July 26: I’m going to try not to drone on for this blog. So today was, in my eyes, a pretty big day in this whole process of CABG x5 (and again, that refers to Coronary Artery Bypass Graft x 5 bypasses) rehab. I mean everything I’ve been doing and striving for was going to kind of come to a head today at this visit to the Clinic for a second stress test with it’s accompanying echo. And this day today put me at the 10 week mark since surgery. Yea, 10 weeks since I was laying on a table under a bank of lights awaiting a small team of people to open my chest up, shut my heart off, put me on artificial devices to keep me alive, then graft 5 pieces of my own arteries onto 5 main branches of my coronary arteries, then restart my heart, sew me up and send me to the ICU with a gazillion pieces of apparatus hooked up to me. It still all feels like a crazy dream, that day. Like, did that really happen to me?

Yea, seems like so long ago. But the minute I hit that ICU I was determined to get my life back, despite some of the later talks I’d had with my cardiologist and my exercise physiologist which possibly pointed to the contrary. That’s all been on my mind this entire time, and that’s why I was so freaking nervous when I drove to the clinic this morning for the test today. There was a part of me, the glass is half empty side, that kind of dreaded the thought of my cardiologist telling me that my heart wasn’t going to work as it had prior to surgery, that they found some irregularities in my heart rhythm and that my heart’s mechanical operation had been compromised by the heart attack. 

Then there was the other part of me, the glass is half full side that over the last 3 weeks has really been kind of training for this damned stress echo test, hoping I’d just kick some ass and get the green light to begin harder cycling, and get the green light to continue with the adventures that I’ve just come to love doing - and sharing. I guess I’ve been worried and scared that a valuable piece of my life could very well be taken away from me, not by other people of course, but by my state of health, by fate, by my genetics. 

I’ve really tried to live in the latter of those two sides, to think positive, to believe that it’s possible to get through this, to have my cake - my life - and eat it to - my activity level. So this is why I’ve kind of taken the last couple days off to let my body recover from the hard workout on Friday (and I was feeling that puppy) and the piss poor ride on Saturday when I just couldn’t even get my HR up. Had to be recovered for that damned test! Took Sunday and Monday off just to REC a bit and get some strength back. 

Got up this morning, and I had to have been fasting 12 hrs prior to the test, with no caffeine! The caffeine thing was tough. Man I just LIVE for a good cup of strong java in the morning, so no brekkie and no java this morning. Up at 6 and out the door for the clinic at 6:15. Got there at 7 and hoofed it to the Main Campus and the J1-4 & 5 sections for my tests. Did the EKG first, and that was a snap. Blood test was second, and again, no problem. Yapped with the tech the whole time because I had a tee-shirt on with some rock climbing text on it. He told me of his bud who’d done Mt. Rainer then ended up having CABG x3 surgery not long thereafter. Said the guy’s goal now is to summit again post surgery. Wow, THAT dude could be my long lost brother! 

Then had a long wait for my stress echo. And I was nervous as hell. Just waited and waited and waited. And there people like me from virtually all over the world waiting to do their tests, folks from Spain, France, Sadi Arabia, Canada, and then a host of people from all over the USA. It was a bloody United Nations in there with all these people waiting for the 9 testing labs. I mean it was an assembly line of stress testing. Guess that speaks volumes for the Clev. Clinic with respect to its superiority in cardiovascular care. 

Finally got my call and did the long walk down to lab 7, where I was horrified to see there was no bike, just a treadmill and all the imaging and EKG equipment. Man was I bummed. I had to do this test on a freaking treadmill when I don’t even run anymore…plus my SI joint is just on fire right now from all the housework I’d been doing on Sunday and Monday during my “off days!” I even questioned them on choice of equipment. But there were no bikes up there. Told them I’d just soldier on and do the damn thing on the treadmill. 

First the EKG chick took my BP, which was stupid high. And I told them my BP had been great for weeks prior to coming into the lab. She told me it wasn’t uncommon for people in the lab to exhibit high BP’s because of being nervous. Well, that was definitely me. Up next I had an echo done, where they use this ultrasound device to look at and in the heart. They can measure wall thicknesses as it’s beating, they can measure chamber diameters and volumes, ejection fraction, more stuff than I could ever understand. Hell it’s just amazing what they do with this thing, and I can watch the screen and see my heart working. So we did this echo as I’m in a rested state, which took about 15-20 minutes. Then came the real deal - the stress test on a damned treadmill. 

Got hooked up on what had to be 8 leads for the EKG, and as I’m standing there was told the treadmill would go up in inclination & speed every three minutes, and to tell them when I couldn’t continue. I looked at the chick, and asked, “like REALLY can’t continue?” To which she responded yes. I was thinking, “been there, done that, but I had the plug pulled early in that first stress test on the bike.” So I was a bit dubious about the “can’t continue” statement. Got it going with a brisk walk, where at the end of three minutes I was asked for the level of perceived exertion while at the same time I had my BP measured before preceding on to the next level of difficulty. That first level was bloody easy. Well, by the third increase in speed an inclination I was running. Now I could hold one hand on a rail in front of me or on the right side of me, but NOT both hands on both rails. That was cheating they told me. So I was up to about moderate perceived exertion by then. The whole time I was kind of bumming because it was running and not cycling. Hell, my legs felt like shit running and my low back, my SI joint was feeling cranky. But I kept it going. So by the 6th increase I was feeling like I was running up a GD wall for gosh’s sake. I mean I was really starting to hold those rails for fear of being spit off the back of that high speed fan belt. 

