Thank you.

PT today went better than I feared. Problem area was the left hamstring, as usual too tight. Its stretching more and more, and the PT folks think I'll get to near zero in the next couple of weeks. Right one gets to zero without a problem.

Walking is getting better. The problem I have is that if you tell me to work on something, I wind up emphasizing it. So while heel strike and bending the leg when I walk are important, I've been taking it too far. The goal is to keep the good traits I've learned and smooth them out so I don't lurch from side to side like Frankenstein's monster. That, and the muscle adjustments I wrote about, are what's causing the back pain on long walks.

I told the trainer I want to ride Crush the Commonwealth next year. When I explained what that was, he was at a loss for words. After he got over the surprise, he told me "your training has to start now."

And speaking of training, I'll be going back to the gym for upper body and core workouts. I was advised start at a tenth of what I normally would do and add back a tenth each session. The idea is that after 3 weeks I should be lifting what I did before surgery. The cautious pace is to allow me to ease back into it without hurting myself.