For Thanksgiving week, we took off for the Utah desert - kind of our last sunny warm weather hurrah before winter settles in. This is our 3rd Thanksgiving going to the desert and we just love it. Always new things to see despite returning to the same area. Plus my abilities vary year to year! I think about our trip last year and where I was physically. I was 9 months post op and JUST did my first outside bike ride. Last year at this time, I had zero medical direction from my surgical team/PT. They were at a loss what to do for my major anterior knee pain, admitted they had never seen this (but kept calling it tendonitis), and rehab (at home on my own) was not very meaningful due to the pain. I really felt like they gave up on me and just wanted me out of their offices. Just a lot of uncertainties. I was very limited. This was such a sad hopeless time. This year - which is over 10 months into my new and improved rehab - it was a much different story! On this trip, I did two long mountain bike rides and several hikes. Most notably was the scrambling on slickrock and hiking in steep sand! I could have never done this last year or even 6 months ago. The steep hikes did leave me pretty sore for the next few days, but no flare up. My limitation this year was more from my major head cold which made physical activity kind of exhausting and head poundy, but I was determined to soak up the sunshine and rest when I wasn't moving. I would have liked to have biked more, but I'll take what I got. Now that we are home, my head cold is still affecting things (maybe I made it worse on vacation? Still need to lie down everyday, this is week 2) and all I can think about is how many weeks I have not been back to my rehab weights! Approaching 3 weeks of no weights! However, winter is upon us, snow is on the ground as I type this, and that means the vacations have slowed down. I will be able to get some consistent rehab days in with fewer interruptions once i feel better. I do love my vacations and they are usually active vacations, so maybe it all works out just fine.
Which brings me to winter. It's here. Friends are already skiing. What am I going to do with myself this winter? It's a little sad to see snow yet again, I will admit.
Definitely no downhill or backcountry skiing this year! I know I am not strong enough, I would not be able to pass any return to sport criteria right now. Heck I even haven't started jumping yet! I know what the re-tear stats are. Here are some that come to mind from Mick Hughes PT Facebook page.
Which brings me to the question of "which sports" are we talking about? Obviously I am mountain biking and doing some hiking. But since I am not able to perform RTS (return to sport) tests yet, which sports should I avoid exactly? Probably the cutting and pivoting ones, but what does ice skating and cross country skiing fall under? What if you need to plow to stop but on cross country skis? Is that too much knee pivoting? I'm going to guess yes. Waiting for PT to email back so I have a better idea. I bet I can manage slow dragging of skinny skis in a flat empty field with no issues.
0 Comments
I am beyond thrilled to have biked the famous Canyonlands National Park (Utah) "White Rim" Trail! We rode from the top of Shafer Trail, all along the White Rim Trail, to the top of Mineral Bottom - 80+ miles! It's a 4WD road, not single track. We did this in 2.5 days while camping two nights on the White Rim (you have to reserve backcountry campsites well in advance). The campsites were booked just 76 days before the trip. Often these sites are booked for months in advance. We really lucked out with the exceptional weather! Mid 50s F for the high, low 30s F at night. Sunny blue skies, short sleeves and shorts by day, bundled up a night, barely a breeze. I even got a tan line from my bike shorts. The clocks had just changed the day prior so we had sun shining on us after 7am. Let's back up a bit because this trip would not have been possible just a few months earlier. I booked these backcountry campsites on August 21. I was in the middle of a flare up - an 18 day long flare up. I was really unsure if I was going to be ready in 76 days. Would I have another flare up? Could I get my mileage up enough to finish one day? It was unknown! I invited another couple to join me who were already down in the Moab area that week, but I was upfront about my concerns and they were OK with it. The knee still needed time to adapt to higher loads. I was already doing very gradual load management with biking and my rehab weights, always trying to stay at the "safe but sore" line. At the end of June, my longest ride was 15 miles which was big enough to cause a flare up. I scaled back to 10-12 mile rides for a while which was a safe range for me (this was trail riding so add some vert). I started riding two days in a row if I felt OK. In early September, I tried three riding days in a row, but kept the mileage low. In late September, I tried a couple big rides (27 and 23 miles) a week apart to see how the knee would handle longer distances. Still good so far! My physical therapist suggested I try three days of riding with higher mileages (didn't have to be the same mileage as the trip). I did it and it worked! Tired, a little sore, but not flared up. The rest of October I stayed active. We did the Capitol Reef trip, so my rehab weights and biking were interrupted but I was active everyday. I tried to get a few more rides in before White Rim to keep my biking legs. I had a good rest period before White Rim (a trip to see family - and my first plane ride post surgery!) which had some easy activity. Then the trip was finally here! I was pretty giddy and felt confident! Our first day was close to 30 miles or about 4 hours of riding, plus another 1.5 hours for hikes and stops. There was a net downhill, but still that was a lot of time in the saddle. Next day was bigger with 37+ miles and a few technical sections and steep climbs. We started at 9:30am and got to the next camp at 4:30pm. Overall we were pedaling bikes for 5 hours, with an additional 2 hours of stops and hikes. That was a long day! Midday I felt a little sore in the knee, like I needed my bandage to make it feel better. But the truck was pretty far behind so I had to keep going. The feeling got better eventually. For the last day we had 14 miles, but a very long steep section to exit the canyon. This took me 2.25 hours of riding. Summary: 80+ miles, 6000+ vertical feet, 11.75 hours in the saddle for 2.5 days This wasn't a casual ride! While there were many easier pedaling sections, it does take some good mountain biking skills, good general fitness (the part that amazed me) to bike for hours and to climb steep rocky sections, and a well conditioned butt (and good bike shorts) to deal with saddle soreness. My husband drove the truck with all our food, water, gear, and he was always behind us a ways. It was pretty slow going for a truck. |
AuthorA 45 year old active female who tore her ACL in January 2017 (at the age of 40). Reconstructive surgery in February 2017 with bone-patellar tendon-bone autograft. Archives
November 2022
|