Now by that time I’d gotten my HR up to 160, and for the life of me I just couldn’t get it to go any higher. The legs were feeling rubbery and my breathing was more like hyperventilating. I had pretty much run out of gas and hit the proverbial max wall. So I signaled that I was done, and then as I was gasping for O2 the other chick had me lay back down on the table for another echo as my heart was racing. She even had me hold my freaking breath several times as she did these measurements. Man I was just gassed!

So I’d felt kind of bummed that I didn’t get any higher in HR, but then I began to wonder if the meds had stunted my max HR, another question I would ask my cardiologist when I saw him. So as I was getting the second echo, the EKG chick said that no one had gone that long in like three years, and I was thinking, “are you kidding me, I SUCK as a runner right now.” That’s when I told her they would have been pissed at me had we done the test on a bike because I’d still be on that fracking thing! I mean hell, I’d kind of been training for that damned test on the bike for weeks now. Had I known it was a run I’d have included some running in my rehab workouts. 

Nonetheless, felt good to know they thought I did well. Got dried off then went to wait for my appt. with the doc to go over all the results. Again, a whole army of people were coming in and out of the labs pre and post testing. Finally got the call to head into the doc’s office where I first had a nurse take weight, height, go over my med stuff, then do a BP test on me - which was exactly what it’s been for months, about 114 over 76. So that kind of put me at ease. So the doc came in with an assistant who was doing her fellowship in sports cardiology. Shook hands with both the doc and the fellow and he immediately told me I absolutely crushed it on the stress test. Said everything, echo, EKG, BP measurements, everything looked great. Now I had a list of about 14 questions for the doc, but upon hearing that I was just totally stunned.

He went on to tell me a bit more in depth how things looked amazingly well. And after that I began with my first question. And I prefaced it with, “now this might seem ridiculous but my most important question has to do what how hard can I go now with respect to HR.” He smiled, and I proceeded further, telling him about how I cheated with my volume in cycling. Again a smile. But how good I felt with the prescribed HR zone - Z3 - sandwiched between an hour or so of Z2. Also told him of my 1 hour of solid Z3 at top end of the prescribed zone, where again I felt really good. Then I told him how much I wanted to get back to long bouts of steady state Z4, and how much I wanted to get back to 4-5 hour rides etc. More smiles. I even showed him my chart from the three cycling sessions I’d done at the clinic under supervision. He and the fellow went over that and they looked happy about the results, especially the pre and post BP measurements. 

Also told him I was still good with staying away as much as I could with anaerobic Z5. But man, I was just hoping for the moon to be able to go into the LAT zone again. I was just a jabbering, babbling knucklehead. I finally let him get a word or two in. And that’s when he said he saw no problem with LAT workouts and with long riding - BUT I had to hydrate with water and electrolytes all the time - that was a must! Bingo, my wish had just come true! He also discussed going anaerobic, and described it as “Risk/Reward”. He reiterated he had no proof on one side or the other if my going into high Z5 or max HR would or would not result in a cardiac episode. I looked perfectly fine in the max test I’d just done on the treadmill, but you never know. 

So he had zero issue with anything in the Z4 range. Now he did mention I shouldn’t do hard riding during any kind of viral infections like the flue etc, as that could stress the heart out much more than normal. Same for heat/humidity situations, where I’d need to back off the intensity such that I wouldn’t put undo stress on the heart. But otherwise I was just good to go. We then went over some of my resistance questions. Said I still need to stay with the unilateral exercises and NO rock climbing for 2 more weeks. Then at the three month mark, two weeks from now, I can begin very light bilateral exercises and super easy rock climbing. Had to do a gradual build from there. 

Asked a couple questions about my meds. He thinks staying on the statin for the rest of my life is a good thing, especially since I seem to have the genetic propensity for severe coronary artery disease. He also wants to stay with the super low dose of BP med because of my activity level and the intensity I take everything to. Told me if I were just a normal Joe, he wouldn’t even prescribe the BP med, but my volume/intensity kind of changes things due to the high BP’s you get during intense exercise. He did say this is totally adjustable and I can go off it if my BP is going too low. Only other meds I’m on is an anti-spasming drug for my left forearm where the left radial artery was removed, and I’ll be on this for just 3 more months, and a children’s aspirin and a multivitamin. 

Also asked him about the somewhat stunted max HR I’d gotten in the test, and he affirmed the meds did indeed stunt the max. They’re a kind of governor on my HR. This would totally SUCK if I were still racing, but today I could give a shit less. I just want to be able to maintain hard efforts in the backcountry and when out with my friends and clients, NOT the kind of efforts you put out in a CR’s or road races. Seems my HR zones are about 10bpm off right now. Oh well, I can definitely live with that one. 

And finally we talked about the peripheral blockages still in my coronary arteries. Doc revealed that recent studies indicate the blockages can begin reducing as soon as several months after statin drug and/or Mediterranean dieting. Now he said we cannot actually look at that with a heart cath, but we could see it through testing down the line, the same kind of testing as I’d done today. With all bases covered he told me I’m good to go for a year. No more testing, no more visits. I’ll go back in July of ’17 for the same workup as I’d gotten today to see if I’m at least where I was today, if not much better.

