being moved to share your experiences so that the rest of us can learn via your experimentation. Check out savingmyknees
.blogspot.com Your eyes will be opened!

Lunch Ride_tandemonium_brksC15_broke it_129/63'115 Today's ride was supposed to be an easy 15 minutes out and 15 minutes back, but no, part of the way on the trail I got hung up on some bailing wire! No fun! It went around my crank and actually there is still some there. I managed to take my tandem out today. I modified it for one person and I won't lie to you, it was difficult. But my wife called me back just in time right after I got most of the bailing wire off the spindle! So to work on the crank and remove the wire I flipped the bike! I don't like doing this because it makes a mess out of your seat and the handle bars. But I was not having much success the other way so I flipped it! Now about ten minutes after I finished messing with the wire I came up on another big freaking log! I reach down and grab my seat and the whole thing pops off in my hand. Remind me to tell you how I'm a tester for seats for Brooks Ltd. So, I'll have to send another tester seat back to the builder so they can work out what happened to it! So I piece the seat back together and try to make it home. I was successful! The seat is not in good shape, oh well, that's why they pay me the big bucks to test products! Ha! It's all pro-bono work for supplying me with seats! This is the fourth one! Three of them still being used!

Rationale: A tandem weighs more and since I still had a tripple on this tandem, I'm going to try to do modified weight lifting with the tandem. I'll still be spinning like a bugger-boo, but hopefully I'll building strength and endurance.

OCN: 1:16.07 moving time for 6 miles at 4.8 MPH. I may not be doing a whole lot right with this build up, but one thing I am doing is going slow enough. Having the tripples have really helped me stay under. Although, the time I'm not being very good about.
Lbs.: 281.4 Tomorrow is a weigh-in day. My best results are normally Saturday and Tuesday. If you haven't figured out what day is best for you to weigh yourself you may want to wander down that little rabbit hole!
Nutrition: Thursday and Friday has gone well!

Saturday: Long Ride 1:49.09 minutes and 14 miles distance 7.7 MPH

I was being very strictly cautious today and was able to do 14 no hills, no accelerations, no out of the seat etc. The route I was on has this massive hill that I blew off by going cross country and it ended up getting a piece of glass imbeded in my tire! I did a partner ride today first time since early February! I told my friend if I go according to schedule perhaps we could ride again at Thanksgiving! Trying to get it in my brain that I need to take it easy! I just went up and down the stairs a couple of times I can feel that the glycogen in my legs is totally spent. I need to chillax!

OCN: 1:49.09 moving time 14 Mile Distance 7.7 MPH Still on a triple because it gives me a couple of gears to mess with. During the ride when I tried to increase the RPM or decrease the RPM I could feel a little bit of a nag in my right knee. We'll see what it says tomorrow!
LBS: 285 Boom! No comment!
Nutrition: Off day Wednesday, but on track the rest! With school starting up I normally do Intermittent Fasting I'm playing around with the idea of 16:8. I normally do 6:10 and I eat in a four hour period there at the end of the 10. Snack, meal two hours later, snack and I'm done for the night. On the 16:8 I would have to skip breakfast and I have never ever done that, so I really don't know!

Every Other Day, Sort-Of Again!

So, Tuesday, I was off and good thing because the moving of furniture in preparation for the move has intensified. In fact one night, It was after being a bit tired moving a huge sectional couch, I managed to tweak my knee so in order to finish the work I put on a neopreme knee sleeve (neopreme seems to add a heating element to he support it is also giving). Once out of the shower my knees were back to being parallel so crisis averted.

This is the post for Wednesday 8/16/17 Morning Ride_Under Water_brksC17w/CO_129/64'103 at Olmos Basin

 We had a very hard rain two or three weeks ago and this whole area of the basin was under water. If you look at the discoloration of the foliage in the two pictures here you can see that the water three to four feet high. We have had it before where this whole area was as high as the viaduct that is above it. That would submerge century oaks etc. Crazy!

 I was fortunate that someone had been out to the trails recently to complete some maintenance and they were pristine on the embankment to the basin. The area pictured above was still mushy so no riding on there. Plus when they're mushy, it's hard to tell where the trails lie. I thought that it would not be any big deal to these trails, but alas my training effect was mostly gone. I was in the easiest gear which normally is too easy to do these trails, but this time I needed it badly.

