Coming home from the hospital after my surgery, I was under strict orders from the doctors to not raise my heart rate for 12 weeks. Last week I passed the threshold and got on the Peloton for the first time for some very easy spins (below 100bpm) and this week, I was able to test the waters with a little training.
I'll be talking about my goals for the next 6-12 months soon, but for now, the goal of training is just to get back to some structure. Being in the hospital for 8 days wiped out a lot of my marathon fitness and 12 weeks of very little activity beyond walking took care of the rest. I came out of the hospital 15 pounds lighter than when I went in and have come a full 25 pounds back, so I've got some work to do. So, I'm currently in the basement, so I need to build the base that I can build a proper base on.
My first week, I really just wanted to see how workouts would feel. I targeted 3-4 days and started with a Power Zone session in Zone 2 and 3. Thursday, I did a low-impact interval session followed by a stretch. I woke up Friday feeling pretty good and decided to see how it would feel to run. I limited myself to 15 minutes and didn't have any abdominal pain or pressure to speak of. My respiratory was something else entirely, my average heart rate was 147bpm, which is quite high for that kind of effort, as my current resting HR is about 50bpm. Sunday, I did my first long ride (over 1 hour) with some dumbbell intervals in the second half, followed by a post-ride stretch session.
Overall, I'm quite happy with the effort distribution and how I felt the days following each effort. My heart rate zones were a bit of a mess, which is to be expected, and offers a good visualization of the need to build a base for the base. Next week will probably look similar, though I'll be adding a bit of hip, glute strengthening to see how that feels. If you want to follow along in your email box, click the paper airplane icon on any page, or the "add me" button on the home page.