I left his office feeling as if I’d just gotten my life back. I mean I was just elated! I can go out and do my thing now, with relatively little in the way of restrictions. Just have to work back slowly with the resistance and rock climbing. So this is where I’m at, and I feel just wonderful about my prognosis. I did indeed win the lottery and get that second chance in life, and it’s like I got the cake and I can eat it to! I’m totally dedicated to the lifestyle changes in eating, stress, and indulging in too much brew at times. Going to do all I can to NEVER lay on that operating table again to have my chest split open for heart surgery. 

So that’s the scoop, and I think this is just the right place to end my blog for this season. American Dirt will get finished in Spring of 2017, in addition to a number of other little adventures on the hit list. I am going to take Judy on a well deserved mini-vacation to Prince Edward Island in Canada on the Atlantic coast. There’s a fabulous gravel bike trail - the Confederation Trail - there that goes for about 200 miles from west to east across the island. We’ll do it as a mellow vacation and just have some fun in the Canadian Maritimes. Haven’t done an R & R vacation for a while, so this should be great. Then next year when I’m pretty much in the best shape I can be in with respect to my heart being tip top, I’ll return to the beat-down-fest stuff like AD. 

Want to thank several people by name for helping me get my second chance in life: my sister Kim, my cousin Sue, and my girl Judy. Without these three, wow, I wouldn’t know where I’d be right now. So I look forward to seeing you all on and off the road the rest of this year. Take care all and thanks to everyone, too many of you to name, for all your kind cards, emails, phone calls, and visits. You guys are just amazing………pete

July 24: Just did a short 1 hr walk with Pepper this morning. Took  the day off of everything else…but I ended up spending the day trying to get caught up on house work inside. Ton of stuff to get done and I must have spent 8 hrs working in addition to making a giant pot of home-made chicken noodle soup with all fresh ingredients. That alone took the better part of 6 hours on and off while I was doing all the work upstairs. So as it turns out this was NO off day that’s for sure. I am totally and unequivocally beat to heck, probably as tired as if I’d done a full on ride. Just feels good to be able to work again, and I just have a boat load of projects I have to get done around here, stuff I’d planned on doing on and off all summer long…and then the heart issue. Relaxing now with a nice glass of Red Zin!

July 21: Just did a 1:30 hr hike with Pepper today at the Happy Days trail and up on the bike and hike, this to stay the hell in the shade today. Didn’t feel like going out in that inferno on the bike, so it was hike instead. And even that was pretty dang hot. Add all these gnats to the mix and it was ugly at times. Swarms of gnats would try to get in any orifice they could land in, nose, eyes, ears, mouth. Damn they’re just about as bad as in Canada!

Legs felt a bit tired today, so laying off the bike for a day was probably a good deal. Did a resistance workout again, with today’s exercises covering arms and upper back. Time to start adding weight. Felling good with my wimpy 15 pounders on the arms stuff. Doing a single arm T-bar exercise for the upper back. All is feeling good with the resistance. 

July 22: This crazy hot stretch of weather has caused me to change my rides from late morning to early morning. Ever since my early morning IM swim training back in the mid-90’s I’ve hated early morning workouts. Just cannot get my body and mind ready at 6 AM anymore to train. Part of that has been my low back just being stiff as hell first thing in the AM. And over the past 16 or so odd years since racing, well I eliminated all those morning workouts that I freaking hated doing, and only did because I had to train. Racing was a bit of a different story back then with respect to the morning stuff, but training…training was totally different. 

Yet with the forecast temps for today, especially the heat factor stuff being predicted in the 100’s, I just could not do the ride later in the day. So I was on the bike at like 6:50 AM today doing a WU down to the bike and hike. Then as soon as I got on the trail I ramped it up to the upper end of my training zone and rode at or just above my high end for one hour. Felt pretty good most of the rep but I was just sweating like a faucet the whole time. Wore a headband and took along a washcloth to continually wipe my face, arms and hands down. I have a little course now that will give me almost exactly 1 hour of high Z3 cruise tempo. There are a few places where I flip it, but by and large I can just keep it steady state the whole time. 

Once done I was just wiped out. I mean that humidity just sucked the life out of me, and no matter how easy I soft pedaled the 40 min back home, it was hard to get my HR way back down as I usually do. Now it wasn’t in the low end of my training zone at all, but it was only about 10bpm lower than that low end, and that’s unusual when you’re noodling at 10 mph! Drank a full bottle of electrolyte and a full bottle of water on the way back home. My gear was just soaked and I’d only ridden like 1:45 hours. 

Ate some brekkie, drank another 2 quarts of water, showered then just lay down for an hour. I mean I was torched for a bit. Was able to finally get up and work at the desk, but wow, did that beat the tar out of me! No resistance today, going to give the old heart some R & R due to the extreme heat.

July 18: Pretty tired today so I just took the day off of cardiovascular exercises. I did do some resistance stuff again, today working upper back, core and shoulders. Hey, this is the shortest blog yet!

