Coming back from a broken hip...

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Holly’s mom is pretty amazing. A little over a month ago, she fell and broke her hip. Surgery and therapy followed and now she’s back in her home and getting around quite well. She lives in a two-story condo and the TV room was on the second floor, so when she returned home, we moved the TV downstairs to the bedroom so she could stick to one-floor living. Nothing doing. A week after moving the beast of a set downstairs, I was bringing it back up because she wanted to go up the stairs! And there’s no stopping her. Naturally, while she’s going up or down, someone stands behind her, ready to make a saving catch. “Get out of there…I’m not going to fall,” she says to me, but…well…better safe than sorry. By the way…the one normally trailing her is my 90-year old father-in-law. I’m hoping to be in as good shape…if or when I hit that mile stone.

John and I went to the Metropark for our Sunday afternoon hike. I wore only a windbreaker over my t-shirt since it was close to 40 degrees. The snow was deep though, and we had a good hike. We were fortunate enough to see…and photograph…three deer on the run through the deep snow, far back in the woods. We slid down to the marsh and were able to walk out on it though it didn’t look too secure with the temperature where it was.

We put in about 90 minutes, which was a decent calorie burner, but after a dinner of chicken, potatoes, dressing, noodles and everything slathered in gravy, I figured I needed a little more. I jumped on the bike after everyone left and put in a hard 45 minutes. Later that night Holly and I attempted a walk around the neighborhood, but he sidewalks were so slippery from the earlier thawing and then refreezing, that we aborted after 10 minutes. Still…not a bad day.

Bike duration: 45 minutes. Hike duration: 90 minutes
Training Heart Rate: 130 biking. 75 hiking.
Calories burned during workout: 600 biking. 500 hiking.