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Another restart, at 66

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Another restart, at 66

Old 09-10-21, 09:36 AM
  #1  
zacster
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Another restart, at 66

I've been off the bike for about a month and a half now on the advice of my cardiologist but got the green light yesterday to ride. Some of my numbers were through the roof, but a nuclear stress test showed absolutely nothing wrong! In fact, the crew doing the test was a little puzzled as to why I was there as they usually only see patients that have had some problems. I could see that from the other patients waiting, none of them looked healthy. We stopped the treadmill at a point far beyond the target, and I could have kept going but the point was already made and was still talking to the techs like nothing was happening. If you've ever done a stress test you know how it gets progressively harder, I was two stages past target.

It is a sunny day today, but winds are gusting over 20mph and even in my best shape I hate riding in the wind. Maybe it's just a day to do laps in the park. I can hear the wind whistling while I type this. Ugh.

And to think I'd posted about my first 50 mile ride and hundred mile week just 6 weeks ago and now I have to start again. It won't take long I hope to get up there.
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Old 09-10-21, 11:02 AM
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Originally Posted by zacster
And to think I'd posted about my first 50 mile ride and hundred mile week just 6 weeks ago and now I have to start again. It won't take long I hope to get up there.
Bad news: I wouldn't expect you to go out and ride 50 miles tomorrow.

Good news: Since you were in shape to do that so recently, you'll have some residual fitness. That means, with any luck, you'll be able to build on that residual fitness and get back to that level a lot sooner than building up from scratch.

Best of luck to you!
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Old 09-10-21, 11:14 AM
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Thanks, I'll give it a few weeks before I attempt 50 easy miles again. I've taken off the winters too in the past and usually got back up to speed in a few weeks, but I was younger too.

I have brand new shoes too to try. I just mounted the cleats and got on the trainer with them and they feel so much better than the old ones. New ones are Lake CX218-X (for extra wide). My old Shimano RC7s just weren't comfortable anymore and these new Lake shoes fit much better. Cycling shoes just aren't generally made for wide feet
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Old 09-10-21, 12:11 PM
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Just be patient with yourself and enjoy the ride. The idea is to get off the bike and think..."Can't wait to do it again." The rest will come.
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Old 09-10-21, 12:17 PM
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Glad you are back... but only a month off? You'll be back to your normal riding self sooner than you think. However the next few rides after that first good ride where you may have felt like challenging Primož Roglič will probably be the most difficult.
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Old 09-10-21, 02:10 PM
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I did 3 laps of Prospect Park, 10 miles in the park and about 14 total. It felt fine, but I wasn't pushing it at all except one point where 3 guys came blasting past me so I caught up to them and paced them for a minute at 20mph. I hit 445watts on the chase. Since I have all the training tools I'll be able to track progress pretty well. I was able to track that I was slowing down over the last few years when my average watts on the park rides kept going down even though it keeps feeling harder.
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Old 09-10-21, 02:55 PM
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Depending on how much you were riding before, the first half of that month and a half may have just been much needed rest.
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Old 09-10-21, 04:20 PM
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Originally Posted by zacster
I've been off the bike for about a month and a half now on the advice of my cardiologist but got the green light yesterday to ride. Some of my numbers were through the roof, but a nuclear stress test showed absolutely nothing wrong!
Sounds like my story over a decade ago. Doc was trying to convince me I'd die if I didn't go on statins (overall cholesterol 235,) which I refused; so he sent me to a cardiologist. He hooked me up for sound and put me on a treadmill, then ran me up to 145 bpm. TBH I was starting to feel GREAT and asked if we could increase the grade and speed, to see what my MHR was. He just gave me a disgusted look and told the nurse to shut the treadmill down. I fired the doc shortly after that.
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Old 09-10-21, 08:56 PM
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So good to hear you are back. Sure beats the alternative. I can empathize with losing fitness since it can be so frustrating climbing back. The better news is that because your heart is strong and you had a good baseline, getting it back shouldn’t take more than a month. Bet you will amaze yourself how quickly you get back up to speed.
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Old 09-11-21, 05:29 AM
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14 miles and I feel it the next day. But the legs should get back into shape.
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Old 09-11-21, 07:25 PM
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I did another 21 miles today and it felt fine. I'll take tomorrow off for a beach day but get back on again Monday. Maybe I'll do a "ride to work", which was 10 miles each way until I retired, and on my commuter bike. When I look at my log of all my rides a lot of them were commuting but it added up when I'd ride 3-4 times a week. Towards the end of working I rode every day as all the stress of the job, getting there to get things done, making meetings, worrying about this or that, it all disappeared. I haven't stressed out about much of anything since.