July 19: Did a ride with Bill and Judy. Total ride time was 2:45 hours. My intention was to go long (still a relative term to suggest longer than advised), and therefore below my target zone. But sometimes intentions go awry. Started off pretty good for the first hour, keeping it well under my target zone. Then things got a little quicker for the remainder of the ride, where I got up into the middle of the zone, to the top of the zone, to above the zone.

I am getting a bit better with the hydrating part of this. What I’m doing right now is filling one bottle with a Gatorade mix and the other bottle with water, then I put them in the freezer for about an hour. That way I really enjoy drinking ice cold water or electrolyte when out of the bike. Just makes me drink more often. And I’m finishing that first bottle in less than an hour. Such was the case today where I finished that electrolyte bottle under an hour in. 

So when we turned around this goober in tennis shoes just flies by us. And it was like, I was ok with that…if not for the fact that the dude just kept looking back at us to see if he was gaining on us. I mean he was a freaking swivel head for God’s sake. That kind of irked me. I’m good getting passed by people at this point of my life - even on the bike and hike trail - even by a dude in tennis shoes. But shit, just go about your way rather than worry about whether or not you’re gaining on me, or staying ahead of me by looking back all the time. Really, you’d swear the guy was on a solo breakaway or something. 

Well, I commented to Bill about the dude and Bill just stepped it up, with me just jumping in on the draft. Passed goober in no time and then backed off to wait for Judy. So Judy gets back on and the goober dude did it again, then started looking back every minute. This time I picked the pace up, then Bill jumped up ahead and did a pretty awesome pull. Now we’re on fixies so there’s only so much cadence and speed you can generate, and I think Bill was at that point end point. Now my HR was above the target high end by about 5bpm, so I was ok, just digging on the draft.

So Bill finally pulled off and I kind of felt obligated to do something, so I did about a mile pull, where I probably went like 10bpm above my target high. Felt good, but I backed it off soon thereafter just to stay on the safe side. I’ve got enough already to discuss with my cardiologist, I don’t want to be a total ass and throw in something about a 10-15 minute pull way above my target HR. 

Waited for Judy again, and then eventually the goober slinked on through. From there onward I just tried to keep everything in my target zone and not let testosterone take over. Felt really, really good at the end of the ride though. I know I was a bad boy, but wow, did I feel good! Got home, worked for a bit then did a resistance workout for chest and arms. I guess it was a good idea to take yesterday off!

7-16: Another ride today, this one a long one - well, long considering the circumstances - of just over three hours. So with the humidity today, I wanted to concentrate today on drinking while riding, a tactic I rarely used over the past years as discussed in yesterday’s blog. Filled on bottle up with electrolyte and the other just plain water, and I began nipping on the electro. bottle from the start. Since I’d planned on going long my conciliatory action was to reduce the intensity as much as possible below my target HR zone. 

Rode with Judy and our plan was to go on bike and hike out to Peck Rd, but damn, the devil got the best of me and I suggested we take some Hudson/Stow/Kent backroads out to Towner’s Woods. And road riding it was. Have to admit I felt so good just getting the F off of that bike trail for a bit. Shit, I’ve pretty much memorized every bump, hump, leaf, twig, groundhog hole, and dog doodie along the length of both the Summit and Portage bike and hike! Had to get the heck onto something else for a change. So…I broke the rules again by doing some road riding. Tell you what, it’s going to feel like I’m going to the confessional booth when I sit down with my cardiologist on 7/28. “Doc…um…well…you see, blah, blah, blah…but I’m feeling great!”

Yea, it’s a list that’s getting bigger by the day. So we did the backroads where I had a few little bumps to climb. Just kept it pretty mellow and I had darned near no problem controlling HR on the low side despite the humidity today. Only once did I go into my target zone in the whole ride and that was on this little wall climb on Johnson Rd. Yet I was still able to cruise along at like 15-16 mph on most other terrain. Got back on the bike and hike at Towners Woods and took that to Ravenna, then flipped it and came back home. I killed that first bottle of electro. in the first hour and then started on the second bottle of water the second hour. Killed both bottles by the end of the ride. Haven’t drank that much liquid on an easy ride in, well, I couldn’t tell you when, especially noodling around here. 

Got home, drank another 32 oz. of electrolyte, ate 2 big veggie sandwiches, then hauled my buda belly upstairs to work for a while. 

Then later in the evening, my big moment, doing my “cheat” meal, the first one I can remember in like two weeks. I took Judy and pop to the Red Lobster and we just splurged on all the cholesterol laden, butter infused, fat heavy, calorie rich food we could order. It was a damned eating orgy! Felt good to get that one off the chest. Now it’s back to being a good boy.

July 14: I’ve noticed that my blogs are starting to get shorter and shorter. I think…and hope it’s a sign of me getting back to a normal life again. Like I’d said several times earlier, I’m not just going to do some kind of droning on blog about my freaking boring life. Once I think I’m pretty “back”, I’m pulling the plug on this until the next adventure, which will be the final state and a half’s worth of American Dirt. And after that, well I have a little “hit list” in my desk, that contains more than a couple lives worth of adventures left to do. I love writing and blogging, but only about something worth writing and blogging about!

