I am settling into pattern of walking in the morning for about an hour, icing my hip and knee, then doing a short ride on my bicycle trainer in the late afternoon, followed by more icing.
Today Henry Warner walked 35 laps of my indoor course, which comes out to 9100 feet or 1.7 miles. Even though the overall direction I am walking is counter-clockwise, my course takes me in and out of several rooms, which entail some clockwise moves. I figure that perhaps this is actually better than just walking around the block, as I am challenging my new leg joint and the knee in more than just a simple forward motion. But of course, we rationalize to fit our circumstances, so perhaps I am over-challenging myself at this early stage. I am trying to “listen to my body” and not overdo anything. I want avoid having a workout that I regret later.
I did my walk today using just a cane. The cane provides less support than the single crutch, so I had to concentrate on trying to keep my gait as fluid and normal as possible. The tendency is to want to favor the leg by limping.
Today Henry Warner did 20 minutes of slow, easy pedaling on my bicycle trainer in the late afternoon. Jill and I then took the ferry from Bainbridge Island to Seattle to have dinner with my daughter Lindsay, who is in town on a break from her third year of medical school in Boston. For this trip, I took the one crutch, rather than the cane. I reasoned that I would be walking with a crowd to board and depart the ferry on foot, so it was safer to use the crutch. Plus I thought the crutch would make me a more visible “handicapped person”, so I would have a lower risk that someone would bump me or knock me down. All I would need is a fall at this point!
