Went to the orthopedist today... he gave me a good report. I can go as hard as the pain will let me. After two and half weeks, he was surprised with my progress and wants to see me back in three weeks. So, of course, I went out on the group ride for my first ride back...
First off... my power meter is by ergomo so it only measures left leg efforts. Since my fracture is in my left femur, my power meter will be all but worthless unless I make sure to utilize each leg equally. This proves harder than it sounds...
I started with one group easier than I usually ride and steadily worked my way back throughout the ride to the stragglers in the last group and quit the ride early. My NP for the 1.5 hour ride was 150 Watts. I would guess that the actual effort was closer to 200 Watts. I noticed how hard I was working with my right leg (trying to compensate for the bad left leg) around halfway through and decided to let up a bit and concentrate on using both legs equally. This made my speed drop off considerably showing that my right leg was overcompensating.
If I was concentrating on equal effort between legs, my typical output was between 100 Watts and 120 Watts. This was comfortable and could have been sustained for hours. I did a few 300 Watt efforts (actually registered there on the screen... God knows what my right leg was putting out, but it was enough to get me breathing hard) and that felt OK I guess.
I will be using my blog to chart progress so that I can track where I am through the rebuild process. It will be boring for readers, but it is all I have to say right now and it will be nice to see improvement by reading past entries.
My spirits are still high, but there is a long way to go. Mentally, I want to attack everyone that I am riding with, but today I could not hold wattage long when I pushed...
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