Ok, so I know I have a few more kind of like “milestone” visits to the doc’s coming up which are still blog worthy, one just two weeks away, where I’m hoping that my progress is sufficient to deem me able to continue to a higher degree, higher intensity of rehab. My sister tells me I should be back to some semblance of normal about 6 months into this. I can definitely tell you this, no way am I going to continue this puppy (blog) for 4 more months. 

So I got in a 3 hour ride today, doing all of it well under my prescribed HR zone of 118-132. And I did this so as to not totally disrespect my rehab parameters. My justification is that I’ll ride longer below the zone so as to not stress the heart too much. When I ride in the zone, I try to keep the rides shorter. No matter how I cut it, I’m still riding more than they want. I WILL come clean with my cardiologist when I see him in two weeks! And I have hopes that he’ll take pity on my cycling obsession and maybe even give his approval to my longer/harder riding sessions. 

Most of the time I was like in the low 100’s for today’s ride. Nice thing was that I felt like I was riding at a good clip. So the heart seems to be getting stronger by the week, and hell, I’ve only been on the bike for 3 weeks now. Judy was with me, and as usual we rode bike trail - but man…I almost suggested that we ride some Kent backroads today. I’m getting bike trail burned out right now. So we took it into Ravenna to the end of the Portage bike and hike. The first two hours were great where I had that low HR going on, but as the temp and humidity climbed up so to did my HR. By noon I noticed my HR did not match my effort. HR was going up while my effort was remaining the same. 

And by the end of the ride it was tough not to get my HR into the low end of my zone on virtually any acceleration or little bump in the trail. I really think I’m totally good for like a 4-5 hr ride, but under the right temp and dew point conditions. Right now I’m still concerned that the heart is getting a bit “too” stressed when riding in high heat/dew point. Anyway, once home I did notice the HR went right back down to my daily activity HR with no problem. 

Got home and had about 2 quarts of water and electrolytes, then ate fruit and two veggie sandwiches. And you know what? I’m really beginning to dig veggie sandwiches. Really! I use good, sprouted oat and wheat bread, then put slices of avocado on the bottom, with english cucumber, red onion, and bean spouts on top. Made the hummus today, so I’ll begin to use that as a spread.

Finally, a bit more on the healthy cooking front: for dinner I cooked some ahi tuna fillets in olive oil and had an Indian dish with potatoes, lentils, zucchini, carrots and onion in a thick tomato sauce flavored with cumin, coriander, turmeric, ginger paste, lemon, shredded coconut and yellow mustard seeds. Came out really good and healthy. BUT I think I’m going to have one of those “cheat” days this weekend. I feel some seafood and heavy creams coming my way!

July 12: I’m not a knucklehead all the time! Yea, today, what with having gotten in like 2x my main set time on the day’s ride yesterday, I decided to go easy today and just do a nice hike in the valley with Pepper. And heck, today is the two month mark since surgery, and hiking gives me much opportunity to reflect on life. So we went down the Kendal Lake and did the X-country ski trail loop with the out-and-back add-on that goes to Buckeye Sports. Did a really brisk pace especially going up that first little kicker to get above the lake and up near the old toboggan run - and just felt great.

Only hassle today was the heat and humidity and deer flies and gnats. My T-shirt was just soaked about half way in and I had to stop a couple times to give Pepper some water and food. Even she was panting like heck at times. We ended up with about 1:40 hrs of hiking. Right from the get go today I noticed a huge difference in my conditioning while hiking now compared to several weeks ago. Had to be the past three weeks of cycling with the higher HR’s than I was doing back in the walking/hiking stage of rehab. 

Man, I’m getting pretty antsy to get going with the upper body stuff. I mean I look in the mirror after a shower and see my upper torso just atrophying to beat the band. One more week and it’s game on in that arena. I think once I get that facet of fitness going I’ll feel I’m on much more of an even keel. 

Continuing with the “heart healthy” cooking, and unfortunately my pop is an unwilling participant of some of this. Like for instance this eve I cooked this Indian dish, a red curry recipe with tons of good veggies and some tofu. Yea, I’m eating tofu! So I made sure to cook some marinated chicken drum sticks for pop just in case the tofu thing didn’t go over so well. He really didn’t know what to think of the tofu, especially when I told him it’s made with bean curd. That’s when he started stripping chicken off the bone and mixing it with the dish. 

Also on the “heart healthy” front, I’m going to begin using humus, making my own, instead of slathering on mayo on sandwiches and such as I used to do. God did I love mayo on sandwiches and burgers. Been eating a lot of veggie sandwiches with avocado as a kind of mayo base, so I ran into this article talking about what to use on sandwiches as a substitute for mayo - bingo…humus spreads. So I’m soaking some chickpeas tonight, boiling them tomorrow and making this spicy thai pepper humus spread. 

My deserts as of late, courtesy of Judy, are these fruit and/or berry & nut concoctions where you mix in vanilla Greek yogurt with blueberries or anything really, and walnuts or almonds. Actually turned pop onto this one and he liked it. Drinking red wine on the weekends, 1-3 glasses, and going way light on the beer - practically none. Wow, the surprises just keep coming. 

Well, not much else to report on the rehab front today.

July 9: Did my outdoor ride today…and just had to go longer. Man, the weather was just perfect, with 70-degree temps and super low humidity. Met up with Laurie on her fixie, and we rode to Kent to hook up with Judy. The whole time I was cognizant to keep the HR below my prescribed zone because I knew from the get-go that I was doing my longest ride since surgery. Man, just couldn’t pass this day up. 