I ended up with 1 hour and 32 minutes a little less than last time, but then last time I had to do lots of walking. Not this time! I almost managed ten miles! The look on my face is one of fatigue as you can see:

Or I guess it could be stubborn optimism!

OCN: 1:32.20 for 9.6 miles at 6.3 MPH

LBS. 281.4 (numbers are fluctuating wildly)

Nutrition: Since I'm writing this after the fact I can tell you my eating regime Wednesday night was nothing to be proud of and I'm dealing with some guilt! I'll get over it!

Every Other Day, Sort-Of!

Post for Monday the 14th of August 11:36 AM Lunch Ride_ Out in the Sticks!_brksC17w/CO 100/60'117

On Monday, I got back out there after taking Sunday to totally veg out! Can you tell I'm not a great fan of the trainer downstairs?! I can see that in myself.

I went out on the trails for the first time to see how my body would react to the extra effort required to ride on the dirt. Some folks say that a 1.5 hour ride on the trail is like a 3 hour road ride. At the same time the trails that are closest to my house needed some love and care so kept getting off the bike to move huge logs (dumb because I could see me using the same musculature that got me in trouble with my knees in the first place). So rather than use grit, I decided to finesse this huge log, 'bout the size of a Smart Car! I just rocked it back and forth until I could nudge it out of the way of the trail single-track. I felt smart for finding a different way to git 'er done. Before I would have just picked it up and moved it :-). Darned the consequences!

Since I was being cautious I made sure anytime I had to do something that would require me to get out of the seat or jump over anything I would dismount. Since much of the trail lay unused, over the past year many trees had fallen to block the single-track. There were times where I was just walking from one fix of the trail to another. I only managed 5.1 MPH and in a 1 hour and 40 minutes I only managed about 8.5 miles which is right in range for what I've been doing.

Rationale: When I first started riding I came from running and went into trail riding to strengthen the different musculature that is used on the bike. I'm am pulling out all the stops to get the ball rolling smoothly again. My transition to Mtn. Biking and then road riding was effortless more than ten years ago.

OCN: 1:39.59 for 8.5 miles
Lbs.: 281.4
Nutrition: Toeing the line

Blew Right Past the 30s

I wish I could say I was oh so cautious, but I was not. Remember: what works for one eager beaver will not necessarily work for another. i.e. don't do as I do, be cautious about what you try so the pain doesn't come back to bite you in the knee. Remember all the cautions at savingmyknees.blogspot .com! Richard we are in your debt for sharing your priceless knowledge.

I go out on Saturday to do my thirty minutes that I had achieved two days earlier, but went too far. I had marked two places, a thirty minute turn-around, and a one hour turn-around location a couple of years ago for when my wife and I were going to use the tandem bicycle in order to build time in the saddle. I realize now that it was a huge mistake, because these times were based on what I could do when I was well-trained and in a much bigger gear.

As you can see I'm not a sparrow, I'm a clydesdale (an actual designation at some cycling events). I have had a problem with my weight since my freshman year college 15 that was more like the frosh 30. One nice development is that as you know I spent three months not doing anything and now less than two weeks later my large size shirts are already fitting better. No they are not flapping in the breeze, but I am more comfortable. 

I was concerned with my classes starting up next week, I was going to need to wear something! I'm not going to be in the best shape I've been in, but not the worst shape I've been in either.

Rationalization: 30 minute is the amount of time cyclists normally bump up their mileage by in order to not get overtrained, but yet build time in the saddle.

Because I have been waiting the 2, 4, 6, 8, 12, 24, and 48 hours after my exercise bout, it has been every other day that I exercise. I still have not become accustomed to the workload physically so I will continue at and around this workload for another week. It will be very tempting to go further, but I know I have to be conservative and cautious in order to not have a setback. I have adjusted my riders box to compensate for my knees.

