Marching to Recovery

As my body heals from the blood clots that invaded my lungs, I find myself getting stronger by the day. In fact, I feel stronger now on the bike than I did at the end of my tour or, for that matter, at any time in the last three or four years.

Some of this is from working out on a daily basis, either at the gym or doing physical therapy exercises. Some of this may be from the fact that, while I am on blood thinners, I can’t drink alcohol. Some of this may be the result of the recent tweak to my saddle position on my Cross Check. Or maybe it’s just the warmer weather. Or my the lower dose of my asthma medication. Or maybe it’s the anabolic steroids I sprinkle on my Cheerios in the morning. Whatever it is, I’m crushing it on the bike.

In the last seven days, I rode 240 miles, including a 57 mile day followed by a 41 mile day. I feel like I can go forever and climb any hill. And I am riding about two miles per hour faster than I did last fall.

For the month of March I rode 750.5 miles, 24 miles per day. I took four days off. On the one of those two days, I did a six mile hike. On another I stood on concrete for 5 hours at the March for Our Lives in DC.

So far this year I’ve ridden 1954.5 miles, about 80 percent of it on my Cross Check. I have ridden 281 miles on Big Nellie in the basement, just to make sure I didn’t crash on icy streets.

And I completed the Errandonnee.

And I did two interviews with the local newspaper. The first was about plans for a new bike trail in our area. (The article is on page 3.) The second one, which happened yesterday, was about my bike trip to Key West.

April has lots of fun in store, including the first event ride of the year, my first ride to a Washington Nationals baseball game, a visit to my pulmonologist, and (I hope) finalizing plans for my summer bike tour to the west coast.