So I was really nice and below my HR zone on the way to Judy’s, save for this little winding climb through a neighborhood where despite the climbing I ended up in the middle of the zone. Seems as though my riding is getting stronger, my speed is increasing, my power is up, and best of all my HR zone is getting such that I can do all of the above and still keep that HR way lower than when I first started out. Used to be that particular hill sent me above my HR zone WITH me trying hard to go easy. On that climb today I pushed just a tad and still was 6bmp off of the top end of the zone. 

Got to Judy’s, where she suggested that we ride the Freedom trail from Kent into Akron. Done. Again, HR stayed low despite my pulling in the front. Only occasionally did the HR get into my zone, and this was just on the low end. Most of the time up front I was below my lowest end while pulling into a headwind, which is exactly what I wanted what with increasing my ride time to almost 3 hours. Flipped it and rode with a tailwind the rest of the way back on the Freedom Trail. I just felt amazingly great, and I remarked to Judy that I sure felt good NOT having that ischemia thing going on between my shoulder blades. Ahh…for the little gifts in life! 

Finished up with a ride of 2:50 hours with probably no more than about 20 minutes inside my prescribed zone. And all of that was piecemeal in bouts of 1-3 minutes at a time. I just can’t say how good it is to now push harder and not see that HR skyrocket up right from the gun. This really makes me wonder if my cycling just 7 weeks out of surgery is actually better than my cycling prior to surgery. Three weeks ago I’d have said no way, but today, with this ride, wow, I’m really beginning to feel different. Now I have to admit that I’m a good ways off from riding with the “big boys”, but this really gives me optimism that I’ll have some good fitness down the road without having to tap into the Z5 areas that Dr. Phelan had told me I should stop short of due to those peripheral blockages. 

Felt great the rest of the day, and since I’d done way more cycling than was prescribed, I really made an effort to not do any additional working out. Hell, I really wanted to take Pepper for a 1 or 2 hour hike, but opted to work at my desk the remainder of the day. Now I am entering a new era here in that Kim is on a well deserved vacation for 12 days and I’m back to my full-time gig with pop. We’ve had a few moments here and there, but I’ve been able thus far to not implode. My biggest challenge in all the changes I’ve needed to make, as I’ve detailed before, is to de-stress in tense situations with my dad - hell, to de-stress in LIFE! 

Been constantly working on the Mediterranean Diet thing, and I’ve found some great recipes online. Hell, I’m even staying away from fried chicken, fried shrimp, and fried anything, which I was just a fool for in the past. I used to make Bang Bang Shrimp and Avocado Eggrolls in the good old days, and I’d devour the stuff as if it was an entree. Today I made a Greek Cod Bake with Tomato and Onion, in addition to a veggie stir fry with fresh green beans and broccoli. Judy joined pop and I for dinner. And lately my drink of choice is a nice Red Zinfandel wine instead of 4-6 beers! 

Eating a lot of fruits for snacks, Raison Brand cereal with Almond Milk for breakfast, and Greek Vanilla Yogurt with mixed berries for dessert. I am allowing myself a “cheat” day each week, and man oh man am I getting close to one. I am working on my “98 Days” book on my ride 6270 miles across Canada, and I just had to share this with you. THIS is how I used to eat as pulled from my August 2009 TransCanadian blog: 

“I’m all about BUFFET. So what happens? I fill up a plate with eggs benedict, fatada, fish cakes, bacon, baked beans and sausages, and Barney…granola, yogert, fresh fruit and a grapfruit. I looked at his plate and was totally disgusted with myself…NOT! Zipped through that and then went for more fish cakes, two blueberry pancakes with blueberry sause and maple syrup, and then finished off with 2 plates of danishes. Add to that some great black coffee and I got my 17 bucks worth all right.”

Yea, that was me 7 years ago. My, my, my how life has changed!

July 7: Just got smashed by the humidity and heat today. So I did my outside ride today with my self-agreed upon parameter of staying in my prescribed zone only as long as my docs deem necessary. Today that would mean I’m only supposed to stay in my zone for like 40 min. So if I do a 2 hour ride, just 40 min is within 118-132bpm. The rest would be below. 

With that in mind, I met Judy on the bike and hike and right off the bat I could see that today was going to be brutal with respect to temp and humidity. We rode at 10 AM and it was already like 80-something with this insane dewpoint. My HR responded great as we got going, and I’ve noticed that I am going faster at a higher perceived exertion at lower HR values. So that was great. But the further and further we went into the ride the more the heat and humidity really started to affect me. I kind of rode in my zone for a bit, but not nearly for the full 40 minutes. Then I began to back off a bit to the low side after a while since the heat was just getting hotter by the minute. 

No those of you who do not know me are not aware that through my 30-some racing and training years I have never been able to deal with heat very well. Mix in a high dew point and I’m just melting. I’ve had to DNF races where I was literally crawling on all fours to the finish line in this kind of weather. I mean I just totally overheat and turn into a blob of protoplasm. So my history in HH (heat and humidity) is terrible. Mix in a headwind to get HHH and then I’m truly screwed. Well, today we had HHH and I felt it an hour into the ride. It was there that my head just began to get a bit off. Hell, I was wiping sweat out of my eye sockets right from the get go in this ride, so at the halfway point I knew that I was on the downside. 

