37 days and counting

Well the countdown continues and the PT is still going on! The past week has been a really good week. There was a breakthrough in my PT after Monday and things are really starting to click. I was able to ride 3 times on the trainer last week and swim 2 times. My trainer rides were short and effortless because I don't feel ready to push it yet. The first one was a 20 min ride at only 100 watts. To understand how easy that is.. well my easiest ride when I'm barely putting any effort out would be an average of 145-150 watts. Its so different on a trainer because its constant pressure on your legs vs. on the road when you have hills and descents and never stay in one area of watts. You could easily hit a hill and be putting out 400-600 watts with no problem however you could descend down that same hill and put out only 80. That is the reason why I am holding off on being on the road until I really feel ready to. The two other times were 30 and 45 minutes in PT and I pushed it a little harder.. not much only doing about 125 watts for 10 to 15 minutes. I did feel some knee pain with it but not a lot. The real big thing was the recovery.. which is where I would always feel the most pain.. well all three times I never felt any. My plans as of today are to do the ride. I'm really starting to feel better with my riding and PT. I'm going to continue to do PT this week and get a massage next week. The massages and stretching have helped a lot with relaxing the muscles around my knee and giving it time to heal and recover. This Friday is when I will be making up my mind and sending the check in for the ride.. the point of no return. I really am looking forward to flying out there about 5 days before my ride and do some traveling and riding out there. I will probably do a post later this week to let you know about how my riding goes since I really will start to push it before I mail the check out!