Retirement is good.
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Old 09-11-21, 07:51 PM
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I didn’t ride much the past couple months and like you trying to regain fitness. It’s tougher than I’d hoped but starting to see some progress. Hang in there.
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Old 09-11-21, 08:33 PM
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Been off my bike for three weeks and it will probably take one more to get free of a very tenacious virus, courtesy of my grandson. Just trying to keep it from turning into bronchitis or pneumonia. Then I begin the climb back.
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Old 09-13-21, 09:20 PM
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Originally Posted by zacster
I've been off the bike for about a month and a half now on the advice of my cardiologist but got the green light yesterday to ride. Some of my numbers were through the roof, but a nuclear stress test showed absolutely nothing wrong! In fact, the crew doing the test was a little puzzled as to why I was there as they usually only see patients that have had some problems. I could see that from the other patients waiting, none of them looked healthy. We stopped the treadmill at a point far beyond the target, and I could have kept going but the point was already made and was still talking to the techs like nothing was happening. If you've ever done a stress test you know how it gets progressively harder, I was two stages past target.

It is a sunny day today, but winds are gusting over 20mph and even in my best shape I hate riding in the wind. Maybe it's just a day to do laps in the park. I can hear the wind whistling while I type this. Ugh.

And to think I'd posted about my first 50 mile ride and hundred mile week just 6 weeks ago and now I have to start again. It won't take long I hope to get up there.
I’ve learned to embrace the wind. I use to dread cycling in the wind, and now not so much. It won’t take long at all to get up to your previous mileage -
have fun.
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Old 09-21-21, 07:29 AM
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I did 30 easy miles yesterday and it felt like nothing. I'm not pushing it but still getting the miles. I did dial it up at the end of the ride for about a minute and hit 640 watts.
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Old 09-21-21, 09:03 AM
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When I had a treadmill stress test the tech stopped when my heartrate was 80% of 220 minus age, about 125bpm. ???, 125? I asked him to speed the treadmill faster - he chuckled, "you're at a hospital, not a sports performance clinic."
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Old 09-21-21, 07:44 PM
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Originally Posted by Wildwood
When I had a treadmill stress test the tech stopped when my heartrate was 80% of 220 minus age, about 125bpm. ???, 125? I asked him to speed the treadmill faster - he chuckled, "you're at a hospital, not a sports performance clinic."
My target was calculated as 131, but the techs told me I could go as long as I wanted and I stopped at 164. The Bruce protocol was about to kick up another notch and I probably wouldn't have lasted much longer anyway. The techs and NP were totally unconcerned because there wasn't even the slightest blip in anything.
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Old 09-21-21, 09:29 PM
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Originally Posted by BlazingPedals
Sounds like my story over a decade ago. Doc was trying to convince me I'd die if I didn't go on statins (overall cholesterol 235,) which I refused; so he sent me to a cardiologist. He hooked me up for sound and put me on a treadmill, then ran me up to 145 bpm. TBH I was starting to feel GREAT and asked if we could increase the grade and speed, to see what my MHR was. He just gave me a disgusted look and told the nurse to shut the treadmill down. I fired the doc shortly after that.
Sounds like "do no harm" kicked in, John.
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Old 09-22-21, 06:30 AM
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Originally Posted by zacster
My target was calculated as 131, but the techs told me I could go as long as I wanted and I stopped at 164. The Bruce protocol was about to kick up another notch and I probably wouldn't have lasted much longer anyway. The techs and NP were totally unconcerned because there wasn't even the slightest blip in anything.
Ok, the Bruce Protocol is essentially a standard practice for conducting cardiac stress tests in a medical environment - finally Googled it!
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Old 09-22-21, 08:54 PM
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Originally Posted by Road Fan
Ok, the Bruce Protocol is essentially a standard practice for conducting cardiac stress tests in a medical environment - finally Googled it!
I learned about this long ago when I worked for a treadmill and electrode manufacturer, an early innovator in computerized stress testing. We'd all test out the machines by getting wired up and running through the Bruce protocol to make sure the machines were doing it all right. Anybody that finished got free drinks for the night, but hardly anybody did. That isn't the point of it anyway. It is a repeatable process to get everyone's HR up to a certain point and be able to measure that against effort. We could just as easily do an ERG mode training plan on our bike trainers to achieve the same thing. I'd have rather done the test on a bike but the facility only had treadmills, which are more standard.
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