OCN: 1:04 still at lowest gear and high spin at 90 rpm. Benefit of my Litespeed (Classic) Goat is that I have three lower gears than the one I have on the trainer (I made it into a tripple a few years ago when I bottomed out on my gears going up an 18% incline.
Lbs: 281.4 not happy with an increase, but hoping it's muscle weight. Muscle weight helps me burn more.
Nutrition: Still on the negative I can really tell on the glycogen consumption in the one hour.

4_8_24_48 Take Two

My bump up to thirty minutes on the trainer in the lowest gear with zero resistance almost did not happen due to some achiness. But, as my strength would have it I felt sleepy, so I slept for a couple of hours and then boom I was fine! Remember what Richard said about getting 8 hours rest!? Most definitely makes a difference! I had gotten 6.5 to 7 hours and with the two hour morning nap it primed the pumps or the cannons!

What; you've never heard of a morning nap?! Here's what you do, wake up and do whatever you have to do at the butt-crack of dawn: take the dogs out, feed the cats, eat breakfast, read the Bible, read the news, take your 💓 pills, etc. Then, go back to bed work on your languages, read facebook or this blog and you'll be back asleep in no time partly because you took your pill or you're crashing because of your cereal.

So, after my nap, I went down and did my thirty (two) minutes as easy as I could. I did some on the bike stretches and such and I still need to do some adjustments on the rider-box and then go from there. But no pain at 1,2,4,8,24, and again we'll see about 48. After my ride I proceeded to take the dogs out, do some chores and quickly got overheated and overextended enough to feel woozy and almost blow chunks! So, a trained cyclist or an in shape athlete can bump-up the mileage at 30 minutes a pop, but a couch potato for the last three months cannot or can, but then be ready to blow chunks. Since my body didn't like that much I will continue with 30 minutes for at least two weeks. Still having issues with these numbers. My pride has always been endurance and the long-ride. I look forward to those days. Thank you Richard for all your insight in savingmyknees.blogspot.
.com

OCN: 30(2) mins. lowest gear/no resistance
Trng. Video: South Africa
Lbs: 280.3

Four Eight Twenty-four Forty-eight

Yesterday I rode my trainer for fifteen, actually sixteen minutes. I can honestly say that I feel as accomplished as when I completed my first one hundred miler. The familiar warm ache was a welcome feeling. The knees had the feeling of having done some work, but no pain. I was very cautious in all my walking. I did some experimenting I'll revisit in a minute.

I went through four, eight, twenty-four and now am waiting for forty-eight. I have mostly kept my legs parallel to the floor. Like I said, my muscles had the warm ache of having done some work. I look forward to doing some more work.

The experimentation I did has to do with me remembering that I got new cycling cleats as well as new dress shoes. I was wondering if the new shoes were affecting the foot-fall and therefore affecting my knees. I have learned that everything in our bodies is connected. One example is that when I was overcompensating with my knees, my back has been affected.

I hope I continue improvement and get to work-out again tomorrow!

OCN: 15(+1) mins.
No Video
Lbs: 280.3

Avoiding the Primes

So today, I was supposed to start a very slow and arduous process, but since I felt pretty good and excited about the future, I said, "what the hell, I'll go for it!" "Future's so bright I gotta wear shades!" Huey Lewis.

I was going to start nice and slow with 3,5,7,9,11,13, and 15 minutes. But 15 minutes being the increment cyclists use to build time in the saddle, I felt a strong pull. Old habits die hard!

I have spent a month going really slow and doing absolutely nothing so I dared to step it up. Mind you, my wife and I already have two failed attempts at restarting our walking regime both times over-doing it and paying the price.

Yup, I did it! I rode my time trial bike on the trainer downstairs. My Caloi Strada Pro is set up on the Cyclops Trainer downstairs. It will be perfect for this because the front derailleur is busted and it works on tension and there is no way I can get it on to the 52 tooth big ring! I set the Cyclops Trainer at no resistance and left it on the easiest freaking gear! (BTW Richard, if you're reading this I even tried freewheeling {spinning backwards for a little} yup truly easy). I am not very good with pacing; when trying 80 rpm I kept ending up at 60 rpm so I bumped it to 90. When reading savingmyknees
.blogspot.com that the lowest gear would be too easy, I was not convinced. Well, after three months of doing diddley-squat, using the easiest gear feels like something. Very appropriate for the lack of movement I had been relegated to. Also, since I'm writing this over two hours after my forray into this 15 minute craziness, I'm good. No gain! No pain! Or should I say, "Slow gain! No pain!" Let's hope that tomorrow or in two days it's still the same.