So I told Judy I was going to pull the plug on doing my “zone” riding, and just defer to riding well under my low end of the zone. And I could definitely feel it. My body just begins to shut down, where I have a tough time cooling myself off. We kind of rode at a moderate pace with my HR in the 100-110 area and I felt much better. My thought process on this was as such: I’ve have big issues with the HHH well before this surgery, so now, with my heart just getting back into higher beating and higher demands, the HHH could really knock me for a loop. So I felt I’d better back off and not tax my old ticker with an even higher stress load - even at my prescribed HR zone. 

Man, I was just dripping on the way back. Even had Judy pulling for a bit, and I had NO problem drafting just to keep the HR down. Now as we got closer to home I noticed that I had to do less and less for my HR to go up, and by the end of the ride even a little bump in the road sent my HR up 5-8bpm. I ended up getting in like 1:50 hrs total, and probably did get the 40 min of zone in only because my HR was going up even while going easy on the way back home. Really glad I pulled the plug on this one, and I don’t think I’m going to temp fate until I’m months into this rehab process where everyone thinks my heart is stronger and more prepared to deal with hot and humid conditions. 

Yup, when I got done I really felt the weather. I felt weak for sure. Drank about 32 oz of electrolyte and then made this big salad with some salmon in it. After that I drank another 32 oz of water. Wanted to work more post ride, but shoot, I was really spent so I lay down for an hour. And for the rest of the day I just felt one step off because of the weather. HR was normal, so I had no ill effects with respect to heart rate post ride. I just felt tired and slightly weaker than normal. Let’s hope for some cooler weather!

July 5: Pretty sedate day from the rehab dept. After yesterday’s ride where I felt like I was just a bit trashed from the prior 5-6 days of cycling, I almost took the full day off today. But then when I decided to do some grocery shopping, I figured I’d do a complete Z1 noodle to the Indian Grocery in Cuyahoga Falls, just to spin the legs out a bit. 

Humidity was just terrible today, so I really concentrated on the Z1 noodle so as to not be dripping with sweat when I got to the grocery. Got on the Bike & Hike heading towards Silver Lake. Legs were still a bit on the muscle soreness side, but the cardio felt about like it should. I opted out on the HR monitor today, figuring I’d just go about as slow as I could and not worry about where the HR was. Honestly, I just did not want to see HR’s today. I mean I’ve been so independent from the HR monitor for the past 16 years that it still kind of feels like a pain in the ass to do. It’s kind of like my fixie - in that I just love the simplicity of cycling at this point in my life.  

That simplicity involves no gears, no super light weight carbon frame, and not thinking while cycling - other than enjoying the ACT of cycling. Same with the HR monitor. Been there done that. Over the years I’ve evolved to love the “less is more” philosophy. Shit, I have like 12 bikes, and some damned nice ones, BUT the only bike I really ever ride with any frequency is my fixie. So anyway, I know it’s important now to keep track of my HR in this whole rehab process, but today, seeing that I wanted to go total Z1 and relax, I just didn’t want to deal with a HR monitor. So my HR monitor friend, you stay at home on the desk!

Got going late for the humidity today, leaving at like 11:30 AM. But knowing the grocery opened at 11, I figured I’d give them a bit of wiggle room, since I’ve found in the past they can be a bit liberal in their opening hours, sometimes stretching it to past noon. Wore a tank top cycling for the first time since my surgery. And damn did I need it today. I was just on the brink of really sweating up a storm even noodling along at Z1. I’ve been better and better about wearing “revealing” shirt attire over the past couple of weeks. At first I just didn’t want to display that nice vertical zipper than runs down my chest, but I’m getting to care less and less about this, to the point where now I just don’t give a shit!

That tank totally revealed the first 3 inches of the scar, but had I worn anything else, I’d have been soaked for sure. At least I was able to give the upper body a chance to cool down with the sleeveless gig. Been riding a lot more now with my hands on the handlebars. When I first got going on the fixie, I’d do a ton of my riding no handed to keep the road shock from translating up to my sternum. Today, I’m able to ride much, much more with hands on, with no shock issues on my sternum. Only exception to that is when I’m riding on really crappy road surfaces like west Barlow Rd etc. 

Rode the trail to outside of Silver Lake, then did the Silver Lake loop down to the Falls Corp line where I headed toward the grocery. Got all my goodies at the grocery: Nigella seeds, cumin powder, red chili powder (thai chili), yellow mustard seeds, fresh cilantro, fresh mint, fresh red chili peppers, and asafetida. Got some of this stuff to make some Bombay Potatos for a dinner side dish!

The ride back was sweltering, so I tried extra hard to just keep it totally easy. And that was pretty much my day. I mean I’m at home working upstairs and I’m cooking dinner and doing light cleaning with zero problems. So I’m getting closer to living a normal life again without all the assistance. And today is the 7-week mark from my surgery, so I’ve one more week before I can begin an upper body resistance training regime. I’m movin on up!

