40 days and 40 nights

Think there was a flood of Biblical proportions that lasted 40 days - I wasn't there and this is not a reference to that, so no Noah's Ark references from here on out.

Days between knee surgery and the Pikes Peak Ascent is the 40 days this post is about.  Between now and the Ascent on August 20th, I'm gonna try to focus this blog more on my training for it, rather than the woe is me potential Rheumatoid Arthritis moaning and groaning.

So, yesterday was 10 days after surgery and the Doc officially cleared to get back into physical exercise and get ready as possible for the 13.1 mile jaunt up Pikes Peak.  Having been advised to not start running just yet, the stationary bike is where I began this morning.   With Coffee in hand - training commenced.

4 miles, easy pace, a little difficult at the start as I probably only have about 80% range of motion in the knee bending dept - but it was okay.  Will use the bike for at least a week, transitioning and probably overlapping to the elliptical and then again onto a treadmill as I ease back into running.  I will map out a (probably a very flexible) training program for myself over this weekend.

It's been a few weeks since any hard exercise, probably about a month - quite surprisingly I have only put on about 3 1/2 pounds.  Prior to the halt to exercise I was in decent shape after running the Ogden Marathon 2 months ago.  I did ease off after that but still ran 4 or 5 times a week doing about 35 miles on average.

So, I don't have a great base to build on for the next 29 days and I don't expect to do great or even come close to my initial predicted time of 3:40 when I signed up.  But my unofficial goal - I guess it is official now that I post it - is to beat 2 fellow bloggers.  Brad and GZ have and always will be better runners than me.  We are not even running the same race.   They are doing the Marathon, me - just the Ascent.  So the goal is for my Ascent time to beat their Marathon times.

My theme music for training.......