Rationale: For over a month now, I have taken 90 steps stopped rested, stretched my back or worked a little on biceps and triceps 3Xs a day and sometimes more. Then, took my 90 steps back stopping at 60, 70, and 80. Now you may think that's kind of weird! Not if you're out walking your headstrong chihuahua, 🥜 Peanut! I speak to her in Portuguese, Spanish, and English, but it doesn't matter she still does whatever the hell she wants.

Stats or the OCN: back in the day of listservs, running.rec there was a group called the Dead Runners Society. The listgods said you could write about anything related to running as long as you posted an ORN: an obligatory running note. Since this is a cycling blog I will post an OCN: 15 minutes plus 1 minute because I can (Scott Cutshall who lost 320 pounds riding a bike would do one extra time around the block and eventually an extra mile just to prove to himself that he could). Poundage is at 280.3 At my heaviest I went up to 289 pounds a mere two years ago. My wife and I had success making little changes for big improvements. And walking, notice not cycling! I had averaged 4,000 miles per year for many years, but it was not ideal to lose weight.
On nutrition I'm in the negative, I am eating less than what I have expended.

Catastrophic Injuries Seem to Be the Rule

So in 2015 I was playing soccer with the kiddos and felt a sensation (not a good one) in my left knee, my non-kicking leg. I'm not calling it pain because it wasn't pain, but that day however small things changed with my knee. My doc looked at it, osteoarthritis he said, you know you're getting older you can't do the things you used to do. My catastrophic fall where both my elbows cracked happened after that during the summer. Why was I cycling still if I had injured my knee?! Well, honestly with that I am fortunate! The knee lesion did not affect the cycling. In the meantime, I had even done close to a one hundred miler without ill-effects. (92 miles, nevermind the fact that I was lost. But I've been found, gloreh halluyer). Everytime I attempted to run (falcon run 2016), play soccer (Feb. 2017, play basquetball (Oct. 2016), or any other high-impact activity even though I had my braces on to control the movement I paid the price. I continued to cycle although only on flats and only spinning and even doing super-spinning (120 rpm). I could not get the nagging injury to go away and leave me the heck alone.

Fast forward to May of 2017, our new (to us) SUV had a leak that finally had to be taken care of and caused it to die. Deader than a doornail! My wife and I discussed how we were too old for this and we should call a tow truck. Alas, with hindsight I now know better, but I couldn't see spending a bunch of money for something I could do myself. My buddy Joe and I towed it to the dealership a couple of miles away. Once there and off the chains, we still had to put it in a parking spot because the bay was chained up. Fact: Parking lots have slight inclines to alleviate runoff. Fact: An SUV weighs much more than a sedan or pick-up truck. I attempted to push that SUV into the spot all by myself at first. My strong gams from cycling helped, but my weak knee was not happy. This time both knees were affected or strained! I tried taking it easy all the while still going to work. I tried carrying a staff to support myself. The pain was intense. I tried to stay off of them. I tried taking the ramp down and I had to stop mid ramp. Stairs were better, because with the staff and the banister I was able to help myself. But with the staff my employer forced me to get a prescribed staff (one month with the staff). That month was over at the beginning of July. I decided to give it an extra month just to be safe before I started back to exercise. That month was over at the beginning of August. My wife and I had tried to restart our walking regime, but the first time it was still painful and the second time we over-did it. Meanwhile in South Texas temperatures have been way too high. Ambient temp was at 120° F. This is not the desert! These are the coastal plains. So here it is Aug and I didn't have plan!