July 2: Did a ride with Judy and Laurie today where we went from Hudson into Kent just past Towner’s Woods park. And again, I felt slightly better in all facets of riding. Right now I’m kind of the “governor” with respect to our speed in that I’m trying to stay within this 118-132 HR zone. My hope was that this restriction would not prove to be too slow for Judy and Laurie. Now as far as monitoring my HR, I’m still finding that by palpating my radial artery on the right wrist. Understand that with me just measuring for 6 seconds and multiplying that number X 10, there’s a lot of room for error. I mean just missing one beat can put you off by 10bpm, so I’m aware that my accuracy is not nearly lab quality. BUT, I did order a HR monitor chest strap yesterday, so I’m hoping it’s here for the holiday riding. 

As I’d mentioned in past blogs, I have like 3 old Polar HR monitors that go back about 20 years. I also have a small box full of expired chest straps and their sending units. So what with my Garmin 810 and its HR monitoring capability, all I had to do was get the corresponding chest strap and sending unit. Got it from REI, and with my points from purchases last year, hell, I only had to pay about $1.43 for a $75 dollar chest strap. 

So anyway, I did this ride with the radial artery palpitation method as we rode along. I’d really just do it on occasion on the flats, and more than anything, at the top of any climb. Still noted that I was over my high end on the HR with a climb like the one on Hudson Rd, just right of the bike and hike trail. But the ride was better than the previous, so I guess things are progressing. My only hesitation is that I’m probably going a bit longer than my doc had intended, this since my monitored workout on Friday was about 45 min to 1 hr total. Today’s ride was about 2:15 hrs total. 

Later in the day we took pop to Westbranch State Park for a little picnic with Judy’s sister and relatives. My biggest challenge that day was not eating all the cake, pie, chips and sugar goodies before dinner, and then not putting butter and salt on my potatos, corn and chicken. Made it through, but it’s still hard laying off all those items. Still not grooving on the Mediterranean diet!

Came back home where Kim was dog sitting her dogs and our dog Pepper. She cooked up this really awesome fish stew dish from a cookbook a patient of hers had given her. It’s on HEALTHY Chinese cooking. Amazing that such a book even exits, but tell you what, that stew dish is crazy good, so we’ve one keeper so far. We’ll be experimenting with that puppy for the rest of the summer!

July 3: Well, first ride with the HR monitor and wow, what a difference than what I’d been doing. Now I’d first thought the zones doc had drawn up for me might be a bit too mellow, but what a difference when you’re not palpitating the radial artery for 6 seconds. What I had been doing on the flats was just too easy when not using the HR monitor, and what I’d been doing on the climbs was a bit too aggressive.

So I got my 810 on the front bars, strapped on the chest strap and off I went for a ride with Judy on the bike trail. Noticed that I could really get in a pretty good workout on the flats in the 118-132 area I was supposed to be in. I tried to stay around 129-132 most of that time, and then when I came to a climb, like the one out of the Brandywine Valley area, I had to back off and to out of the saddle and kind of do this slow motion pedaling - this because of the fixie. On that climb I hit 137, but that was when I topped out and got seated. It was a short stint above my high end. From there I just tried to keep it pegged within about 2bpm of my 132 top zone. 

Did this for a full 2 hours and just felt great. I mean I actually was feeling like I was in the cruise mode, with a nice steady state pacing and HR. Shit, it’s been over 16 years since I had used a HR monitor. Like the day I quit racing, that very day was my last day of every caring again about what HR zone I was in. From then forward I just put all my HR monitor stuff in my desk drawer and that was the end of that. After that last race I did not want to every use one of those buggers again. Just didn’t care. I’ve used perceived exertion from 2000 onward. Until today! So now that I have these prescribed zones to rehab, (let’s call it training instead) I really need to dial it in more. And judging by my palpitation method of the past several days, I was off of where I needed to be. 

And I was actually happy that I had to ride harder with the HR monitor. Made me feel like I was doing something. Only downer was the climbing where I had to dial it back. Only problem there is that it’s pretty hard to dial it back on a fixie. I mean the only thing to do is to either slow the pedaling way down…or walk the bike! So far I’ve been able to make the climbs doing the 40-50 rpm thing and only go over my HR top end by 3-5 bpm. I’m sure that if I had to climb something like Truxell Rd I’d be in a shit bit of trouble with respect to the HR. I’ll wait on the bigger climbs until I can pick up another HR zone above where I’m at right now. 

And that’s my big hope here: being able to eventually work into the Z4 realm. Though I don’t train or race, I still love to venture into Z4 when climbing or when I “pretend” to do some TTing on the flats. I have a stress echo test on the 28th of this month, and on my wish list is being given the go ahead to get up into the next zone. Now my current zones may change a bit just because my heart is adapting again to harder work and because my efficiency on the bike is improving, so they might in fact have to be revamped. But whatever the case I’m really looking towards getting into the higher zones so I can climb bigger climbs without having to dial it back. 

Anyway, I did the bike trail to it’s end out at Alexander Rd, then flipped it and headed back - right into a headwind. And man, that dude just worked me hard on the fixie. I was doing an overgear for a solid hour. Kept the HR at the upper end of my prescribed zone the whole way back. And when I got home by God I really felt like I’d gotten a workout!

Did a dog walk with Kim - NOT a hike! But we still got in like 1:15 hrs of walking. So shoot, that was a total of 3:15 hrs of PT for me, a guy 6 weeks off the operating table. Felt really stoked about that.