How do I fix my knee?! I landed on a site that pushed quad strengthening that even brought up the fact that quad strengthening agravates your knees, but did not answer the quandry. Next I tried to learn what I could about the knee from WebMD etc. I presented with pain in the Medial Meniscus and the Medial Cruciate Ligament in the right knee. In my left knee the one that clicks there was pain at the back at the joint capsule. Standard disclaimer here: I am not a medical doctor or physical therapist and I don't play one on the internet. Pa dum tss! Thangiaverymuch, tip your waitress! Doctor prescribed a series of anti-inflamatories that started its work immediately plus the staff. I was good to go! I had four or five days till I closed out the year with my middle schoolers and then I could just rest until it was time to move to another house this summer. Still no plan, my wife and I tried a second time to start our exercise regime, but we over-did it. I was going ahead blindly anyway.

The third site I came across was savingmyknees at blogger and a book by the same title Saving My Knees by Richard Bedard ( http://www.amazon.com  ). Richard chronicles how he saved his knees by healing the soft-tissue damage done to his knees by going too far. Richard was inspired by Doug Kelsey of Sports Center in none other than Austintacious a world away for him, but a mere 45 minutes for me. Richard, thanks be to God, has an analytical mind and a penchant for detail. Richard poured over studies and experimented by trial and error and an experiment of one, wrote a book about it, and still blogs about it to this day! His skill at writing and explaining and supporting those of us wandering around mostly clueless and speaking to doctors that were mostly clueless has proved his point: one can, with careful tracking, careful experimentation regrow soft tissue not with a pill (i.e. glucosamine with chondroitin) although for some it may work (placebo effect), but with successive small movements with non-impact activities like walking, cycling, etc. to push the envelope of motion to allow a joint to recover, grow, and become stronger than before for all intents and purposes. He has the medical studies to support his assertions. He is a man ahead of his time. Now, if medical personnel would just read up and find out the good word!

Dealing with Inactivity

So, this Spring Break, I'm working out how to be inactive! I came to the realization that's it's been thirty plus years that I have been working out: running, climbing, cycling, swimming, and lately walking.

Unbelievably, now that I'm older the walking is ever more productive than all the cycling I do so regularly. Recently, with two catastrophic injuries in two years the mileage on the bike is less than half of what it has been in the past. The breaking of my two elbows this past Summer, caused me to question whether cycling is for ever or just another one of many activities I have done throughout the years.

My wife and I have adopted the slower method of losing poundage with small changes that make a big difference on weight-loss. Both of us have lost about thirty-five pounds and have kept it off.

At school I use the fasting method. A bunch of people at school are getting good results with it. I don't like to eat at school anyway so it works for me.

I can feel the consequences of not staying active in my hips and in my knees. My back has never been real happy so that is still there also. My elbows, the one that did not give as much trouble is the one that troubles me more now and it even clicks! Boo! Well, got to go!

Letting Go!

No! Not like the silly song! But like letting go; and letting God! Gaylezinha made a good point I don't have to work on motivation, I'm on the bike every chance I get! I do what I can! No the yard looks like hell and the carpet isn't vacd, but hey my lesson plans c'est fini. I do what I can at work, yeah gradespeed isn't set up yet and I've got no grades for my kiddos, but my room is close to being ready
for Tuesday! I'm not invincible - soccer absolutely drained me. My kids are the best! Can't wait till tomorrow! Sleep!

Every Hill You Take Every Breath You Take I'll Be Watchin' You!

If I forgot to tell you about the sciatic nerve issue I got from being stuffed like a sardine in an airplane for almost eight hours. The crew were absolute champs! But all the technology every seat has is placed under the seat in dront of you! Beautiful so my big ass feet have no place to go! Well, that pain persisted for a week. I almost wanted to go commando to enjoy the freedom, but no dice!

Today was my first forray in to the hills and it was a success! I spun and spun until I summited every one of my hills. I think I called on granny only once!

I PRd on Geneseo hill and that felt good! Somehow I knew that one was going really well! Since I did that I went on the other side of Broadway and did Torcido too!

It was 77 when I started today again that was good and maybe it's a sign that the intense heat of August is almost over! Nah!

After coming back from Europe I checked on my Summer mileage and it was only 275 ugh! That's nothing! No 2k on the bike this Summer. The heat was such a big part of that this Summer. Even in Europe, the heat has all swelling up like stuffed piggies! The possibility that I will have to train straight through this Fall is real!